The benefits of hiring graduates:
With a willingness to learn and offering an injection of new ideas into the team, hiring graduates is a key focus for many businesses at this time of year within the finance team.
Combining solid academic backgrounds with extensive knowledge in market trends within their field, the knowledge base of these candidates is proving invaluable in staying ahead of the curve.
Equipped with established networks, skills in the latest technologies and raising retention rates, we are seeing more companies invest in their graduate hires as these cost effective, eager and enthusiastic candidates are becoming the leaders of the future.
How to get the most out of interviewing graduates?
In preparing to meet with graduate candidates, we have compiled these 5 key questions to cover, alongside your standard interview questions and processes.
How do you approach deadlines? When have you had to meet a deadline and how have you adapted your workload to achieve this?
Establishing how workloads and deadlines are approached is a useful insight into the candidate’s organisational skills, ability to prioritise tasks, capability of adapting under pressure and an overview into how they focus and meet objectives. Examples of university deadlines, work or placement experience show how these transferable skills can be brought into the team.
What do you do when you don’t have all the information you need?
A key question to ascertain how confident the candidate is in their own abilities, as well as their communication style and experience in teamwork and reporting. Examples of self-research, asking a relevant colleague and ensuring they share as much detail of the task and information needed as possible offers a solid understanding into how they would gather and utilise information in the workplace.
How would you measure a company’s financial health?
An open question to delve deeper into the candidate’s technical knowledge, this covers the primary statements of the balance sheet, income statement and cash flow statement. Understanding and being able to analyse and discuss the utilisation of these shows competencies and core knowledge of accounting fundamentals.
What can you bring to this role?
A favourite for both the employer and potential employee and a great rapport builder! Examples of up-to-date market knowledge and technologies, market trends, current networks, confidence, drive and enthusiasm all resonate with an invested and passionate career driven candidate.
What are your career goals for the next 3 years?
An important question to understand how much the candidate has considered their career as well as exploring further into how much research they have done into the role and business. Examples of pursuing professional studies, participating in voluntary roles to gain relevant experience within their chosen field and offering comparisons of company research and opportunities to their career goals shows their career planning and commitment to their career growth.
Feedback from our clients indicates that the adapted interview questions for graduate positions have provided them with in-depth insights into behaviours, company fit and technical knowledge. This information has been invaluable in assisting their graduate hiring decisions.
Market leaders, as well as many other businesses and their finance teams, have realised the potential of investing in graduates. In the UK, 59.8% of finance graduates secured a role in the finance sector within 6 months of graduating in 2022, according to data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA).
Should you be looking to hire a graduate to your finance team but want to find the right fit for you, contact me on the details below:
hannahmurphy@rutherfordbriant.com
01371 832 922