Table of contents

1. Title -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 03

2. Citation -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 03

3. Abstract -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 04

4. Introduction -------------------------------------------------------------------------- 04

5. Higher education and graduate labour market ---------------------------05

6. Summary Of Research Questions -----------------------------------------------05

7. Methods --------------------------------------------------------------------------06

a) Data gathering

b) Data analysis

8. Findings --------------------------------------------------------------------------06

9. Literature review -----------------------------------------------------------------07

10. Critical Evaluation of Methodology -------------------------------------------08

11. Conclusion ------------------------------------------------------09

12. References ------------------------------------------------------10

13. Appendices ------------------------------------------------------11

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TITLE:

A critical review of

“Graduate recruitment and selection in

the UK:
A study of the recent changes in
methods and expectations”

CITATION:

Branine M. 2008
“Graduate recruitment and selection in the UK:
A study of the recent changes in methods and expectations”

Career Development International

Volume: 13; Issue: 6; Page: 497 - 513

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ABSTRACT:
This study is done by Mr. Branine to find out the recent changes in graduate
attracting and selecting policy of UK graduate employer. He has used structured
questionnaire to gather data from various sectors of UK graduate recruiter and used
SPSS software to analyse those data. The motto of this research was to help those
employers who are thinking to improve their existing method and also to help the
higher education institutions to improve their syllabus to make sure that their
graduate pupils are capable to work in real world of job.
Here I have tried to do the appraisal of how well evidence support and what
could have done better in this research. In large context, what are the limitations of
this research? Who can be benefited from this? How effectively data is gathered and
analysed? What are further resources can be used? And areas for further research
are outlined.

INTRODUCTION:
"The importance of ensuring the selection of the right people to join the
workforce has become increasingly apparent as the emphasis on people as the
prime source of competitive advantage has grown." (Title: Human Resource
Management; Julie Beardwell & Tim Claydon; 5th Edition; P-189). At present, most of
the employers have realised that the best graduate recruitment and selection means
better future of the company. That’s why they are using variety of process for
graduate recruitment to get the best candidate from different disciplines. As per
information of Chartered Institute of Personal and Development we know that from
1980 graduate people are increased two times than earlier. In 1999, The Association
of Graduate Recruiters revealed that even though averagely having sixty eight
candidates for per vacancy, still it is difficult to employee quality graduates. Pollit,
(2005) describe that In 2004, after a lengthy selection procedure Lioyds TSB
recruited only 102 applicant from 3,800 applications.

Human Resource Department can do successful recruitment if it is done from

a pool of applications. Nowadays it’s easy to attract larger number of applicants but
problem to get suitable applicants. There is a many studies and research in
recruitment and selection but which are not very specific on graduate recruitment
and selection. In this study, Mr M.B tried to stick on 'graduate recruitment'. Here
'graduate' is straightway related with higher education and its provider. And
'recruitment' is fully depending on labour market. So a brief discussion on higher
education and graduate labour market is important.

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HIGHER EDUCATION AND GRADUATE LABOUR MARKET:
More than 300,000 people graduate in the UK every year From 166
Higher Education Institutions (As at august 2008). Currently, the entire higher
education provider has furnished their syllabus to prepare the student with essential
skills and knowledge, by which they can meet employer’s need. They always try to
stay up to date with the change of graduate labour market. Normally, graduates are
used to do financial; medical, managerial, legal and engineering jobs. But they have
changed their tradition and going various sectors for non-graduate job as well.
Graduate labour market is normally divided in three sizes like large
organisations (Recruit 500+ graduates), Medium size organisations (recruit 101-500
graduates), and Small size organisations (recruit 0-100 graduates). Large
organisations lead the graduate recruitment market. "The Association of Graduate
Recruiters (AGR, 1995) states that more graduates are entering in SME sector.
Recruitment implications exist for SMEs with regard to their competing against large
organisations for the "best" graduates." [Graduate recruitment and selection
practices in small business.” Author: Jim Stewart and Vanessa Knowles,
Journal: Career Development International].

By the time, there is a noticeable change in the number of female graduates;

in 1963 there was only 1.85% female student in graduate level and 1998 its
increased up to 53 percent of the total student. They are no longer fixed with their
traditional subject humanities and social sciences and taking admission all the
disciplines.
It’s a big issue that there is no more confirmation of job after completing
graduation. Degree certificate means a nice job is finished. Lots of graduates don’t
able to advance themselves from application stage. Because of huge competition
and lack of proper practical knowledge and skills, they found hard to be employed
which is normally used to get a school –leavers. Manily graduate employability skills
are important for gradutes and recruiters as well as for UK economy on the basis of
supply and demand of graduate skills( Nabi G. R. 2003).

