Graduates who apply for jobs shortly after they are advertised out-perform those who wait until the deadline, according to new research.
A study of the test scores of 7,000 graduates, by psychometric testing firm SHL, shows that early applicants were in the top 50 per cent of performers, compared to later applicants who were in the bottom 30 per cent.
The findings, unveiled at the Occupational Psychology Annual Conference on Wednesday, held true across a variety of different job sectors and also across recruitment cycles ranging from three weeks to six months, said report authors James Bywater and Tamsin Martin.
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One possible explanation is that the brightest people are the most organised, Bywater said.
He said graduate recruiters “must hit the ground running with their recruitment early on in the season, to maximise responses from the best applicants”.
