Recruitment 2.0

Graduate recruiting tip #9: Create a student placement scheme

A placement scheme is a great way to test the water, for both employer and employee.

Although "internships" aren't as ingrained in UK business culture as they are in mainland Europe and the US, there are many companies here that use this strategy. The AGR Summer Survey 2008 (available free to members or £200 to non-members) reports that UK companies rate "internships" very highly "in terms of valuable experience and also as a pool from which to select high quality graduate employees."

When you think about it, a placement scheme is a perfect way to have a better look at candidates, and for candidates to learn amore about your company. This makes a lot of sense in today's current economic climate, and we may soon see more companies using this strategy.

Many companies with well thought out placement schemes find they can lead to a steady source of reliable candidates, and if offered a full time jobs, some of their most loyal and productive hires.

In fact, some placement schemes manage to convert 75 percent of placements to graduate hires!
Unfortunately many placement schemes are not well thought out, are poorly funded and have no measurements of success.

Here are some tips to think about when creating a student placement scheme:

1. Provide “real work” – Yes, students will expect some grunt work, but structure it so there is something tangible and that they feel they are adding to their experience and building their CV.
2. Create mini-projects – graduates love a sense of accomplishment, which can be hard to get with a short term placement.  Create a project that the students can do from start to finish in the allotted time frame, and let them present the results. Obviously these projects have to be valuable to your organisation, but with a little thought this can turn out to be a win-win idea.
3. Have the CEO or other senior executives give “master classes” to placement scheme participants once a month. Of course, these could take the form of conference calls, webcasts, podcasts etc. The students will feel important, and it will get senior management in touch with Generation Y.
4. Assign students to work alongside a senior exec or manager. Make sure you pick the right exec (some are better at managing students than others).
5. Provide a mentor, close to their age and interests.
6. Design the placement programme so the students know they will work with the latest methods and technologies, this will be a draw for them.
7. Offer students training. The incremental cost of adding students to your training programme is minimal and they will appreciate it.

What are the aspects of your most successful placement scheme? We'd love to hear...

-Susanna

PS -- Our next post in this series is on "going on campus".

This post is an excerpt from Advorto's “15-minute guide to graduate recruiting”. You can download the full report for FREE.

Graduate recruiting tip #8: Build a graduate talent pool

Everyone is talking about the shortage of top talent and how difficult it is to find the best fit for your programme and company. Once you identify the right people, it takes time to develop relationships. You can rarely close a "sale" without a previous relationship.

So here's tip #8: Create a database of students that are the right profile for your company and are potential candidates for your graduate programme. Then build an ongoing relationship with them.

Theoretically this sounds easy. Logistically is can be a nightmare. Unless, of course, you automate the process.

An eRrecruitment management system can help to create a talent pool of suitable students to consider for future graduate programmes. This will help to reduce spend on expensive outside sources. In today's economic environment, saving money always goes over well with senior management.

With an eRecruitment management system, you can easily communicate news and opportunities to the right people with the right medium, such as e-mail or SMS. Feedback is channeled through the system, and you can quickly be informed of availability.

Make sure you collect email addresses and permission to “market” to this group and communicate with them in their language and preferred communications vehicle.

Starting a graduate talent pool can help you to identify and build relationships with your target market. Try it, and give your company a competitive advantage.

What is your experience of building a talent pool? We'd love to hear.

-Susanna

Our next post is on "creating a student placement scheme".

** This post is an excerpt from Advorto's “15-minute guide to graduate recruiting”. You can download the full report for FREE.

Graduate recruiting tip #7: Use an eRecruitment Management System

Call it whatever you like -- "recruitment management system", "eRecruitment", or an "applicant tracking system" -- they can help give you the upper hand in the ultra competitive graduate market.

An eRecruitment solution can enable your company to communicate and respond quickly to applicants and offer a “self-service” system to allow graduates to apply when it suits their schedule. It can automatically book candidates into assessment centres, saving you time and creating a seamless process for your candidates.

Make sure you pick a solution that fits your company’s needs:

• Do you need multi-language support?
• Should you consider all types of recruitment activity as part of your solution?
• Is integration with other systems necessary?
• Would you like to subscribe to a service and let the vendor deal with the IT headaches?
• Do you need a system that can produce results quickly?

Be careful, some systems are so complicated they can take months and an elephant-sized budget to implement.

Check out some examples of companies using these systems to get ahead in recruiting.

-Susanna

PS --Our next post in this series is on "building a graduate talent pool".

** This post is an excerpt from Advorto's “15-minute guide to graduate recruiting”. You can download the full report for FREE.

-Susanna

Graduate recruiting tip #6: Communicate in their language

With all campaigns, you need to decide the most effective way to reach your audience.

You can think of this in terms of both context and content. If you are seen in your market as funky then it may be appropriate to trnsl8 yr msgs in2 txt spk.

Warning: If you are a traditional law firm – don’t try this – it may be detrimental to your image.

Generation Y is the Internet generation. The Internet is their "lingua franca". They have grown up using the Internet, and feel most comfortable using it. Take advantage of this fact and make it work for your campaign.

This is good news on the budget side. You don’t have to spend your money on traditional advertising with this group. Instead, go for the latest communications tools that Web 2.0 has to offer.

Make full use of podcasts, videos, mobile phone videos, social networking, email, and collaboration tools. You can even try Twitter or one of its knock-offs.

Watch out -- you might even enjoy yourself!

What are your thoughts on communicating in "graduate" language? Leave us a comment and let us know.

-Susanna

PS - The next post in this series is on "using a recruitment management system".

