​The benefits of hiring graduates across any industry are limitless, and hiring them mutually benefits both the grad and the employer.

Given the benefits, putting in the time to train a graduate provides a great return on investment. Graduates have impressive backgrounds as they often take on extra-curricular activities to stand out against their peers. When employers feed their grads’ hunger to grow with training and development opportunities, not only do they end up with employees who are devoted to their organisation, but they also have skilled employees who can be promoted to fill future management positions.

Graduates are keen to learn and progress.

Students who apply to graduate roles typically have the ambition to grow. Cameron Watson, Fuse Recruitment’s Head of Strategy, has had firsthand experience in managing graduates. He finds that “graduates have the appetite to learn and develop over other candidates.” Having recently left a learning environment, they know how to handle and take in new information. This makes training them much easier – saving your time for other things on your to-do list.

They have no bad habits in the workplace.

Complementary to the previous point, graduates are likely entering their first office job and are just starting to learn the ropes. Employers can teach their grads good habits without having to break bad ones first.

Willing to adapt.

Graduates want to show off their best qualities and prove why they deserve the job. Along with taking on new habits that are taught to them, they’ll do whatever else they can to make a good impression and exceed expectations.

They’re there for the experience.

Graduates understand that they come with little experience which makes them more open to lower salaries. A low salary doesn’t necessarily mean minimum wage. As long as the employer can offer a competitive rate as well as the opportunity to learn and gain experience, grads will be more than happy to sign the contract and start working.​

They have different perspectives.

Cameron says, “Graduates bring in generational diversity. With that, they come with new perspectives and present innovative ideas into the industry.” Graduates often question the way things work and will challenge your company to take on new methods.

Spotlight: Manufacturing Graduate Recruitment

While it can be difficult to hire graduates, it would be an opportunity lost to let a prospective graduate go to a competitor. Our team at Fuse recognise the challenges of hiring grads and has developed the capabilities to source suitable candidates for our specialty sectors.

Melissa Kennedy, Fuse Recruitment’s National Manager of Manufacturing, says, “Fuse Recruitment has the ability to dig deeper and find the best graduates for our customers. We have the ability to source and recruit in a variety of locations – whether it be for our customers’ regional locations or their head offices.”

“We partner with our customers to understand their needs and have developed a strong recruiting process to identify the right skills and fit for graduates,” says Melissa. “We’ve worked very hard to identify the best talent in the market for our customers in a variety of sectors including pharmaceuticals, packaging, medical devices, industrial and more of the like.” Some of the graduate roles we have placed include:

• Microbiologist
• Graduate Engineers
• Graduate Scientists
• Graduate Project Engineers
• Graduate Process Engineers
• Graduate Electrical Engineers

“Helping our customers’ business for their future is part of our DNA. It thrills us when we see some of the grads we have placed progress into leadership positions. We are proud of our efforts and will continue to provide pathways for the next generation of leaders through our services.”

Spotlight: Infrastructure & Utilities Graduate Recruitment

The time it takes to identify suitable graduates can often be underestimated. Sebastian Leeder, Fuse Recruitment’s National Manager of Infrastructure and Utilities, states that “Graduate Recruitment is often looked upon as a ‘simpler’ process. The irony is that it is often more challenging than highly technical recruiting due to the necessity to look at attitude and behaviour over a skill set”.

“Having placed over 350 Graduates in our Future Insure Graduate Program, it became very clear that our customers in the Utilities and Infrastructure areas could also find real value in a similar program,” says Sebastian. Our abilities to place fitting graduates have allowed us to successfully recruit for several clients in this sector. Some of the roles include:

• Graduate Engineers
• Graduate Electrical Engineers
• Graduate Civil Engineers
• Graduate Environmental Engineers

“Levelling the playing field in the Utilities and Infrastructure sector for Graduate Talent is absolutely necessary to maintain the competitiveness of smaller firms. This program addresses that by ensuring our partners get the best access to national graduate talent that they possibly can.”

Spotlight: Insurance and Wealth Management Graduate Program

Through effective onboarding and working with graduates in the insurance and wealth management industry, Cameron has seen the impressive long- and short-term advantages that grads bring to the industry. “As insurance industry partners, it is our responsibility to invest in the development of the industry,” states Cameron. With this in mind, Cameron piloted Fuse Recruitment’s Future Insure Graduate Program to harness the benefits of hiring graduates in the insurance and wealth management industry.

“Many insurance organisations are mid-sized businesses and often lack the infrastructure to hire graduates,” says Cameron. “In insurance, we often find that we have a shortage of candidates. Hiring graduates increases the quality of the industry talent pool and expands the search for quality staff.

What our clients have said about Future Insure

The program provides a pathway for a career in the insurance industry. Our clients have stated that the grads they’ve hired through this program have an idea of what to expect, which led to expectations being met and exceeded. “The rollout of the program proved to be very timely and right off the bat, we had two great candidates commence with us who have proven to be outstanding recruits to our business. Because Fuse was able to accurately convey the opportunities and pathways for a career in the industry, expectations have been managed, met and even exceeded,” said Darren Fenech from PSC Insurance Brokers.

Richard Coloretti from Edgewise Insurance Brokers found that graduates were highly skilled and fit their company culture. He said, “We have found that graduates are always available, and those we have appointed are of a high calibre, having been thoroughly tested and pre-qualified from both a technical and “cultural fit” perspective.”

Our strong understanding of the industry has equipped us with the ability to hire the right graduates. Darren Toll from Austbrokers Countrywide said, “Fuse Recruitment has spent many hours scoping the needs of Brokers and the talent pools outside the normal recruitment process to enable us a strong pool of candidates to choose from.”

What the future looks like

With this program, we hope to see more people make a conscious choice to have a career in insurance or wealth management. There is significant value in creating a pipeline of future industry leaders. We wish to continue our efforts in developing the insurance and wealth management industry and to assist numerous organisations within these industries in finding prospective graduates through a tailored and unique program.

If you’re looking to hire graduates for your business, fill out the form on this page and we’ll be in touch shortly.