What to Assess When Hiring for Early Careers - Ranking

Hiring for early careers—graduates, apprentices, and interns—presents unique challenges and opportunities. Unlike experienced professionals, early-career candidates often lack the specific skills or work experience that are typically relied upon in recruitment.

Instead, the focus must shift to identifying potential, particularly the ability to learn and adapt.

This guide outlines the key attributes to assess when recruiting for early-career roles and why cognitive ability should be a central focus.

Early-career candidates are unlikely to possess extensive hard skills or technical expertise. Even when they do, the workplace is an entirely new environment where these skills are likely to be tested in unfamiliar ways. Instead of focusing on specific technical competencies, assess candidates on their ability to acquire and apply new knowledge.

Organisations invest heavily in early-career talent, providing structured training, mentorship, and even formal qualifications.

It is therefore essential to identify candidates who can make the most of these opportunities and build on their foundational knowledge.

Although behavioural traits are important in experienced hires, their predictive value diminishes in early-career recruitment. Candidates in this group are often still discovering their workplace behaviours and adapting to professional norms.

As a result, Natural behavioural inclinations may not provide a strong indication of future performance.

Cognitive ability stands out as the most important factor to assess when hiring for early careers. Unlike behavioural traits or hard skills, cognitive ability directly measures a candidate’s capacity to learn, solve problems, and adapt to new environments—critical traits for success in roles that involve training and development.

Early-career candidates are often "blank slates," meaning they have not yet acquired workplace habits or extensive technical skills. This lack of prior experience makes cognitive ability tests invaluable, as they provide a reliable way to predict which candidates are best equipped to thrive in training programmes and gain new skills effectively.

Key Insight: While academic achievements such as UCAS points or degree classifications can provide some indication of a candidate’s abilities, they are blunt tools. Cognitive ability tests offer a more precise and objective measure of a candidate’s potential.

Aptitude tests are a critical tool in early-career recruitment, as they directly assess a candidate’s ability to learn and problem-solve. These tests provide valuable insights that cannot be gleaned from academic records or interviews. By incorporating aptitude tests into the hiring process, organisations can ensure they are selecting candidates who are primed to succeed in training and development programmes.

Relying solely on academic achievements, such as degree classifications or UCAS points, is a limited approach. Academic performance is influenced by a multitude of factors, including socioeconomic background, access to resources, and personal circumstances.

Cognitive ability tests, on the other hand, offer a level playing field and provide a clearer picture of a candidate’s true potential.

When hiring for early careers, the emphasis should be on potential rather than past accomplishments. Cognitive ability is the cornerstone of an effective assessment strategy, as it provides the most reliable indicator of a candidate’s capacity to learn, adapt, and succeed in a professional setting. While behavioural traits and hard skills have their place, they are secondary to identifying learning potential.

For more guidance on designing your early-career recruitment strategy, contact us to learn how we can support your hiring needs.