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Application and Selection
The application and selection process experienced by candidates is as important as your marketing materials in securing the right graduates for your organisation. It not only gives candidates a further insight into your organisation and engages them for what can be a long process, but also is critical in making a successful hiring decision.
The choices you make regarding the overall selection process (number of selection stages, percentage of candidates that are short listed at each stage, resources available to you to screen applicants, timing compared to competitors etc.) will vary from one organisation to the next. Given the competition for graduates and competing demands, your aim is usually to find the candidates most suitable for you in the shortest possible timeframe with the minimum amount of effort.
In general, you should aim to:
Screen out unsuitable candidates as early as possible in the selection process (efficiency). Provide candidates the chance to get to know you and the organisation (engagement). Be as ‘high touch’ as possible (deepen engagement and the likelihood of them accepting any potential offer with you).
The Application Process
You will need to determine how your organisation will accept applications. Although the norm for most employers is via an online application process, this may depend on the size of your organisation and the resources and technology available to you.
There are a number of applicant tracking systems (ATS) and other technologies available to assist you in the management of candidates and their information. These systems can help you in providing an online application format and progressing those applications through your recruitment process.
When developing an application process and accompanying forms, it is important to consider the following:
Is information or assessment criteria relating to identified competencies (i.e. behaviours that are known to lead to outstanding performance) considered critical to the organisation’s goals? Is your application process or form user-friendly? Do students have the ability to declare a disability which may require reasonable adjustment through the recruitment process (e.g. additional time for online testing)? Do candidates have the ability to save a partially completed form before returning later? Do candidates have the ability to ‘preview’ the application form, so they can prepare their application offline? If expecting a high volume of applications, are you and your team appropriately set up to review, process and respond to all applications? Are there any rules, filters or categories you can set up to reduce the number of applicants requiring manual screening? If including free form questions on an application form, be aware of the potential length of responses. Can you set limits and force candidates to be concise and selective? Can certain application questions be set up as compulsory to ensure objective, comparable data for the criteria you are judging on? Can you attribute weightings to a particular subset of responses to
identify a preferential rank of candidates and the order in which you screen them? (For example, you may wish to ask if they have competing offers and be notified when this happens, so that you aren’t too slow to respond.) Acknowledge the receipt of applications. Advise candidates of next steps and when they can expect to hear from you following their application submission.
When collecting candidate information you must also be aware of relevant privacy legislation and risk management practices that will govern the collection and use of information during the recruitment process. You should ensure you have addressed:
Data security and confidentiality Database capacity and backups Storage of paper applications Privacy issues, including policy available, collection of data and purpose, access to information e.g. interview notes.
The Selection Process
Following the receipt of applications, the approach you take to assessing candidates will be based on the selection criteria and competencies you have identified within your organisation to meet your hiring needs. Generally most processes will include the assessment of applications, interviews, group assessment centres or testing, and reference checking. An outline of the various selection processes is included below.
When designing your selection process, it is also worth considering the following best practice principles:
Select candidates on clear and identified competencies, which can be demonstrated more than once during the process. Ensure ‘candidate care’ is maintained, where candidates are updated on the process of their application, have the opportunity to ask questions, and are notified promptly when unsuccessful so they can pursue other roles. Encourage candidates throughout the process to join your organisation for the right reasons i.e. not disparaging other employers in the process. Set and communicate clear timelines for the process and stick to them.
Assessing applications
In your role, you may need to personally review and make a decision about each of the applications you receive, you may have an applicant tracking system that can automatically filter and respond to applicants, or you may outsource this part of the process to a third party supplier e.g. a recruitment agency. Whichever method you choose, you must ensure that you, and any other members of your team involved in the process, understand the selection criteria and can apply it effectively and without bias.
Interviewing
At the outset, decisions must be made regarding the style and objectives of interviewing and whether the interviews will take place on campus or at your offices. Employers may decide between one-to-one interviews, panel interviews or group interviews. Preliminary work must be done to establish the key selection criteria, or skills and competencies required in a graduate, and to shape questions to identify the presence or absence of such criteria.
