In a highly competitive job market it is crucial to select those candidates who’ve got that certain something.

The thing is, though, it may be quite challenging to put your finger on what that “certain something” is, which by the way does not really come as a surprise…

When it comes to fresh grads it may be their education, for example. Or… Well it’s not that obvious any longer.

Check out: Want to Hire the Best College Grads? Ignore the Degree

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Glossary

• grad – a graduate
• hire (v) – employ
• hire (n) – a person hired or to be hired
• asset – a useful and desirable thing or quality
• bright – intelligent
• commit – to pledge or engage oneself

Think about it

Decide whether the statements below are true or false.

• Craig Vodnik hired new grads because he chose to do so.
• Music graduates can make good programmers.
• Economizing on training new employees is not effective in the long run.
• Students should first graduate before taking on a position at a company.

Practice makes perfect

In the sentences below replace the phrases in bold with the expressions from the original text. Leave your answers in the comments below!

• Want to economize on personnel and hire people with energy and enthusiasm?
• Cleverbridge, a start-up headquartered in Germany with an office in Chicago, began by hiring new grads because they had no other option.
• That proved to be a good thing, as many of cleverbridge’s recently graduated hires appeared to be some of its greatest assets. 
• Don’t join the competition for the most demanded degrees.
• Smart companies see to it that they invest in their employees and provide the training to help them learn new skills.
• Go through the interview process and find those smart young people who are gung-ho to show what they can do.

Put the words in bold back where they belong.

end up  –  become  –  making  –  miss out  –  provide  –  make  

Music majors may ______ great programmers, but not on their first day in the job. Smart companies ______ the commitment to invest in their employees and ______ the training to help them learn new skills. Companies that don’t do this are ______ a mistake, Vodnik says. “They ______ on good quality hungry people. And they ______ having to pay market rate for them after they’ve gotten the experience.”

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