Beyond the rankings: Employers use their own criteria in hiring

September 21, 2023

Andy Chan, the vice president of innovation and career development at Wake Forest, says that when deciding to recruit talent from colleges and universities, recruiters prioritize several factors, but media rankings are not one of them.

“I think that what happens is that employers themselves and graduate schools don’t really look at rankings because they use their own criteria to measure the quality of the candidates, not based on what some media outlet is telling you is good or not,” Chan said in a recent interview with the Old Gold & Black.

Chan points to a Gallup-Strada survey which showed that about 9 out of 10 employers do not focus on college rankings when making hiring decisions. Employers are much more interested in a university’s past success in producing talented graduates who are able to excel in their careers, its students’ and graduates’ specific skills and abilities, and its connections to the community and industry.

Wake Forest attracts a wide diversity of recruiters and graduate programs from across the country. Chan said that employers and graduate schools who recruit at Wake Forest rate their experience as outstanding with 70 Net Promoter Score (over 50 is excellent). They also consistently report that Wake Forest produces top talent with a high work ethic and key competencies/skills (e.g., analytical, critical thinking, interpersonal, communication, teamwork, and collaboration).

“It’s clear what employers are looking for is skills and experiences,” Chan told the Old Gold & Black. “The better you’re able to describe the skills that you’ve gained whether it be through classwork, or through extracurricular work, or through clubs and other types of things, even certificate programs, that’s what they want to see.”
President Susan R. Wente said that Wake Forest’s hallmark is delivering just that kind of transformational education experience for students through small classes, personal attention and mentoring from professors who are top scholars and experts in their fields.

In her most recent blog post, Wente said that Wake Forest’s commitment to the teacher-scholar model is the key: “Wake Forest faculty are brilliant researchers and scholars AND they are exceptional teachers. In many institutions, these descriptors are mutually exclusive. Not here.”