The State of Global Early Career Hiring 2024: Key insights and practical tips

Early career talent is unique. These candidates are just starting out on their job search and have a career of limitless potential in front of them. 

But with macroeconomic factors biting hard, “rearview HR” processes creaking at the seams, and the emergence of new technologies—it is a complex landscape. 

In a first of its kind report, derived through industry body data from The Institute of Student Employers, The National Association of Colleges and Employers, and The Australian Association of Graduate Employers, we analyzed independent survey data from around the globe and three clear trends stood out: 

• Assessing skills is becoming the dominant approach for early career talent 
• Hiring teams are relying less and less on past experience or GPA 
• AI is growing as a tool used by students and recruiters in the hiring process

Let’s take a deeper dive on each of these trends, allowing early careers leaders to benchmark their progress, identify opportunities for improvement, and learn some best practices from industry experts.

1.  The Global Graduate Recruitment Outlook

Early career roles are forecast to grow by a rate of 5% in 2023/2024 in the UK. Despite a cooling jobs market and economic uncertainty, graduate vacancies grew 6% in 2022/23 in the UK, which was higher than predicted (2%) (ISE Student Recruitment Report 2023).

The 2024 job outlook for the U.S. shows overall hiring is projected to dip by 1.9%. However, it is important to note that this is down from the last two years, when the college job market experienced brisk growth that, in 2022, reached record levels (NACE Job Outlook 2024).

Australian employers experienced a 6% increase in the number of graduate roles in their programs in 2024 compared to 2023 (AAGE Employer Survey 2024) and demand for early career programs as a source of talent remains strong.

2. A Global Shift to Skills

In the U.S. less than 40% of employers reported that they are screening candidates by GPA this year. It indicates the weight employers now place on skills and competencies. The top-rated career readiness competencies continue to be communication, teamwork, and critical thinking skills (NACE Job Outlook 2024).

54% of UK employers expect to move to a recruitment approach that focuses on evaluating candidates based on their skills, rather than on their education or past work experience. The top in demand technical skills include IT/digital, accounting and engineering. IT and digital skills were also forecast to become increasingly more in demand over the next five years (ISE Student Recruitment Report 2023).

Only 30% of Australian employers in 2024 stated they felt examination results were “very important” or “quite important” to assess during the selection process, down from 38% in 2022. Australian employers are also embracing early career programs such as apprenticeships and cadetships (6% increase in 2024) as pipelines for talent that sit alongside their graduate and intern programs. (2024 AAGE Employer Survey).

3. Global Recruitment Resourcing

Recruitment departments are feeling the squeeze. U.S. employers said they had 7.2 recruiters in 2023, that’s down from 9.0 reported in the 2022 survey. The average number of days between the candidate’s first interview and getting a job offer, or being notified they were not being considered, rose to 25.1 (NACE Recruiting Benchmark Reports 2023).

In the UK, graduate applications per vacancy increased through 2023, up significantly by 38%, suggesting that recruitment teams are being asked to do more with less resources. 45% of the respondents expected that most of their recruitment will be conducted fully online in the next five years and they would increasingly automate the process of student recruitment (ISE Student Recruitment Report 2023).

Employers in Australia are focusing heavily on shortening their processes to get offers out in a competitive market, whilst still maintaining candidate care and keeping candidates engaged post offer. This has helped to increase the number of employers with a recruitment process that takes 2 months or less by 7%, compared to the 2023 Employer Survey (2024 AAGE Employer Survey).

UK employers reported that 23% of their candidates withdrew or disengaged during the recruitment process (ISE Student Recruitment Report 2023). In the U.S. the rate at which offers are being accepted dropped from 73.6% in last year’s report to 69.3% (2023 NACE Recruiting Benchmarks Report). Rates are holding steady in Australia with 17% of candidates reneging. (2024 AAGE Employer Survey).

The Practitioner’s Vue

MinterEllison is a top-tier multinational Law firm based in Australia. They have a vision of recruiting diverse, high caliber and high performing individuals – for every role. Previously they had a traditional, lengthy and manual early careers hiring process, but they wanted to improve the experience of both candidates and recruiters. 

They streamlined and simplified their process using Games-Based Assessments and Video Interviewing solutions integrated with SAP SuccessFactors. This enables them to differentiate between candidates and allows graduates to tell their full story. 

MinterEllison is now able to see 300% more candidates and have saved thousands of hours in recruiting time. Watch their story below.

4. The Global Acceptance of AI

The adoption rate of AI varies across sectors in the UK. Sector-based analysis highlighted that the Energy, Engineering, & Industry sectors used AI the most at 45%. This was closely followed by the Retail, Fast-Moving Consumer Goods, & Tourism sector and the Built Environment sector, both registering 40% adoption (ISE Student Recruitment Report 2023).

83% of U.S. employers reported that using AI increased speed and efficiency in the recruitment process, increased the ability to analyze large volumes of data (64%) and allowed them to automate repetitive tasks (59%) (2023 NACE: A look at current practice among career services professionals).

There is a slightly different picture in Australia with just 16% of organizations currently using AI as part of their recruitment process. Those that are using it are mainly using it for screening applications, psychometric assessments and screening video interviews (37%) (2024 AAGE Employer Survey).

The Practitioner’s Vue

Nestlé is a Swiss multinational food and drink corporation, it has been the largest publicly held food company in the world since 2014. Nestlé wanted to create a more streamlined and structured process that enabled them to move away from traditional recruitment practices.

Nestlé implemented AI-enabled Video Interviewing, Games-Based Assessments, and an SAP SuccessFactors integration for hiring across a range of roles. The candidates that were hired matched the profiles that were ranked highest by the AI-enabled recruitment solutions, demonstrating a positive correlation. 

Nestlé can now hire in a more efficient and objective way and has also reduced their time to hire by 10 days. Watch their story below.