The Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) and High Fliers expect a busy year for businesses who want to invest in graduate recruitment – competition is at an all-time high to recruit new talent.

It’s vital to get the upper hand to attract the right talent for your business. We partner with graduate employers to recruit future talent across sectors. We’ve picked out key trends in the graduate recruitment market which you’ll need to take into account if you’re hiring graduates this year:

• • Top employers are looking to increase hiring of graduates by 7.5%

• • Average cost per graduate is £3,396 (excluding law firms)

• • Graduate recruitment selection tactics continue to change – more employers are using video interviews than last year (8.6%) and criteria such as UCAS points are fading.
    

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• • On average, 8.2% of offers are turned down by graduates – more than 1,000 roles were left open last year. Employers will be making more offers than there are entry-level jobs available. This can help to avoid losing talent to business rivals.

• • Trends show less than 45% of interns and students return to the company as a graduate hire.

• • 80% of graduates stay after three years at the company. Why do retention rates fall the longer graduates stay at a business? How can you improve your graduate scheme to encourage them to stay?

• • On average, graduate roles for a top company have been advertised at 20 UK universities. A rise in communication streams between top employers and applicants has led to increased appeal. SMEs can potentially suffer due to smaller marketing budgets and less brand awareness.

So, these are the key trends for the graduate recruitment market in 2016 – are you ready to hire yours? How will your business gain the upper hand in the employers market? It’s a competition for the best talent out there – make the most of it!

Are you thinking about recruiting graduates for your business? Click here to find out what Cohesion can do for you!