SUMMARY OF RESEARCH QUESTIONS:

On the base of the organisation size and sector, the writer tried to work out
following five questions in his research:
α ) What sort of methods used by employer for graduate recruitment? (Showed in
Table III)
β ) What kind of methods employer used for graduate selection process?
(Showed in Table V)
χ ) How much does the recruitment cost per graduate? (Showed in Table IV)
δ ) What are the reasons for using each selection method? (Showed in Table VI)
ε ) What are skills and qualities employers demand from employee? (Showed in
Table VII)

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METHOD:
Data Gathering:

This Research is based on structured questionnaire which were sent to 700

UK-based employers chosen from The Graduate Employment and Training Directory
(GET) and Times top 100 Graduate Recruiters. In this research, the random selection
method has been used from different types and sizes of organisations which had
advertised last half a year to recruit specially graduates. The questionnaire was
divided into three parts like:

First: “Your Company” (To gather information based on organisation’s size and
activity)
Second: “Graduate Recruitment” (What methods they are using for graduate
recruitment and selection and why?)
Third: “Graduate Education and attributes” (What sort of education, skills and
attributes were expected by employer from graduate in terms of level?)

Data Analysis:

Three hundred Twenty six usable questionnaires were responded from 700
questionnaires. Statistical Analysis Software SPSS was used to analyse data where
mainly the following five variables used:
1) Organisation Size
2) Recruitment methods
3) Selection methods
4) Cost
5) Skills and reasons for the use of methods

FINDINGS:
In this survey, eighty percent respondents have own special designed
recruitment method for graduates recruitment. But those employers who are small in
size they don’t have recruitment methods. Here
63 percent recruited 5 to 50 graduates per annum,
About 20 percent recruited 50 to 100 graduates per annum,
13 percent recruited 100 to 200 graduates per annum,
7 percent recruited more than 200 graduates per annum.

More than 76 percent employers (248 employers) filled their advertised

vacancies last year. And 24 percent (78 employers) didn’t able to fill their graduates
post. They have mentioned some main factors which made difficulties to find out the
right graduates for this 24 percent employer. Those are lack of communication skills,
less business awareness, inequality between applicants’ educational performance
and performance in selection process, short of transferable skills, problem in IT
expertness and shortage of special skills in relevant areas.

About 40 percent organisations had employed staff to do graduate

recruitment and 60 percent have line manager for this.

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LITERATURE REVIEW

After analysing this research paper we can get following two parts which are
main two phase of the study. First phase, recent changes in methods of graduate
recruitment and selection in the UK and Second phase, expectations of the UK
employers in recruiting and selecting ideal graduates. Here, 'graduate' word
indicated both section undergraduate and postgraduate from institution of higher
education. A short explanation of the research results are:

Methods used by employer for graduate recruitment;

According to data table III, Two hundred Ninety eight from 326 respondents take the
help of Internet to do graduate recruitment. As an example Boeing Company made a
website to recruit 13,000 employee and in one month its got only 200 CV and in
three months its increased 19,000 and 6 months, 50,000 (Dessler, G.; 9 th edition,
HRM, p-113 ). Over 80% respondents are dependent on Newspapers and Careers
literature. Only a few of them use Recruitment agency. Small size organisations
don’t use Careers fairs, Milk round, Brochures, Presentation as a method of
recruitment.

Methods used by employer for graduate Selection; As per

table V, Interview is the best way for selection process declared by the entire
respondent. Also over 70% respondents like to use CV/letter, Employer application,
Aptitude tests as selection method. All small organisations don’t use Assessment
centres and they 100% go through CV/letter. Sometimes empolyers use varity of
recruitment methods or combination of methods to fill same vacancy ( Torrington, D;
2005).

Recruitment cost per graduate; As on cost table IV, Only

47 of 326 organisations spent less than £500 for per graduate recruitment, 110
organisations cost is £501 to £1000, 109 organisations cost is £1001 to £5000 and
60 organisations spent more than £5000 for per graduate recruitment. Here 157
respondents spent less than 1000 pound to do this.

Reasons for using each selection method; Here, (Table VI)

Mr Branine tried to find out three most valuable reasons (Cost, Accuracy, and
Fairness) for using each selection method. Seventy four percent of the respondents
believe that cost effective method are CV/letter, Employer application form and
Standard application form. 276 respondents express that Aptitude tests is best for
accuracy and 95% said that Assessment centres is used to make sure the fairness in
selection process. About 63% of the respondents considered that Interviews were
used for three of them.