Thought should be given as to how many interviews you will need to conduct to reach your target number of hires and you’ll need to allocate resources accordingly. Training should be provided for those recruiters and line managers who will be involved in the interviews, covering best practice interviewing as well as the core organisational messages and details of the graduate program to be communicated to candidates. You may also want to deliver unconscious bias training to ensure the process is fair and equitable.
Psychometric Assessment
Psychometric testing can be an important tool in making informed selection decisions, and can encompass both cognitive and personality assessment. The results provide an indication of an applicant’s abilities and preferred working style, and are best used to identify areas for further exploration during the interview process. By probing further into an applicant’s potential in a particular competency area, a more comprehensive understanding of an applicant’s suitability for a role can be attained. It should be noted however, that psychometric assessment should not be used in isolation or be the primary driver of selection decisions. For all assessments, check with your psychometric supplier that the assessment you plan to use is appropriate to your selection needs.
Assessment Centres
Assessment centres, where groups of graduates participate in a range of tasks under the observation of the graduate recruitment team and/or business unit hiring manager, are another common tool in the recruitment process. Activities could include role-plays, case studies, presentations, interviews and aptitude tests. Some of these activities involve assessing a group of candidates at the same time, which may enable you to also assess leadership, teamwork and communications skills. You will need to consider the overall duration of your assessment centre and whether the length of time required will discourage candidates from attending.
Don’t forget that your assessment centre is also another opportunity to deepen your engagement with candidates, so could feature a senior leader meet-and-greet opportunity, meeting current graduates, company video, and question time or networking drinks at the conclusion of the day.
Reference Checking
Most organisations' risk management policies will dictate that one or more reference checks are completed before offering a job to a candidate. You should advise candidates during the initial interview process if reference checking is part of the process so they have time to identify referees and secure their permission to act as a reference. You will need to seek permission from the candidate to contact those referees, and referees should be made aware that the information they provide can be accessed by the candidate under privacy legislation.
Video Interviewing
Video interviews have been integrated into many organisations’ graduate recruitment processes over the past few years, and is now seen as a cost and resource effective screening method to engage with candidates.
Generally video interviews are one-way (meaning the candidate records answers to pre-defined questions, and recruiters can view videos at any time after completion). However they can also be two-way, live interviews.
Video interviews are great for candidates and recruiters alike. For candidates, it could be less stressful than a live phone interview, in allowing them to record their answers once or multiple times. For recruiters, it provides the ability to assess drive and desire and communication skills clearly.
On the flipside, it is worth noting that video interviewing could open recruiters up to visual bias, so it should be something which is actively discussed in video interview training.
Background Checking
In recent years some employers have started to introduce background checking to their recruitment process. Background checking has started to gain prominence because of the increasing numbers of ‘embellished’ resumes that are submitted to employers and to ensure academic qualifications of graduates are legitimate. Background checking can focus on any number of areas, including:
identity check criminal record check eligibility to work in Australia academic performance (university attended, degree result obtained, subjects taken) bankruptcy check.
Managing Unsuccessful Applicants
It is important that you advise every applicant of the outcome of their application given they have all taken the time to apply to your organisation. The advent of auto-email notifications has meant an increase in the number of queries recruiters receive from unsuccessful applicants. Some careers advisors also recommend to students that they contact employers to find out why they were not successful in the selection process.
The type of response you give candidates will depend on your organisation’s recruitment guidelines and care should be taken. Feedback should be constructive and fact based, emphasizing that a number of elements are taken into consideration when making selection decisions.
Privacy legislation dictates that candidates can access information collected about them in the recruitment process and can also ask for their information to be removed so your organisation must have mechanisms in place to deal with these requests.
As a guide to best practice, candidates that progress to a final interview are usually provided with feedback from the employer.
