Stephen Isherwood, joint CEO at the Institute of Student Employers, identifies the key questions that early careers recruiters will need to grapple with in 2025
I'm always so mindful of whoever said, 'there are no facts about the future', when thinking about New Year predictions. So I have three questions for the year ahead:
- Will the volume of applications students now make (and therefore the rejections they receive) explode as an issue that employers are challenged to address?
- Will the use of AI by students at various stages in an online selection process cause employers to ramp up face-to-face interactions?
- Will the debate around student skills development reach the depth the subject deserves?
Record numbers of students rejected
Student applications per vacancy are now at record numbers.1 This is partly because the jobs market is weak so there is more competition for roles, partly because AI can make it quicker and easier to apply, and partly because employers are more likely to use tests than arbitrary measures like A-level grades to screen out applicants. And because applications are up in a static jobs market, the average student will receive a significant number of emails saying no, or from some, no response at all.
Two responses a recruiter has in their toolbox each carries a significant downside. One is to keep the application window tight but this can limit a broad range of applicants. The other is to add a greater element of automation, but this risks exacerbating the problem and could end up in technology screening AI applications - note I was careful not to say that AI will screen out applications as I'm yet to be convinced this is how AI will be deployed.
This isn't a solution for one employer or solutions provider to solve alone. My view is that we will need to get our collective heads together and find a fix that enhances the student application experience while maintaining flexibility in the jobs market.
Our approach to skills development and how students transition through education and into work needs to improve.
Will the real applicant please turn up?
It's clear from ISE survey data and the conversations on our forums that students who use AI to answer questions in the selection process are an increasing concern for employers.2 Some students use AI to complete application forms, others to answer questions during online interviews.
Employers tell us they are seeing an increase in the use of generic phrases that lack authenticity and are over-simplified responses.3 While students who use AI in a similar vein to Google as part of their research and preparation should be commended for their thoroughness, students that simply regurgitate generative AI responses risk underselling themselves and being quickly rejected.
Could this lead to an increase in the number of face-to-face interactions between students and recruiters? Possibly. We already know of at least one employer who has added an additional office-based stage to their selection process.
Skills are the key to individual and economic growth
The government's own economic and labour market data can take a while to unpick - I know this as I have just spent more than a few hours attempting to understand just what the future might look like for student recruitment and development. Here are just a few of the data points available within the Office for National Statistics' many, many spreadsheets:
- In the next ten years the UK needs approximately three to four million more people in work but the working age population will increase only by 1.14million (whereas the over-70s will increase by 2.1million).
- 9.34million people aged 16 to 64 are economically inactive and nearly one million (946,000) young people are currently classified as NEET (not in employment, education or training).
- Currently only 16.4million people in England & Wales are educated to level 4 and above, yet there are 18.6million level 4+ jobs currently in the economy, rising to 22.7million over the next ten years.
So our approach to skills development and how students transition through education and into work needs to improve. Government policy will drive an element of change, particularly through Skills England and apprentice levy reform within England. But employers and educators will also instigate change as labour market forces create supply problems, particularly when growth returns to the economy.
As this century reaches the quarter-way point, the one fairly certain prediction I will make is that the world of student recruitment development is set to become even more complex. All actors, employers, educators, solutions providers, government, and the students themselves, have a part to play helping our end of the labour market perform stronger.
Notes
- 5 trends you need to know from ISE's Recruitment Survey 2024, ISE, 2024.
- Ibid.
- Employers reveal how AI is changing early careers recruitment, ISE, 2024.
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