Hi All,
                         A personal experience and a proposed way of revolutionising the graduate recruitment process 

Initially I’d like to introduce myself as a member of the 300 who has yet to contribute. 

Personally, I have 3 children, the youngest of whom recently and very painfully completed the transition from university to the world of work. 

Professionally, I’m semi-retired after having worked in ‘soft skill’ assessment and development with both students and employees for over 30 years.

It is the experience of our son and his friends that initially stimulated a lot of thought and now in conjunction with my professional experience this email.

Background
Our son graduated with a 2.1 in Theoretical Physics and Astrophysics. He ticked all the ‘graduate application boxes’ and began applying for jobs about 6 months before graduating, progressing through numerous on-line tests and telephone interviews before attending 2 assessment centres before he graduated and then another 12 or so over a 6 month period. He was rejected by them all. 9 months after graduating he was the first of his group of friends to get a job which made good use of their education, he obtained it by relentless cold calling.  

The Problem
The whole graduate recruitment process was for him (and for many of his friends) very negative, primarily because:
•	Each cycle of application to rejection took the applicants back to square one: initially they learned from the process, but subsequently any learning was more than overwhelmed by personal rejection. Each application took many hours of preparation (some including field research in retail outlets) and the attending assessment centres (which were often expensive and self funded)
•	The assessment centres varied from being excellent (notably 2) to totally unprofessional. Clearly however all were looking for similar ‘employability qualities’ with minimal interest in the already proven academic performance.

A Solution
As employers appear to have a common unexamined need from their graduate recruits (i.e. broadly ‘soft skills’) perhaps an improvement to the current situation would be:
•	universities and employers get together to design and run standardised assessment centres that would be available to all graduating students who wanted employment
•	the assessment centres, which would have to be bench-marked and endorsed by universities and employers, would cover core qualities that ‘all’ employers ask for, e.g. communication skills, team working, leadership potential, problem solving, self confidence, accepting and taking personal responsibility.

The Benefits
Employers could save time, effort and resources by; 
•	receiving a more complete CV which, for most, would be based on a assessment centre that would be better than the ones run by many recruiting organisations 
•	more effective pre-selection 
•	targeting their selection efforts into organisationally specific needs

Universities;
•	could offer (as part of degree courses?) employability modules 
•	could demonstrate more clearly their commitment to preparing their students for employment
•	be recognised as institutions that were considered by employers to be ‘universities of choice’

Students;
•	would submit more complete CV’s
•	could target their applications 
•	could save time through the simplified application process
•	would understand more and be better prepared for the world of work (through increased awareness of and possibly training in the commonly required soft skills)

The Negatives;
•	Cash and effort upfront
•	Would need to be initiated at a very high level, government?

If anyone is interested in this idea I would be very happy to discuss and develop it with them but, beyond developing and presenting the concept, I have no personal interest in the implementation of any assessment centres, i.e. I’m not looking for work!  

Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts: I look forwards to read any others' views.

Martin Thompson