What is your main consideration before bringing in new hires to the team? While the answers can vary, skills and experiences could be the most popular reasons why you are attracted to certain candidates. While these two variables are proven to be really beneficial in assessing potential hires’ capability, does it mean that you should overlook other factors?

Rapid business growth often comes along with the need to recruit more talents from wider scope, including fresh graduates. It is true that hiring professionals give you the privilege of having experienced talents who are already familiar with the business field so they do not require much direction and guidance, such that you can focus on developing your business strategy. But, it cannot be denied that hiring newly-graduated students also has its own advantages. One of the reasons is because it gives you the opportunity to train and nurture talents. HR managers have an important role in this goal to mold fresh talents and prepare them for the next talent succession pipeline.

Not only that, everyone knows that hiring professionals is always an expensive business proposition as they are in a better position to ask for higher salaries, perks, and benefits during the negotiation. On the other hand, the starting salary for fresh graduates is much lower than the experienced ones. That being said, the company can save more from the employee salary plan and allocate the budget for other business purposes.

The problem lies in the fact that hiring fresh graduates can be a kind of gambling, because you do not know exactly what qualities they have. Given fresh graduates’ lack of expertise and experience, employers often have no idea about what to assess when interviewing them. As a result, they might simply rely on basic information stated in the resume such as educational background and GPA. However, that is not enough. If you want to have better judgement regarding fresh graduates’ ability, here are four points you should take into account when recruiting new talents:

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Internship experience

Fresh graduates who have prior working experience in the same business field as yours during their college days tend to be easier to train and manage than those who do not, as they already know how the business runs. They also have a better grasp of the working environment, so adaptation will be more at ease. When assessing the potentials, you can ask details about their previous experiences, such as work styles, weakness and strength, as well as challenges they faced and how they dealt with the.

Academic major

While there are some kind of jobs that are open to all-major graduates and do not require specific educational requirements, you might still want to take candidate’s academic major as one of your consideration before hiring them. For example, when you have job openings for customer service position, you should look for candidates coming from related major such as language and management.

Volunteer experience

Volunteering experience such as being activists in social or educational organisation is also a good point to consider when assessing fresh graduates’ sense of belonging and loyalty towards the company. You can also see how they adapt and work in a team as well as gauging their social presence. Not to mention, if candidates have significant roles in these volunteer events such as being the chairman or leader, it means that you can expect them to have leadership potential too.

Communication skills

Most employer know that working is not only about using technical skills to do the duty, but also having good communication skills to create a solid teamwork. Here, candidate’s emotional intelligence is important aspect to assess. While you cannot ask about their personal issues directly, you can know it by the way the candidates’ talk during the interview. You should pay attention to the candidates’ attitude, body language, initiative, responsiveness, calmness and enthusiastic while they speak.

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