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It’s that time of year again when the process of graduate recruitment begins and once again we find ourselves with mountains of CVs from would-be leaders of tomorrow professing great interest in a career in … (oh the virtues of the Find & Replace function!)

With more graduates on the market than ever before, all with a plethora of Duke of Edinburgh Awards, charity work and a list of healthy pursuits you may, like me, feel that all these kids have really learned is how to market themselves – not in itself a bad thing but how do you find the real substance?

What we need is a foolproof set of criteria that goes deeper than the ‘red brick’ university applicants or the ‘first degrees only’ approach.

I like to start with the end in mind – what sort of leaders do we want or need? What sort of employees do we need them to be while on their journey to the top? And, what kind of people will reward us with their loyalty for our investment?

1) Numeracy & literacy
OK so this may seem trite for a graduate intake, until you test them. In a technological world the ability to read is greater than the ability to write and mental arithmetic is almost non-existent. It is therefore, perfectly possible that your graduates may not be able to write a business proposal without a set of templates and style guidelines. It is also highly likely that sat face to face with a prospect in a negotiation they will not have the mental agility to close a profitable deal!

Top tip: Look for degrees that require both Maths and English to be tested and developed throughout the syllabus.

2) Oral communication
Think of an average week in your organisation and calculate roughly how many meetings, presentations, seminars and networking events you attend. Then consider how many of these face-to-face encounters are interesting, productive and informative? Clarity of thought translated into inspiring verbal presentation is at the heart of good leadership so make sure your intake has the basics in place.

Top tip: Rather than group exercises to produce presentations, put your graduates under pressure and ask them to comment on one of your key business issues or world affairs providing a balanced argument with no more than 10 minutes alone to prepare.

3) Open to change
Many assessment days incorporate an element of change by asking applicants to compile a budget in a given timeframe and then halfway through telling them to cut the budget by half. This is usually met with startled looks and groans but is nonetheless an effective way of observing behaviours in a real-world scenario.
Personally, I need to understand more about this particular attribute as good leaders embrace change and this is largely derived from their upbringing and past experience. I ask applicants to talk to me about their biggest mistake, what they learned and how they now behave differently. My favourite was a guy who had a talent for sales discovered during his Summer call centre job. He had decided to finish education after sixth form to earn some money which he did very successfully and had earned and lost in the region of £200k over an 18 month period! He told me that had he invested in shares in his favourite nightclub rather than spending it on wine, women and dancing the night away he would have made a lot more money and so decided to go to university to study business management and now had an interest in property portfolio development!

Top tip: Ask your graduates to tell you about their biggest mistake or to describe a major period of change in their life and try to understand how they dealt with it emotionally. Did it make them a stronger person? Did they come out fighting? Did they learn from the experience and adapt their behaviour? If they merely adapted their expectations – give them a wide berth, unless you want your future MD to tell the shareholders that profit expectations were not met, so next year we will reduce the targets!

4) Lifelong learner
Life is a marathon, not a sprint and while I have a certain sympathy for graduates who leave university sick to death of writing essays and reading text books we need to know that they take every opportunity to expand their thinking. Here, I’m looking for demonstrations of further learning, where what they were told simply wasn’t enough to satisfy their hunger for knowledge. The focus for me is the demonstration of learning for an outcome, where the applicant is motivated to learn or gain a qualification for reasons other than it would look good on my CV.

Top tip: Your graduates need to be able to demonstrate self directed development with an outcome in mind. Beware the lifelong academic for they belong in academia not the commercial world.

5) Enthusiastic
I know that they all come into the assessment day enthusiastic – I mean genuine enthusiasm for what your company does and the role that they would like within your company. HMV is an excellent example; applicants for even Saturday jobs must be able to demonstrate a passion for music, film or television just to make it through to interview.
So how much have these applicants done to prepare for their interview? Possibly on-boarding which are short pieces of pre-induction e-learning available via the company website is proving to be very effective here. QR (Quick Response) codes on assessment day literature are also a very effective way of leading applicants on a virtual treasure hunt for information in preparation for the day.

Top tip: The amount of work an applicant has done in preparation for their assessment day is a very simple indicator of their enthusiasm for your company. Once an applicant brought a pile of application letters with her to the interview demonstrating her interest in the company from the age of 16 for work experience and various part-time positions all through university – all unsuccessful, that applicant is now 4 years in on her third promotion.

6) Flexibility
The global economy created by the internet means that even the smallest of companies can now trade across continents with ease; this means that your graduates have to be flexible about their location and working hours. Asking an applicant whether they are prepared to work abroad just makes the role sound more exciting and is only ever likely to be met with a positive response. Try digging a little deeper – did they ever move schools or house, other than with the masses at secondary and sixth form? Did they have to make new friends? Was this easy or difficult? Did people treat them differently? How did they cope with being the new kid?

Top tip: Are your graduates able to consistently establish themselves as leaders in different locations with different groups of people? Can they demonstrate reaching a consensus with new people in order to move on with their life?

I don’t believe that the workplace has become more demanding in the past 20 years, in many ways employee rights have improved and embrace family and work life balance. But, I do believe that the workplace is now more complex and much faster paced where transparency and communication are key and the ability to perform under pressure is paramount. That means that the leaders of the future need to be able to think on their feet and react effectively in the moment and consistently to ensure that their stakeholders remain loyal. This is no mean task – think of Gordon Brown in the last election, Tony Hayward during the recent BP oil spill both brilliant men in their given field but not sufficiently rounded to deliver consistently under pressure.

With this in mind, good graduates don’t necessarily become good leaders they require nurturing, investment and support. In order to attract the best graduates, organisations need to build a reputation for developing all of their workforce not just the fast-track, this ensures that the culture of your organisation attracts and breeds the very best which in turn means that your profits will soar!