Building your Business Case for Hiring Graduates

Posted by Dan Jones

Welcome to the 2nd post in our 4 part series on creating your first graduate program! Graduate programs are structured, 2-3 year development programs designed to embed recent graduates into an organisation. 

  1. The Value Graduates Can Bring to Your Organisation
  2. Building your Business Case for Hiring Graduates
  3. Attracting Graduates to Your Organisation
  4. Key Considerations When Creating a Graduate Program

 

You need to put together a Graduate Strategy. 

Your Graduate strategy, or business case for key stakeholders, will need to address:

  • your Graduate Value Proposition (GVP)
  • how quickly graduates will progress to take on critical roles in the organisation
  • how graduate talent will be developed
  • the type of real and challenging roles that will be available for graduates
  • how graduates will be managed
  • pay structures
  • the provision of career pathways for graduates to realise their potential
  • the required investment

These key elements are required to engage and manage the expectations of your stakeholders or senior management. It is critical that they support the graduate strategy and throw their full support behind the program.

Stakeholders need to be passionate and excited about championing the program and will ultimately set the tone for how the rest of the organisation views the program and supports the graduates. Explaining the positive impact on brand and reputation and the Return On Investment is pivotal to gaining their support.

 

Brand and reputation

The reputation your organisation can build in the graduate market should never be undervalued. Positioning your brand as an employer of choice can go a long way in helping to convince key stakeholders of the longer-term value of the program. Aim to position your program with the universities, especially if you are a product or service-related organisation, as it will benefit from the additional brand exposure they can provide. Imagine the value of thousands of university students responding to your brand’s positioning at careers fairs, in careers advisory units or on GradConnection.

 

Return on investment

Any group of key stakeholders will want to see the associated costs or investment required to fund a leading graduate program.

The elements for consideration are:

  • your attraction, marketing and branding campaign budget
  • cost per hire for your selection methodology
  • competitive graduate salaries and progression scales
  • graduate on-boarding, induction and development program costs
  • talent identification and talent program costs.

Demonstrating return on investment is arguably the most essential component. Show your stakeholders the actual, and the potential, return.

It is vital that you support your cost analysis with statistical information relating to:

 

Want to start targeting graduates in your area? Click here. 

Want to talk to the experts about starting your new graduate program? Talk to Fusion Graduate Consultancy


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