Common Questions

Employers » Contact Us » Common Questions

We understand the challenges you face as we recruit graduates throughout the year ourselves. Luckily, we have the luxury of testing new marketing techniques, running regular focus group sessions, exploring new recruitment tools and providing all the lessons we learn to you. We love new recruitment challenges so if you have anything you want to ask us please send us an email.

Here's a few popular enquiries we have had from graduate recruiters:

We get asked this a lot because attracting over a quarter of a million graduates to use our service comes down to something successful! Since 1996 we have been in regular contact with all University Careers Services and Student Unions so that makes a difference. Since then we have tested and developed many marketing exercises that create positive word of mouth on campus. We carefully research and consult with students on a regular basis and this feeds into our communication strategy. We understand the student marketplace inside out and create a strong brand presence throughout the year.

We have been members of REC, the professional body for recruitment consultancies, and AGR, the voice of graduate recruiters, since 1998 and 2000 respectively. The REC code of best practice can be found here but we also adhere closely to codes of conduct established by AGCAS outlined on their webpage here.

Look at your wider recruitment objectives within the firm - where does graduate recruitment fit in? Will they be prepared to be in positions of management in five years time? Most large firms have tried and tested management trainee programmes but there is always room for improvement. No matter how large your organisation examining your graduate recruitment campaign from a top down approach is a good way to start. As members of AGR we have access to the largest source of information on graduate recruitment!

Whether it is performing a CV database search, running a recruitment marketing campaign, manging online advertising, or assisting with a graduate recruitment strategy, our team of consultants can help. We are not a typical recruitment agency and we constantly question conventional methods to graduate recruitment and devise new solutions to give you the edge in this highly competitive market. Our solutions are flexible and complement your existing process. Our Graduate Recruiter Services section has more information about specific types of work we frequently undertake.

This obviously depends on the complexity of the request and the project, but in general terms, we pride ourselves on the speed of our response to client demands - it is part of our service commitment. For clients where we have an ongoing relationship and are familiar with the kind of candidate they need, they can call us late in the afternoon and we will have a range of suitable candidates CVs, who have been briefed about the role, on their desk within 48 hours. We often guarantee new clients that we can have at least five suitable CVs within a 48 hour time period. The breadth of our CV database allows us to offer this kind of flexibility. However, it goes without saying that the more time we have to find people, the more confident we are of finding the right ones! We can start working on your requests immediately and frequently turn short projects around very quickly. Tell us more about your requirements.

To meet all our clients' needs we target candidates from a broad range of disciplines including engineering, business, economics, management, languages, law, life sciences, physical sciences, IT/computing and much more. A large proportion of our marketing is focused on attracting undergraduate and postgraduate students from the UK's premier universities, who expect to obtain an upper second or first-class honours degree and have the right to work in the EU. We look for candidates that are highly motivated, intelligent people with some business experience and have a wide variety of other interests. Our pool of candidates stretches from first year students to graduates with one to two years commercial experience.

This depends on the type of service you would like to use and the complexity of any recruitment project you wish to involve us in. We're confident that the value the GRB can add to your business will become apparent very quickly.

Once you have identified your objectives you need to create a job specification. What skills are required? What degree subject? What grade? What experience? Consider benchmarking against other graduates currently in the role which will assist in your profile of the ideal candidate(s). Carefully consider when you start your campaign and when you intend to hire. Do you have enough time to co-ordinate your advertising campaign, handle the response, arrange interviews, manage rejects plus factor in exam timetables and holidays. Sometimes even with the best planning things can go wrong so always have a back up strategy just in case. We also have a library of student projects that may cover an issue of graduate recruitment that we can supply free of charge.

This depends on the size of your organisation and budget. Using experts outside the organisations can add value to your recruitment process and shoulder some of your workload. Carefully invite suppliers to tender and follow up references. There are many suppliers out there who can help so seek impartial advice from the official voice of graduate recruitment, the AGR, and seek accreditation to professional associations such as REC.