Look Out World, Here Come the Graduates

If you were anywhere near Broad Street this week, you would’ve seen thousands upon thousands of fresh faces in funny hats, snapping selfies and hugging everyone in sight. In this first normal graduation season since COVID-19, you probably couldn’t get anywhere near Broad Street because the traffic was backed up for miles.

It’s nice to see things returning to normal, but the hiring market is anything but that these days. The pandemic has changed the way in which we work, and these graduates will be arriving in your Indeed inbox very soon. The job search floodgates are now open, and it’s raining resumes. 

There’s only one problem: relatively few of the 2+ million college graduates that are about to descend upon the workforce have work experience, and two-thirds of the high school graduates will be going directly to college. Do not pass “Go.” Do not collect $200.

As a business owner or hiring manager, it might be easy to dismiss this entire bumper crop of newbies, but not if you focus more on potential than experience. At Madison+Main, we’ve had great success with interns and new hires that had no prior experience. We value things like talent, perseverance, creativity, and hard work. In other words, your previous stints at summer camp or the ice cream shop don’t necessarily translate to long-term success in the marketing biz. We look for candidates who can do something great, with or without years of experience.

We focus our efforts on finding the potential in candidates. It’s a tough labor market right now, and I would advise that you start thinking the same way. The first step might be eliminating “two-to-three years required” from an entry-level position.

We’ve recently worked some recruitment advertising magic for clients like Trash Fairies and Pinnacle Living’s communities, such as Cedarfield and WindsorMeade. We got down to the nitty-gritty of what their respective hiring pools looked for and gave them information that reflected that. We focused on employer branding, like what’s said about the business among employees as a place to work because it can reduce cost-per-hire by a whopping 50% and allow new hires to get a good glimpse of who they’ll be working for.

And the people we hired based on potential helped our clients succeed. It works for us. It will work for you, too.