Using Data & Psychometrics in Graduate Recruitment

Gillian Howarth, Resourcing Development Manager at John Lewis Partnership (JLP) demonstrates how historical application data has helped the retail giant – owners of John Lewis and Waitrose – to increase the diversity of its graduate intake, whilst also improving the calibre of candidates reaching assessment stage and helping to minimise graduate recruitment costs overall.
imposter

Gillian Howarth, Resourcing Development Manager at John Lewis Partnership (JLP) demonstrates how historical application data has helped the retail giant – owners of John Lewis and Waitrose – to increase the diversity of its graduate intake, whilst also improving the calibre of candidates reaching assessment stage and helping to minimise graduate recruitment costs overall.

By looking at a new funnel system that would make graduate recruiting as diverse and efficient as possible. The process allowed JLP the opportunity to be more rigorous in its sifting using automated assessments and video interviews to screen applicants and helped to improve its diversity in areas such as gender, ethnicity, disability and age, so that the retailer could be sure that its new intake of ‘partners’ were more representative of its customer communities. Measures to achieve this included removing UCAS points to show that they were investing in students from all types of socio-economic backgrounds. In addition, the change helped encourage JLP to make graduate recruitment fully virtualised. The programme now has no campus visits and has a larger focus on social media engagement with senior management investment as and where appropriate.

 

Read more

Latest News

Read More

Leveraging Data to Drive Smarter Business Decisions in Law Firms

9 July 2025

Newsletter

Receive the latest HR news and strategic content

Please note, as per the GDPR Legislation, we need to ensure you are ‘Opted In’ to receive updates from ‘theHRDIRECTOR’. We will NEVER sell, rent, share or give away your data to third parties. We only use it to send information about our products and updates within the HR space To see our Privacy Policy – click here

Latest HR Jobs

University of Oxford – Harris Manchester CollegeSalary: £28,889 to £33,453 (FTE equivalent: £48,149–£55,755), inc. Oxford University weighting of £900 (FTE equivalent: £1,500)

HRUCSalary: £43,077 to £45,540 per annum

University of Bath – Human ResourcesSalary: £30,805 to £37,174. Grade 6

Miryco Consultants is working with a leading global asset manager, looking for an HR Business Partner for a 12-month maternity cover. This will be a

Read the latest digital issue of theHRDIRECTOR for FREE

Read the latest digital issue of theHRDIRECTOR for FREE