4 University Recruitment Trends to Watch in 2020

Today’s college graduates are entering a workforce nearly unrecognizable from the start of the previous decade. A booming economy and a high demand for hard and soft skills have given Gen Z an advantageous entrance into the workforce, flipping the script on what it takes to recruit top entry-level candidates. Unlike previous years, employers no longer have their pick of any candidate, and entry-level candidates are more often dictating what a positive candidate experience looks like to them. Understanding what this generation wants out of their career and their interactions with a company is paramount to building meaningful relationships with these candidates. 

Definitions and directives around diversity have changed, too. In the last decade, tech got serious about building more diverse teams and many other industries followed suit. There’s still significant progress to be made, but employers are recognizing that a strong diversity recruiting strategy starts at the entry-level – while retention stems from inclusion and support. 

While the trends of the last decade certainly shape what’s to come, the talent acquisition landscape is shifting rapidly due to the new technologies, new industries, and new priorities. Keeping a pulse on what’s working and what’s shifting in the early talent space is essential to gaining an edge in this competitive job market – so we’ve identified four trends to watch this year. By analyzing trends from the 2019 recruitment cycle and data from our base of 100,000 candidates, we’ve outlined four areas that every professional who hires at the entry-level should be aware of.  Keep reading for our insights, or download our 2020 Trends Report for even more additional info.

The demand for entry-level talent has become increasingly competitive, leading to lower offer acceptance rates and more instances of “candidate ghosting.” 

For college graduates, 2019 was one of the best years in recent history to enter the professional job market. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, employers intended to hire nearly 17% more graduates from the class of 2019 than they did from the class of 2018, and the unemployment was the lowest it's been for nearly 50 years. The favorable job market means that even entry-level candidates have more leverage when assessing offers and deciding where to start their careers – and it shows.

According to the most recent data available through NACE, the offer acceptance rate for recent graduates hovered around 67%; in 2015, that rate was as high as 74%. And data collected on the class of 2019 through RippleMatch uncovered that 62% of graduates surveyed had 2-3 job offers to choose from, suggesting that 2019 offer acceptance rates were even lower than years prior. 

Even when candidates do accept offers, there’s no guarantee they’ll show up to work as planned. “Candidate ghosting” entered the talent acquisition lexicon in 2018 and didn’t show signs of disappearing in 2019. A report released by Randstad found that Gen Z candidates were among the worst culprits of ghosting – 43% of surveyed candidates had accepted a job, only to renege on their offer before their first day. 

If the economy slows down, offer acceptance rates may go up and instances of candidate ghosting may fade. But assuming the economy stays strong, companies can take steps to increase their offer acceptance rates at the entry-level – read our recommendations here. 

Personalized interaction has emerged as an important element when recruiting Gen Z talent.

It turns out that a generation of digital natives prefer face-to-face communication over an impersonal process, even if that process is implemented for the sake of efficiency. 

Data collected from candidates interviewing with companies on our platform between fall 2018 and spring 2019 revealed that on average, candidate excitement toward an opportunity increased following an interview. Companies that saw the largest increases (+10%) in candidate excitement provided their candidates with a positive experience; candidates reported that they connected with their interviewer, gained additional knowledge of company culture and life, and could see themselves fitting in with the company following their interview.

Qualitative feedback RippleMatch collected throughout the same time period revealed that many candidates associated a negative candidate experience with impersonal interaction, such as pre-recorded video interviews or a lack of communication throughout the process. In the case of pre-recorded interviewing technology, the feedback we collected revealed that many first-time job seekers didn’t understand the role the technology played in the process and believed it to be a replacement for a first-round interview with a real person. 

Data released in 2019 by other early-career recruitment companies reinforced Gen Z’s preference for personalized interaction as well. A 2019 recruitment survey by Yello found that 51% of Gen Z respondents said they prefer to communicate face-to-face or through other personalized methods, while only 25% said they prefer to communicate digitally. Gen Z candidates also view recruiters as ‘trusted advisors,’ according to the Yello survey. 44% of respondents said the recruiter they spoke with had the biggest impact on their decision to accept a job, compared to only 29% of Millennials who said the same.

Previous internship experience is the top criteria for recruiters when assessing candidates. 

RippleMatch’s algorithms are fueled by hundreds of data points provided by both the candidates and recruiters on our platform. One data set requires recruiters to rank the importance of factors like previous internship experience, GPA, major, and university prestige in potential candidates.

According to the composite data collected from university recruiters that used RippleMatch in 2019, a candidate’s previous internship experience is the most valuable piece of information recruiters use when assessing their fit for a role. The second most valuable is a candidate’s major, followed by their level of leadership experience in an on-campus organization. A candidate’s GPA and school prestige were ranked as somewhat important, while a student’s SAT and ACT test scores were ranked as not at all important in comparison to other factors. 

Recruiters also have the opportunity to prioritize candidates who have interned with certain companies. According to our data, the most “requested” previous companies by far are Google, Amazon, and Facebook. Students that have held internships with those companies are in extremely high demand and will be more difficult to win over as they’re juggling more offers. To avoid disappointing offer acceptance rates, talent teams that recruit heavily for technical roles should also look beyond the small pool of prestigious internship holders and assess candidates based on what they produced in their internship and what skills they acquired. 

Download our 2020 Trends Report for the full rankings of recruiter priorities and the top 5 most requested internships.

Highly-selective institutions remain the most in-demand among recruiters, but talent teams that broaden their schools and academic requirements see a more diverse talent pool.  

In 2019, 6 of our top 10 most requested schools on our platform were a part of the Ivy League. Our top 20 most requested schools (download our 2020 Trends Report for the full list!) included the two remaining Ivy League schools, as well as highly selective private and public institutions like Stanford University, Duke University, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, and the University of California, Berkeley. It’s clear that elite institutions remain a popular choice among university recruiting teams. However, the companies on our platform that expanded their list of target schools beyond those typically included in the U.S. News top 20 saw pipelines that had more racial/ethnic diversity, as well as socioeconomic diversity. 

We discovered this by analyzing the pipelines of companies that weighted school prestige as “not so important” vs. the companies that weighted school prestige as “very or extremely important” when evaluating a candidate’s fit for a role. On average, a company that didn’t assign school prestige any particular importance saw a pipeline where 37% of candidates were underrepresented minorities (URM), 50% were female, and 25% were first-generation college students. In contrast, the average pipeline of a company who placed a high importance on school prestige looked like this: 24% URM, 45% female, and 13% first-generation college students. 

Companies that broaden their reach outside of the top 20 nationally-ranked schools and evaluate candidates from public colleges and universities, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) will end up with a more diverse pool of candidates without sacrificing quality. For more ideas on expanding your recruitment reach, download our guide “Beyond the Ivy League,” which highlights the top HBCUs, HSIs, Women’s College, Tribal Colleges, and public schools in the U.S.

From navigating the competitive hiring landscape to implementing new ways to build diverse pipelines, these are the top trends to watch this year. Whether you revamp your entire strategy or make small changes over time, there are countless opportunities to improve your recruitment strategies in 2020 and the decade ahead.