Make graduate recruiting a continuing process, not a one-time event.
Start your relationship with students well before they leave uni. The Internet makes this an easy, cost effective strategy.
But how do you start an online relationship?
- Create a top-notch interactive graduate site that will get graduates’ attention and keep them coming back to your site. A good example of a graduate recruitment site is Hewttt. Microsoft just launched a bit of a wacky one, Hey, Genius! (bonus points for you if you can figure out their games).
- Get graduates to your web site and then have them opt in so you can communicate with them.
- Use professors, lecturers and assistants at targeted universities to help get students to your graduate site. You can create virtual projects or case studies for them to complete and be reviewed.
- If appropriate, “donate” your company’s products to universities. For example, a recruitment software company could donate their software for use in an HR recruiting course, getting students exposed to the technology and the company at an early stage in their career. I did this at my first job (a gazillion years ago) and the programme is still running!
- Once students are on your site, keep them there and impress them with your blog, chat room, video feeds, podcasts, etc.
- You can use assessment tools to pinpoint top students, and give them special status as “fast trackers”.
- Create an e-newsletter to keep students up-to-date and create a positive impression of your company. Add a RSS feed so students can subscribe to receive news.
After a while, you will have a created a positive, online relationship with this group.
What are your thoughts on creating an online relationship? Leave us a comment, we'd love to hear.
-Susanna
PS -- Our next post in this series is on "communicating in their language".
** This post is an excerpt from Advorto's “15-minute guide to graduate recruiting”. You can download the full report for FREE.
fresh graduates are actually a good addition to a company and they are really trainable. Having a program focusing on recruiting fresh graduates are actually a good idea.
Posted by: elaine | July 20, 2008 at 17:19
Above you will find some good tips about graduate recruitment process. The recruitment software can be very handy in this process.
Posted by: Recruitment Software | August 26, 2009 at 14:14
Interesting. You need to get graduate recruitment right - as attracting candidates at this level is key to lowering the cost of attracting 1st class employees.
Posted by: recruitment software | July 28, 2011 at 17:12
Taking the recruitment software a step further, social media is certainly an outlet to continually engage with recent grads. Creating an alumni group on LinkedIn, for example, can be a great way to engage young professionals.
Posted by: Bullhorn Recruitment Software | September 07, 2011 at 14:50