Why we love hiring grads
At Navigo, we care a lot about who’s in our team. Grad hiring has been an important part of building Navigo and we take pride in developing people personally and professionally.
Here’s what our founder, Peter Forbes, had to say about the origins of the Navigo business:
“When I started my first HR technology consultancy business in 2002, I was a lone consultant who could easily grab the next full time contract to find work. But I wanted to scale, I wanted to hire staff so I could be less on the tools and work more on the business itself. I couldn’t afford an experienced Oracle/HRMS consultant, so I hired my first part-time employee – Ben, a recent IT graduate.
As soon as Ben started, I set out to create a mini-me – I taught him everything I knew about databases, coding, payroll, HR schemas, requirements gathering, working onsite etc. In the early days Ben would tag along with me to customer sites, observe and write a lot of notes documenting how to do things – and slowly but surely the knowledge transfer happened.
Within 12 months, Ben had enough technical knowledge and consulting manners to go out onsite at junior rates and do some gigs. Within 24 months, Ben was a fully-fledged technical consultant handling harder engagements.
I repeated this formula with another couple of grads and viola! I had built a consulting business.”
We want our team to feel confident that they can do their job well and that they’re building skills for their long-term career. To make sure we always find the right fit for the role, we have an extensive hiring process that focuses on attitude rather than experience.
Top 3 reasons to hire a graduate
Here’s three reasons why we think grads are a great asset:
- No bad habits – it’s difficult to un-teach experienced candidates bad habits and practices they’ve picked up from other organisations. You won’t have this problem with graduates, you’ll be the first to teach them best practices without having to break the bad habits first.
- Adaptable and keen to learn – graduates coming into the workplace don’t have a lot of preconceived notions – this means they’re open to different ways of doing things. A driven graduate will work hard to exceed expectations and will be better equipped to adjust to a fast paced environment.
- Fresh perspective – having a diverse workforce helps bring in new perspectives to different situations. Graduates are more likely to question the way things work and can bring new solutions to old problems.
Before we share some of our graduate success stories with you, let us give you some tips to keep in mind when hiring a graduate.
Things to keep in mind when hiring a graduate
- Do a trial day – it’s a great way to gauge if the applicant has the right attitude for your work environment. Give them a few tasks to perform on their own, this way you can tell if they can easily follow instructions. This not only helps the employer, but the candidate can also get a sense of whether or not it’s a good fit for them as well.
- Provide a career, rather than a job – high-performing graduates have a strong sense of purpose and a clear idea of what they want their future to look like. Once you’ve hired a graduate, work with them to define a career path over the next 12 – 24 months. Set short and long-term goals so they stay motivated to excel in their role and make sure you keep checking in.
- Use your culture to attract graduates – if you’re committed to attracting and retaining top graduates, make sure your culture is worth sticking around for. Use your core values as a lens for making hiring decisions.
- Give feedback to applicants – take it from a graduate, we always appreciate feedback even if it’s short and sweet. If someone didn’t make it to the next round, give them some constructive feedback if you can.
Our graduate success stories
Here’s just a few of our graduate success stories that we’re thrilled to share:
Ben – Stayed with us for 10 years, now a HR Tech veteran with 13 years in the sales/account management space with a full suite HR Tech Vendor.
Matt – One of our early grads, Matt worked for us for over 7 years developing his technical and consulting chops. Matt is now an engineering manager at help desk giant Zendesk.
Sarang – After 6 years with us in marketing, consulting, project management, he moved on to start a new journey with a large SaaS vendor.
Anthony – Worked with us for over 2 years as a technical consultant, moved to a consulting role at Deloitte and now works as a DevOps Engineer at Bunnings.
Billy – Started out with us in 2015, he then moved on to work at Zero latency VR as a data and insights analyst. In 2021, Billy boomeranged back to us for another 3 year stint before he moved into a remote implementation consultant role at magnisol.
Prajna – Accepted a role at Navigo in early 2020 right after she completed her marketing post-grad. She quickly became one of our chief cultural officers and has recently been promoted to Marketing Manager.
Varun – Working with us since 2021 and has quickly become a resident expert in our org design tools. He is now working with some of our largest enterprise customers and they love working with him!
Want to start your career in HR Tech? Learn more about what it’s like to work for Navigo here.
