As many university leavers look to take their first steps into the workplace, a recent CIPD survey revealed that top qualifications are a main requirement of over half (57%) of employers looking to hire.
And despite focusing on university education, a third (33%) of those surveyed said candidates from a higher education were either ‘fairly’ or ‘very’ poorly prepared for the workplace.
However, the advice from Peterborough-based Anne Corder Recruitment is that filtering candidates by education or degree could lead to some employers missing out on key talent.
Employers could be missing out on talented candidates as a result of placing too much focus on degree or postgraduate qualifications when recruiting new staff.
What are the sought after values?
The recruitment agency recently carried out its own online research, with employers saying they favour work ethic over work experience when looking for their next student recruit.
Almost three quarters (69%) of respondents said work ethic and personal ability ranked way above work experience when it came to offering the job.
Transferable skills (31%) were also favoured – with work experience scoring 0 in the online survey.
Recruitment partner Judith Broughton said: “Graduates have some incredible positives to offer the workplace. They are eager to start their first ‘proper’ job, have fresh ideas and new talents to offer an employer, come with a willingness to learn and are enthusiastic.
“By using education filters, employers could be unintentionally overlooking traits which would make a candidate the perfect fit for a particular job – something qualifications cannot reveal.
“Behaviour, personality, emotional intelligence, assertiveness and problem solving are key factors that could be assessed and matched to a candidate’s own aspirations and potential.”
Judith added: “It is encouraging to see that employers are shifting the emphasis when it comes to traits they are looking for when recruiting for their next graduate role, which in turn will help with retaining enthusiastic young talent.”
Amelia Brand is the Editor for HRreview, and host of the HR in Review podcast series. With a Master’s degree in Legal and Political Theory, her particular interests within HR include employment law, DE&I, and wellbeing within the workplace. Prior to working with HRreview, Amelia was Sub-Editor of a magazine, and Editor of the Environmental Justice Project at University College London, writing and overseeing articles into UCL’s weekly newsletter. Her previous academic work has focused on philosophy, politics and law, with a special focus on how artificial intelligence will feature in the future.