RAPPORT
WWW.RECORDINGACHIEVEMENT.ORG
Issue 1 (2015)
Ministry of Labour); CIP (Job Centre); job agency;
university placement services; events, fairs,
career
days,
job
meetings;
newspaper
advertisements; general recruitment websites;
social networks or social media; company
website; informal contacts; other search channel.
Their utility was rated on a 10-point scale, ranging
from “extremely useless” (0) to “extremely
effective” (10).
Most critical aspects sought for in graduate
candidates. This aspect consists of the following
23 aspects which were ranked on a 10-point
scale: pre-university studies; qualifications
received; university of origin; average degree
score; speed of academic career; dissertation
topic; earning a master’s or doctorate; awards/
credits / publications; gender; place of residence
of the graduate; availability to work; internship
done during study; postgraduate internship; work
experience obtained during or after studies;
experiences abroad; knowledge of specific field of
activity of the firm; computer skills; language
skills; soft skills; references; “online reputation” of
the
candidate
(social
networks,
blogs);
presentation of the candidate; and professional
goals / ambitions.
The degree to which information on these aspects
is found through AlmaLaurea
Recruiters indicated the extent to which they
found these aspects in the graduate profiles in
AlmaLaurea in a percentage value. These were
compared with the most critical aspects sought for
in candidates (determined by an average score of
8 or higher by recruiters).
Hiring profile of companies
In the last two years, the 41.4% of firms in the
sample hired from 1 to 5 young graduates and
28.9% of them from 6 to 20 graduates. Only 8.3%
of them did not hire any young graduate. The
hiring propensity varies a lot according to the size
of the firm: 76.1% of the small firms hired from 1
to 5 graduates. 51.7% of the firms expect to hire
from 1 to 5 young graduates in the year 20152016 and 21.2% from 6 to 20. Most of the hiring
activity will consider applications from graduates
mainly in engineering studies (79.1%) and
economics and statistics (47.9%); graduates in
political sciences are the less demanded by the
firms in the sample (4.3%). This pattern appears
very consistent with the evidence that recruiters
look for candidates to employ mainly in the
engineering area (54.7%), in the commercial area
(33.7%) and in the production area (27.7%).
Recruiters look mainly for graduates with master
degrees (77.6% second cycle degree/second
level tertiary degree according to the Bologna
process), in particular, if the firms involved are
large (82.2%), or with a B.A. (30.2%, first cycle
degree/first level tertiary degree). Only the 3.8%
of recruiting activity searches for graduates with a
PhD. (6.3% in large firms and none in small firms).
The three main difficulties that firms generally
face in the recruitment process are (1) an
insufficient number of candidates (65.2%), (2)
candidates lack the appropriate skills (44.7%), (3)
the selection process is too slow and this implies
also that some of the candidates are lost during
the process (13.8%). The most used social media
is by far LinkedIn (96.3) followed by Facebook
(32.2%).
Data representativeness
In order to obtain representative data of the firms
that have recently used the job placement
services of AlmaLaurea, a post-sampling
procedure was adopted, stratifying by company
size (“small companies” with less than 50
employees, “medium-size companies” between
51-100 employees, and “large companies” with
over 100 employees) and branch of activity
(“industrial sector”, “service sector”, and
“agricultural sector”). For every layer available a
weight has been given so that the breakdowns
related to the variables undergoing the reproportioning process are as close as possible to
those found in the overall population. Intuitively, if
a firm’s recruiter characteristics are largely
widespread among the overall population, but not
in the AlmaLaurea sample, he/she will be granted
a proportionately higher weight. Conversely, a
firm’s recruiter with characteristics that are widely
found in the AlmaLaurea sample but not in the
overall population will receive a proportionately
lower weight.
Hiring through AlmaLaurea
On average, 50% of all companies used the
AlmaLaurea service for at least 1 in 4 graduate
vacancies. Higher frequencies of use are found
among small and large firms (respectively 39%
and 37% use the platform for at least half of the
applicable vacancies). The vast majority of
companies use the AlmaLaurea service to actively
look for students, whereas a smaller group also
use the platform to actively post vacancies.
Used recruitment channels
The three main recruitment channels used by the
surveyed recruiters are the university placement
offices, the web site of the recruiting firms and the
AlmaLaurea job placement service. This ranking
changes a lot depending on the size of the firm
(Table 1). Overall, small companies used a
smaller set of recruitment channels than the larger
organizations. It is noteworthy that small firms rely
much more on the AlmaLaurea placement
services than on other channels. Large firms rely
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