Recruitment season moves fast. You’re juggling applications, screening candidates, running assessments, and trying to hit your hiring targets—all while keeping stakeholders happy and candidates engaged.
It’s a lot. And if your recruitment strategy feels more reactive than proactive, you’re not alone.
But here’s the good news: with the right data and a clear plan, you can make smarter, faster hiring decisions – without wasting time or budget on strategies that don’t work.
In this article, we’re sharing key insights from our latest webinar with Jen Williams (Brightworks) and Heather Hunt (AECAN & Deloitte) to help you:
- Reduce unnecessary costs
- Optimise your time investment
- Improve the quality of your hires
Let’s dive in.
Why data needs to be your best friend in graduate recruitment
Hiring a graduate cohort represents a significant investment — typically between $20,000-$30,000 per hire once you factor in salaries, training, and program costs. But without a strategic, data-driven approach, you could be:
- Spending 30% more than necessary on attraction
- Missing high-potential candidates who don’t fit traditional profiles
- Repeating ineffective recruitment practices every year
The solution? Data.
A well-structured, data-driven graduate recruitment strategy helps you:
- Identify where your best candidates come from (and stop wasting budget on low-performing channels)
- Refine your selection process to focus on the traits that truly predict success
- Make strategic, real-time adjustments so you’re always improving—not just reacting
But what does that look like in practice?
Capitalising on data in your recruitment cycle
Data shouldn’t just be something you report on after hiring season — it should guide your entire strategy.
A strong data-driven approach helps you confidently execute your recruitment strategy across five key dimensions:
1. Measure & Understand
Collect insights on market conditions, past performance, and current trends to ensure your recruitment strategy is aligned with business priorities and workforce needs.
- Review historic application data (3-5 years if possible)
- Track conversion rates, withdrawals, and renege trends
- Compare your hiring metrics against industry benchmarks
Jen’s experience: Jen realised an organisation’s top-performing hires were coming from only 3 out of 12 attraction channels. By reallocating budget to those channels, she improved quality-of-hire while reducing spend per hire.
2. Prioritise & Execute
Once you understand your data, you can focus your time and budget on high-impact areas.
- Identify which attraction methods deliver real results
- Allocate resources to the selection criteria that predict long-term success
- Set clear, measurable hiring goals
Key question: Are you spending money in the right places, or just the places you’ve always spent?
3. Optimise & Adjust
Your strategy shouldn’t be set in stone. Use real-time data to make course corrections during the hiring season.
- Monitor weekly application trends
- Adjust attraction and selection strategies based on performance
- Identify drop-off points to prevent losing great candidates
Example: Jen noticed STEM-qualified candidates were declining offers at a higher rate than expected. By adjusting the organisation’s EVP messaging mid-season, they were able to increase acceptances – without increasing salaries.
4. Influence & Communicate
Data isn’t just for recruiters — it helps you build a strong business case and influence key stakeholders.
- Justify hiring decisions with clear ROI data
- Prove which attraction channels are delivering results
- Use data visualisation (e.g., Tableau or Power BI) to communicate key insights
Heather’s advice: “We use Tableau to gather insights to course-correcting mid-year, before reopening applications. Waiting until next season means you’re missing valuable opportunities to improve in real time.”
5. Personalise & Predict
The final and most powerful step of a data-driven approach is predictive hiring.
- Identify the competencies that predict long-term success
- Use historical hiring trends to shape future recruitment
- Build a targeted pipeline of high-potential candidates
Example: An employer struggling with diversity hiring used past data to refine their selection process—resulting in a 20% increase in applications from underrepresented candidates.
Pro Tip:
Many organisations stop at Step 1 (measuring success), but the real impact comes from mastering the complete cycle. The more insights you apply, the easier recruitment gets every year.
Essential data to track for graduate recruitment sucess
You now understand why data is so important, but where do you start? You don’t need to track everything. If you focus on the right metrics, you’ll have all the insights you need.
To help you get started, these are our top recommendations:
Historic Data
- Application numbers and source performance (3-5 years of history is ideal)
- Conversion rates throughout your funnel
- Withdrawals, acceptance rates, reneges, and declines
Market & Competitor Insights
- AAGE reports and benchmarking studies
- University statistics and graduate outcomes
- GradConnection and Prosple insights
- Competitor and sector analysis
- Brightworks Student Pulse Survey
Recruitment Process Data
- Time-to-hire and time-in-stage metrics
- Attraction channel effectiveness
- Cost-per-hire and ROI measurements
Stakeholder Feedback
- Candidate experience surveys and NPS scores
- Assessment performance vs. job performance correlation
- Manager and senior leadership perspectives
Real-world example: insights from the accounting industry
During our webinar, Heather Hunt shared valuable perspectives from her extensive experience in the accounting sector, highlighting how data can help overcome perceived talent shortages:
“We wanted to widen the talent pool,” Heather explained. “It seems sometimes like grad recruitment, especially in the accounting space, gets harder and harder every year.”
Her team tackled this challenge by:
- Analysing rejection patterns to understand why candidates were being filtered out
- Consulting extensively with stakeholders (CAANZ, Immigration, Employer Brand teams, L&D, HR, Business Units, Universities, and AAGE)
- Revising their recruitment campaign based on these insights
The results?
- Decreased time-to-fill positions
- Fewer ineligible/unsuitable candidates
- A larger, more diverse talent pool with strong potential
- Improved satisfaction among recruiters, hiring managers, and candidates
Heather emphasised the importance of mid-season reporting:
“We look at course-correcting in the middle of the year before we reopen applications again. It’s not just once a year.”
She recommended using visualisation tools like Tableau to make data more accessible and actionable.
Preparing for your 2025 recruitment season: quick wins
If you’re launching your next recruitment campaign soon with limited time to prepare, consider these immediate actions:
- Re-engage previous talent pools
Look beyond fresh candidates to those who have previously expressed interest, started but didn’t complete applications, or were near-miss candidates from past campaigns. - Review candidate feedback
What did your previous cohort say about your EVP, attraction and selection processes? Use this to guide what to stop, start, and continue. - Analyse vacancy and location data
Use historical patterns to manage candidate expectations and match supply with demand, especially if final headcount numbers are still being confirmed.
Make your recruitment strategy work harder for you
We know balancing competing priorities can make recruitment season overwhelming. By focusing on data-driven decision-making, you’ll:
- Spend budget where it actually counts
- Attract and hire grads who will thrive long-term
- Make confident, strategic hiring decisions
Want to dive deeper into the insights? Access the full webinar replay to catch up on everything you missed.
Need to Optimise Your Graduate Recruitment Strategy?
Here’s How We Can Help
📊 Get the latest candidate insights: Download our 2024 Student Pulse Report for a deep dive into where and how grads want to be hired.
🔎 Fine-tune your hiring process: Our Attraction & Selection Power Reviews help you optimise recruitment strategies with opportunities you might be missing. Enquire about your strategy review.
Whether you need a strategy refresh or a full recruitment overhaul, we’re always here to help.
