5 Things To Do To Get Your Hires In 2022/23

Posted by Daniel Purchas

Apr 11th, 2022

2022 is shaping up to be a tough graduate recruitment season for many recruiters - the crunch is on, demand is up from employers, students aren’t applying as much. So what can you do to get your numbers for 2023 intakes?

1. Timing & targeting – recruiting in the 2nd half of the year is great, but busier than it used to be

How you setup your recruitment campaign application dates and how you target the graduates you want to attract is crucial (guide on this here).
Set your application windows to plan around term dates and exams. Students have a lot of conflicting priorities so having the optimal window away from exams and assignment deadlines is very important. Choosing to open/close on the 1st or last day of the month can cause you to be in a lot of traffic with other employers (who might just be picking these dates arbitrarily!).
Another key detail is to choose the right days of the week to open and close your applications. This is especially important around closing deadlines, as this is when you can expect to receive a large amount of your applications. Traditionally Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursdays have the best response from students applying for programs.
Be specific on who you want to recruit:
- Students want to know you are targeting them based on what they have studied wherever possible. Be specific on your graduate program streams on who you want to apply, being generalist catches a little bit of everyone but being specific gets you depth of applications from specific groups (more on this here).

2. International students

Most graduate program recruiters are still not able to take applications from international students which means this could be the time to reconsider your organisations policy towards this pool of talent (find out how to start here).
Especially in traditional skill shortage areas like Technology and Engineering, the current market has made recruiting in these areas even harder than usual.
Some data here from Kelly Pfeffer at Suncorp and the AAGE Unistats report shows that you can almost double your total recruitable market of Tech graduates by accepting international students. Now might be the time to work through how to accept applications from this group:

Image Source: Grad Hero Hub

3. Generating more Proactive Candidates

Not all students know to look for a grad program role during their final 1-2 years while at university. While this doesn’t necessarily mean that a passive candidate is a bad candidate (many students we speak to in our focus groups prefer to focus on their studies before they apply for jobs) we have had great success in activating passive candidates into proactive candidates via social media campaigns across multiple social channels. This is especially valuable with the very scarce STEM graduates.

4. Get into the Whirlpool Forums

The dreaded whirlpool forums are still as busy as ever with graduates discussing all the hottest grad and intern programs in the Australian market.
This is worth checking to make sure your program has a discussion thread for this year’s grad market discussion. If you aren’t there you will lose applications, simple as that, as well as attention from this group of dedicated job seekers - so it is worth starting your own thread under a clearly marked employer account.

5. Keep warm who you offer – don’t lose who you’ve got!!

Renege rates are always a major issue and will no doubt be a major issue again in 2022, especially with so much demand for the top tier students.
Once you get an offer accepted this year is the year to double down on keep warm efforts via regular check points, early L&D, buddy/mentor introductions and any sort of social events for the 2023 cohort in advance of them starting next year
You don’t want lose them once you’ve done all the hard work to attract, select and recruit your grads!