Become friends with hires

Hire hardworkers, that does not mean people who work 60 hour weeks it means those with a work ethic, those who see it as important to do a good job of what they do. Everything else can be taught

But not to nice. I tried being the perfect nice boss, flexible working hours, bought lunches, training & support to learn, time off in abundance for personal problems. Plenty of time for deadlines. Lent a supportive ear when ever needed from everything from helping pick a location for a romantic date to dealing with depression.

Being nice all the time with no defined limits at where you will stop  resulted in people not seeing this as me putting in extra effort for them but instead as the expected (this is probably heavily due to highing many graduates). I always gave time off when requested for dr's appointments of staying in for a delivery etc and soon staff stopped requesting time off and started telling me with only a days notice they would not be coming in. Staff had little definition of what amount of work was an acceptable amount for a full day. This resulted in staff coming in late, getting little work done and then being ready to leave.

Many graduates will lack the broad selection of technical skills needed to work in the web industry at the point they graduate. They will likely be able to build the project but not in a professional manner as they unfamiliar with build tools, version control or testing techniques. But as I said before most technical skills can be trained. Unfortunately what many grads lack is an understanding  of work place, particularly an agency type environment. What I've encountered with many is a view that instructions from a manager or client are an opinion that does not need to be followed. As much as I believe staff should be able to question instructions. I had many times where they went off without discussion and built things how they saw fit. Another problem was a lack of understanding of the results of delivering a poorly polished product to client or delivering late.

Don't hire grads expecting them to be adequate junior and ready to run on their own. If you are able to support and train staff not just in technical skills but also professional skills then you should definitely hire grads, but be aware this is not a cheap option. Most of the time it's an expensive but rewarding option in the long run. Be prepared to fail, set work goals so they know what is expected but also set learning goals. These are as much for you as they are for them. Using these you know if you've been able to help them grow into the employee you are after.