Every applicant is in your office for a reason. Perhaps you have a fantastic location or a smaller pond where everyone’s efforts can shine. By identifying what your candidate wants – once again this is what we help you recognise – we can demonstrate to candidates how your company can deliver.

Each candidate will want different things so rather than trying to broadcast a ‘one size fits all’ job advert, we can help you appeal to individual candidates who we are able to engage and appeal to their interests.

If after an interview you know you want to hire, be honest and open. “Preface your honesty with a few genuine sentiments, and encourage the candidate to communicate with you after the interview, and ask whether he or she has received other formal offers with the numbers to influence their decision.” says Forbes.

3. Don’t Sell The Farm To Get The Golden Goose

When you find the “golden goose,” always ask yourself whether you can find a similar candidate who is equally eager and would join the team for less. It can be difficult to know where to stop when it comes to what you should offer to close your ideal candidate. Interviews too often focus on money and requirements when in reality, key to discussions should be finding the right fit to ensure the candidate is comfortable speaking honestly.

In many industries, 9-to-5 suited-and-booted environments are elements of a bygone era. Embracing new culture and modern work approaches will give you the ability to look at candidates in a way that focuses on what they’ll deliver to your company. Millennials are living in an employer era of flexible-working, advanced facilities and ‘fresh and funky’ offices, and a whole load of attractive benefits and rewards. We’re not saying you need to start advertising free gym memberships or annual-passes to Thorpe Park, but rather keeping up to speed with what young candidates are being exposed to in the world of graduate job adverts. Our Essential Recruitment Planning Guide covers the top employee benefits that tech and engineering candidates rated in 2017 – click here to download the guide!

Toby, Embedded Software Engineer – BSc Computer Science

“For me, it’s all about the technology I’ll be working on. In 2018, myself and I expect many of my peers will be looking for the opportunity to work on exciting projects in the latest technology such as the surge of virtual reality.

When it comes to the overall graduate package, I would personally be looking for companies who demonstrate a clear and proven dedication to training and developing the skills of their graduates, and also the ability to choose the types of projects I’d like to get involved in. As a graduate, I would be looking for a company who values the input of their graduates and gives them the responsibility and freedom to deliver their ideas to the team.

My main ‘tick-boxes’ if you like are; proven opportunity for skills development and clear career progression, the responsibility to tackle challenging problems and have my ideas valued, work in multiple technologies, methods, and tools, in a state-of-the-art development environment – I don’t want to be backdating myself after working in such advanced environments at university.  

Although some of the perks I’ve seen advertised as part of graduate benefit packages are great, the real ‘sell’ for me is the projects. However, some things that stood out to me were private healthcare, on-site free gyms and the opportunity to work abroad. Developers like myself are inherently looking to learn and whilst working with [confidential], I was flown to Venice to help the Italian team on the Set Top Box project I was heading-up over in the UK. This was one of the biggest learning experiences I’ve had to date; on my own, helping another company solve a problem, using my initiative and producing a successful solution. It was great. I think this covers it, I’m just really excited to graduate and get back out into the world of work!”

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