With increasing competition and growing talent demand, human capital is the greatest asset for companies to accelerate growth momentum. While technology and robotic age is soon replacing many lower-skilled job roles, human resource continues to remain most valuable for employers to help companies thrive and survive in the highly-competitive business environment.

While some companies might prefer to hire more experienced talents rather than fresh graduates, it is not always that an experienced candidate meets employers’ expectations. Experienced professionals are not adaptive, they are rigid in their approaches towards work, acceptance of new ideas, processes and technologies, and usually command higher salary, perks and benefits.

Owing to these, many companies prefer to hire fresh graduates and train them to meet job role requirements such that they blend easily with the company culture. These young talents on board provide some key advantages, as they are able to adapt to the new working culture easily, more open towards changes and challenges, without demanding relatively high pay scale and allowances.

As they are just beginning their career with a new company, they are willing to not command or demand, learn and seek experience for a comparatively lesser pay.

See also: 4 Personality Traits to Beware of When You’re Hiring

Skill gap continues to remain one major challenge for HR managers recruiting fresh talents on board.

If the skills gap is not bridged timely with adequate training, it could have its serious impact on losses for business and unaccomplished goals. How can organisations bridge the skills gap, meet the job role requirements perfectly, hire for cultural fit and achieve competitive pay scale? Here are some strategies to mentor the talent and bridge the skills gap:

Earlier Recognition to High Schools and Universities

Some companies implement an intensive cooperation with some universities, even high schools to have an earlier approach to the students so that they can recognize the company and realize some appealing job opportunities and career paths inside of it.

Such strategy is worth to adopt as it gives earlier spaces and times for students (either high schools or colleges) to make them familiar with the industry and give them a wider view that leads them to pursue the education and skills part that would take them to get there. This would effectively bridge the skills gap that commonly appear in general young talents.

Finding the Right Partnerships

Companies can forge effective partnership agreements with leading universities, colleges and trade schools to groom the talented candidates with skillsets and proficiencies to meet the job market demands.

Universities expect their students to get working soon after completion of graduation, and this partnership agreement can help both the students and the employer to make most of the opportunity by organising campus recruitment programs.

This program will also help support building of the employer brand and company repute on different social media platforms. Students who join universities with an intent of securing effective placements with top employer brands, find this partnership extremely attractive to get themselves qualified from reputed universities and later get placed in good companies of repute.

Provide Internship Opportunities

An internship is one of the great ways to bridge the fresh talent-skills gap. However, some companies do not realise the potential of this opportunity and conduct the program only for fulfilling the obligatory and procedural reasons.

Interns, are students with adequate theories but lack in real experience and practices. They need to handle actual projects under certain supervisions and provide critical feedback or suggestions to broaden their capabilities. A company can benefit from quickly integrating a new employee into the real operations and train them adequately to meet job role requirements and business demands.

Fresh graduates are great assets, however they need to be trained and mentored right with good industry know-how and technology tools to ease their workings, save on time and costs. HR managers should ensure that their organisations have a successful onboarding strategy in place to attract, hire and retain the best talent within organisations.

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