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Millions of students enter the workforce annually, opening businesses up to a high volume of early talent. Recent graduates are eager to learn and bring a fresh perspective to their new organizations. While their real-world job experience may be minimal, investing in their potential could be a cost-effective way to retain a quality hire.
As your talent pool increases, developing an efficient hiring process is essential. You’ll want to get candidates through recruitment to interviewing to accepting an offer as smoothly as possible — and job sites like ZipRecruiter can help. Explore some of the best recruiting platforms for recent college graduates to find your next generation of talent.
Best Overall: ZipRecruiter
Many employers find quality new hires on ZipRecruiter. This popular job site offers a seamless hiring experience from start to finish. Rated as the #1 job site in the U.S.1, ZipRecruiter connects recent college graduates to businesses with its powerful AI matching technology that shortlists profiles that match the criteria you’re looking for. Posting jobs takes minutes, and they even offer a free trial of premium features that can lead to even more top applicants.
Handshake
While most recent graduates have little-to-no real-world job experience, Handshake connects them to employers that may be the right fit. Handshake is trusted by all Fortune 500 companies and leaders across industries. Employers can reach a large, diverse pool of early talent on one website made for college students. It also offers customizable campaigns that make it easy to keep in touch with students who have attended your in-person events so you can invite them to apply later.
SimplyHired
SimplyHired distributes job listings to 100+ job boards for free. They break away from a common pay-per-click model by providing employers with candidate responses to screener questions and resume reviews without charging anything. You’ll only need to pay when you’re ready to contact an applicant.
LinkedIn makes it easy to leverage your network to find jobs. Though job seekers starting out may have smaller networks comprised of professors, university alums and internship connections, it’s still a viable option when looking to score that first job out of college. Recent grads can filter LinkedIn searches by parameters like experience level, industry and location to save time in their search.
Internships.com
You can still recruit recent graduates even if you don’t have an entry-level position available now. Many students would consider accepting post-graduate internships with the expectation that it could lead to a full-time role. Internships.com lets employers post internships for free and provides tips on creating a successful intern program and rules on intern compensation.
1 Based on G2 satisfaction ratings as of January 1, 2022.