Employers’ expectation from employee; Although

different sector employers preferred skills and qualities from employee can be
varied, but in this study we got an average figure (Table VII). Desire to
achieve/motivation, IT skills and Team work capabilities are most expected qualities
by every employer. Over 57% important skills are Willingness to learn, Commitment,
Oral communication skills and Problem-solving ability.

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Critical Evaluation of Methodology:

It’s really appreciable that this study is specifically about graduates

attraction, graduate selection, graduate employers rather than doing general
personnel selection study like Sackett and Lievens, 2008; Anderson and Witvliet,
2008; Lievens et al., 2002 etc. All the presented data is very comprehensible and
arranged, so that any organisation or higher institutions can understand easily to
make future plan or what changes they required. This study is also helpful for those
who are going to be graduated and very soon will join in UK graduate labour market.

Here the writer got the details of only 326 organisations from his targeted 700
where only 12 categories organisation respondent his questionnaires. But various
graduate employment sectors like Education and Teaching, Public administration and
Defence, Hotels and Tourism, Publishing and Media, Law and Legal Services,
Telecommunications, Garments, etc are not joined in this study. So it is hard to get
effective information for these organisations from this study.

In this research, researcher used only one data collection method (structured
questionnaire) to get his five key findings. We know that there are some limitations
of this method. Firstly, the key weakness of structured questionnaire is very low
response rate which is the curse for statistical analysis. Secondly, sometimes these
questionnaires are completed by others who are not supposed to answer this or who
are totally from other department. So this kind of answered questionnaires confused
the result of research. Thirdly, there is a possibility to interpret the questions
differently by respondents. But he could use in parallel other methods like interviews
to collect authentic data for successful research.

.
We saw the recession has a titanic effect on UK graduate labour market. In
that period, lots of graduate job cut and extremely low recruitment and no
recruitment condition is passing most of the organisation. As an example we can say
Lehman Brothers collapsed and Woolworth closed with 27,000 employees. In this
study this topic is not discussed which really hammered UK job market

UK is multicultural countries where lots of graduate migrate from EU and

other countries like Canada, Australia, Middle East, India and vice versa. So there is
flow of graduate in and out every year. This matter is not explained in this study.

Also Political change can effect on graduate labour market. The developments
of political relation like the continuing expansion of the European Union (EU) can
increase the opportunities for immigration and emigration. And development of
technology can influence the study topic.

In ending, After above critical evaluation of the methodology, my point is that this
research has some limitation but it can be very helpful to fulfil basic needs of the
research topic.

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CONCLUSION

On basis of above critical review of the study, we can say in conclusion

that this research can play an important role for the graduate recruitment and
selection in UK. This research can be a milestone to meet the expectation of
graduate employers and to set-up a good guideline in higher education institutions.
Although there is some limitation or weakness in the method of research, but all
basic things are there. So, the research gives great contribution to the modern job
field of UK. So the strength of the topic is awfully high.

In this research, the writer well explained about the recruitment policy
of the UK graduate employer. Any new or old organisation easily can achieve
valuable information respectively to make new policy or to review their existing
graduate recruitment and selection policy. And also higher education institute can
decide what great efforts they need to develop (key /core /transferable) skills in their
graduates to work in many types of high-level employment.

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REFERENCES

1) Branine, M. (2008), “Graduate recruitment and selection in the UK: A study of

the recent changes in methods and expectations”. Career Development
International, Volume: 13; Issue: 6; Page: 497 – 513, Publisher: Emerald
Group Publishing Limited.

2) Stewart, J. and Knowles V. (2000), “Graduate recruitment and selection

practices in small business.” Career Development International 5/1[2000]
21-38, Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

3) Beardwell, J. and Claydon, T. (2007), Human Resource Management (A

contemporary approach), 5th ed., Prentice Hall; Chapter-06

4) Pollitt, P. (2005), “Testing graduates at Lloyds TSB: how banks select the
people who will lead itinto the future?”, Human Resource Management
International Digest, Vol. 13 No. 1,pp. 12-14.

5) AGR (Association of Graduate Recruiters) (1999), The AGR Salaries and

Vacancies Survey, Summer, Association of Graduate Recruiters, London.

6) Mason, G.; Williams, G.; and Cranmer, S.; (Sept 2006) “Employability Skills
Initiatives in Higher Education: What effects do they have on graduate labour
market outcumes?” From: www.niesr.ac.uk/pdf/061006_91251.pdf

7) Nabi, G. R.; (2003)"Graduate employment and underemployment:

opportunity for skill use and career experiences amongst recent business
graduates". Education + Training. Vol-45, No 7, pp 371-382.

