Graduate Recruitment

Background
We have worked with the London investment bank of a major European bank for a number of years to select high potential recruits giving the bank a fresh intake of potential business leaders each year. It is important for the client that its managers are involved in each stage of the process so they have total ownership of the final decision. We design and manage the selection components of the annual graduate recruitment process.

The numbers of graduate recruits fluctuates between 10 and 20 from year to year depending on business requirements. Typically, the target roles for the graduates include, trading, sales, research, structured finance, operations, HR and IT.

The client receives over 1,000 applications each year so identifying the best candidates for the graduate intake is a real challenge with which we were delighted to help.

Our Approach
When first appointed, we met the directors of the recruiting business units to establish the performance areas the business units were looking for. We mapped these to the existing graduate recruitment competencies and made some adjustments so they dovetailed with other management and specialist competencies.

We contribute to the recruitment process by

• Developing competency based questions for the online application form
• Designing a first round competency based interview that effectively sifts out the strongest candidates coupled with a numerical reasoning ability test
• Designing a reliable assessment centre that involves line managers, provides robust evaluations on which selection decisions can be made and that gives the candidates a positive impression of the bank’s culture.

The assessment centre includes

• A specially designed topical case study (different for business functions and support functions) requiring participants to act as officers in the bank and analyse a situation to develop firm recommendations in a written report. This is evaluated by our consultants.
• A group exercise that uses a light hearted topic for the participants to discuss. The discussion is observed by the client’s managers who have been trained as assessors by ourselves.
• A competency based interview conducted by senior managers exploring different competencies to the first round interview.

In addition to the assessment process, we built in information sessions for the candidates. On arrival, they receive a brief welcome talk from a senior director. At lunch they mingle with graduate recruits from previous years in an informal setting so they can get those very personal questions answered. There is a final session at the end of the day when any unanswered questions are dealt with.

Client Outcomes
We have been working with our client for 5 years. Over this time the early recruits have risen successfully to key positions in the organisation. There has been very little wastage (only 4 graduates have left in the first 3 years of their employment). There has been no need to terminate any recruit’s employment.

Over the years, on average 95% of employment offers made are accepted by candidates. A contributing factor is the selection process and personal way the candidates are looked after all the way through it.

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