Graduate Recruitment

9. Retaining Your Graduate

Once you have your graduate on board, it is important to keep him or her motivated and satisfied, to ensure that the effort invested in the recruitment process does not go to waste.

9.1 Offer a mentor - an experienced and mature person who is responsible for guiding the graduate and organising an appropriate training schedule.

9.2 Give feedback. Remember that graduates have come from an intense learning environment, where everything has been measured and evaluated.

• Give regular performance appraisals, with plenty of praise whenever they produce good work. (See Performance appraisals.)

9.3 Increase the graduate's salary after, say, six months, subject to achieving agreed targets.

9.4 Give responsibility as early as you can.

Make sure this responsibility is delegated deliberately, not simply by default.

• Ask your graduate to set up new projects, but be sure to monitor their progress. However confident and well qualified they are, graduates still need support and feedback.

9.5 Ensure you keep the promises you make.