8) Torrington, D.; Hall, L. and Taylor, S. (2005), Human Resource

Management, 6th ed., FT Prentice Hall; Chapter-06; Page 125.

9) Dessler, G.; Human Resource Management, 9th ed., Prentice Hal, Chapter-
04.

10) Sackett, P.R. and Lievens, F. (2008), “Personnel selection”, Annual Review of
Psychology, Vol. 59, pp. 419-50.

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APPENDICES

Table I.
Distribution of the respondents by sector

Sector Numbe Percenta

r ge
Retail 74 23
Finance 67 20
Transport 32 10
Automobile 12 4
Petrochemicals 3 1
Engineering 34 10
Information technology 21 6
Pharmaceuticals 17 5
Building and construction 16 5
Electronics 12 4
Local authority 28 9
Others 10 3
Total sample size 326 100

Table II.
Distribution of respondents by size

Size of organization (employees) Numbe Percenta

r ge
0-50 12 3
51-100 43 13
101-500 58 18
501-1,000 103 32
1,001+ 110 34
Total sample size 326 100

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Table III.
Methods of graduate Recruitment by Organization size

Size of organization
Method n 0-50 n 51-100 n 101-50 n 501-1,000 n 1,000+ n Total
(12) (43) (58) (103) (110) (326)
Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentag
e
Newspapers 6 50 26 60 37 64 90 80 110 97 287 85
Careers fairs 0 0 5 2 17 30 67 65 91 83 287 55
Careers centers 2 18 9 20 44 76 55 53 30 27 140 43
Milk round 0 0 0 0 3 5 62 60 83 75 148 45
Brochures 0 0 4 10 19 33 76 74 110 100 209 64
Presentation 0 0 5 12 15 25 67 65 96 87 183 56
Careers literature 7 60 33 76 48 83 99 96 104 95 291 89
Recruitment 4 30 11 25 8 15 10 10 17 15 50 15
agency 4 35 25 58 56 97 103 100 110 100 298 91
Internet 8 68 32 75 58 100 67 65 79 72 244 75
Other

Table IV.
Recruitment costs per graduate by organization size

<£500 £501-1,000 £1,001-5,000 >£5,000 Total

Size n n n n n
Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage
0-50 3 25 2 17 3 25 4 33 12 100
51-100 8 19 1 25 15 35 9 21 43 100
101-500 8 14 17 30 21 36 12 20 58 100
501-1,000 13 13 46 45 28 27 16 15 103 100
1,001+ 15 14 34 31 42 38 19 17 110 100

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Table V.
Methods of graduate Selection by organization size
Size of organization
Method n <50 n 51-100 n 101-500 n 501-1,000 n >1,000 n Total
(12) (43) (58) (103) (110) (326)
Percentage Percentag Percentag Percentag Percentag Percentage
e e e e
CV/letter 12 100 4 100 4 73 82 80 58 53 23 73
Employer application 3 25 3 34 2 91 89 86 86 78 7 76
Standard application 2 17 1 32 5 76 57 56 89 81 24 63
Interview 12 100 5 100 3 100 10 100 11 100 6 100
Aptitude tests 3 25 1 50 4 45 3 80 0 92 20 72
Assessment centres 0 0 4 12 4 32 82 56 10 74 6 50
Work placement 3 25 4 30 5 50 58 76 1 65 32 60
Other 3 25 3 40 8 25 78 20 81 13 6 21
2 2 21 72 23
2 6 14 4
5 1 16
1 8 2
3 2 19
1 9 5
7 1 70
5

Table VI.
Reasons for using each Selection method

Method n Cost n Accuracy n Fairness n All three n Other

Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage Percentage
CV/letter 260 80 137 42 183 56 205 63 82 25
Employer application 235 72 221 68 212 65 182 56 33 10
Standard application 228 70 205 63 212 65 183 56 42 13
Interview 130 40 82 25 254 78 205 63 33 10
Aptitude tests 182 56 276 82 290 89 218 67 49 15
Assessment centres 33 10 235 72 309 95 218 67 39 12
Work placement 49 15 170 52 205 63 180 55 39 12

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Table VII.
Skills and qualities employers look for

Skill/quality Percenta
ge
Desire to achieve/motivation 87
IT skills 85
Team work 82
Willingness to learn 76
Commitment 66
Oral communication skills 62
Problem-solving ability 57
Drive/energy 43
Confidence/assertiveness 36
Degree classification 35
Written communication skills 26
Dependability/reliability 22
Presentation skills 19
Time management 11
"Other" (commercial awareness, competencies,
Critical thinking, influence, decisiveness, potential) 10

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