[glimcat]

Just from an efficiency standpoint, you don't need other levers for new grads. A reasonable engineering salary will already be highly motivational for someone who is coming off a student's budget, probably with loans just kicking in.

Some percentage of them are going to flake. That happens when you take people who have spent their lives in an environment with one eval loop and place them in a new environment with differing expectations.

Of those who would flake, some of them can be made into great employees. But a bigger carrot is almost never effective at accomplishing this. The real need is generally along the lines of "effective mentorship" - which is far harder to implement than a revision to your employee benefits plan.