** This post is an excerpt from Advorto's “15-minute guide to graduate recruiting”. You can download the full report for FREE.

Graduate recruiting tip #5: Start an online relationship

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?

1. 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).
2. Get graduates to your web site and then have them opt in so you can communicate with them.
3. 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.
4. 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!
5. Once students are on your site, keep them there and impress them with your blog, chat room, video feeds, podcasts, etc.
6. You can use assessment tools to pinpoint top students, and give them special status as “fast trackers”.
7. 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.

Graduate recruiting tip #4: Build your employer brand

A student’s perception of your company and its graduate programme is very important to its success or failure.

Brand images can come and go quickly, and it still surprises me that Google tops the UK corporate brands list.

You can't argue that being listed in the "Top 100 places to work" will get your graduates' attention. And heaven forbid if you ever get listed in the "Top 5 worst places to work".

Work with marketing communications, PR and recruitment advertising to develop and communicate a clear brand. Consider bringing in a specialist external agency, they are the experts. BTW--There’s currently an interesting discussion on agencies on the Talent Management Network.

There is a great post on ERE: "Five things Barrack Obama's campaign proves about your recruitment brand". This article includes some of the ways to brand a company and drive a memorable recruitment campaign.

Also be aware of and monitor your online brand. The internet’s instantaneous nature means a company’s image can quickly be blotted and in the Internet domain for a long time. Keep track of positives and negatives. While it is generally true that "all PR is good PR" it pays to be aware of everything that is being said about your company.

What are your thoughts on employment brands and graduates? Leave us a comment, we'd love to hear.

-Susanna

PS -- Our next post in this series is on "making recruiting a process".

** This post is an excerpt from Advorto's “15-minute guide to graduate recruiting”. You can download the full report for FREE.

Graduate recruiting tip #3: Pay attention to the user experience

It is easy to overlook the importance of your graduates' experience of your recruiting programme. Put yourself in their shoes:  Is your programme straightforward? Is it complicated to figure out? Do you respond to applicants quickly? Do you respond to all applicants even if they are not going to progress in your interview process?

The devil is in the detail, and your corporate reputation and employer brand depend on running a graduate programme that delivers a professional and smooth experience for your target market.

James Hollincheck, the Gartner analyst that covers this space, would probably agree that paying attention to the user experience is paramount to the recruiting experience. In his latest "Magic Quadrant for eRecruitment Software", he says this can be a differentiator and that "improving the hiring manager and candidate user experience is key to addressing many (recruiting) challenges ..."

I agree, getting your user experience sorted out properly can give your programme a great competitive advantage.

Pretend you are a candidate and go through the application process: Could you easily find information about the programme and where to submit your application? Was the process clear?  Was there a seamless transition from the corporate site to the career site? Or did it feel disjointed? After applying, did you feel that someone would actually review your CV, or did you get the feeling that it went into a black hole?

Graduate recruiting is very competitive. Those who understand the importance of the user experience will win. Full stop.

What do you think? Do companies pay enough attention to the user experience? Do you have any examples of career sites that are particularly good (or bad) at this? Let us know, we'd love to hear about it.

-Susanna

PS -- Our next post in this series is on "Building your employer brand".

** This post is an excerpt from Advorto's "15-minute guide to graduate recruiting". You can download the full report for FREE.

Graduate recruiting tip #2: Understand your market -- Generation Y

There has been a lot written in blogsphere recently about Generation Y. I especially liked the recent one on Times Online: Generation Y's unique challenge --
Today’s mollycoddled graduates expect a lot and employers must learn to cater to their needs. The headline says it all!

Like it or not, much of the graduate market is made up of this generation, which includes those born between circa 1976 and 1994.

Also known as the Millennials, this generation is shaped by the leaders, events, and trends of its time. By far the most significant influence on this generation is the Internet. Generation Y was the first to grow up with the World Wide Web, and is used to being constantly bombarded with messages and multi-tasking. The popularity of social networking sites like MySpace, instant messaging, and texting may explain why this generation is known for being peer-oriented and expects instant gratification.

A 2008 survey by UK recruitment consultancy FreshMinds Talent, in partnership with Management Today, suggested that Millennials are generally more ambitious, brand conscious and tend to move jobs more often than ever before. The survey of over 1,000 people, entitled Work 2.0, also revealed several misconceptions about Millennials, including that they are as loyal as their predecessors and believe that their job says something about them as individuals.

The bottom line is that Generation Y is a different kettle of fish. Many of their skills will complement your more experienced employees.

Once you understand your target market, make sure your hiring managers are up-to-date with the graduate hiring market. Hiring managers aren’t necessarily recruiters. Their “fond” memories of being recruited on campus can be dated and no longer relevant.

Educate your hiring managers on the current state of the graduate market. Send out articles and research throughout the year. In advertising, it takes at least three exposures to make a message stick. Keep educating, your message will eventually get through.

What are your thoughts on recruiting Generation Y? Leave a comment on this blog, we'd love to hear.

-Susanna

PS -- Tomorrow's post is on "paying attention to the user experience".

** This post is an excerpt from Advorto's “15-minute guide to graduate recruiting”. You can download the full report for FREE.

Graduate recruiting tip #1: Define your strategy

Taking the time to define and develop a well thought out strategy is the key to a successful graduate programme.

First, you need to understand why you are recruiting graduates in the first place. Have you always done it?  Are you creating a pipeline for your talent pool? Or are you merely trying to fill junior-level positions? All are legitimate reasons; they just require different strategies and tactics.

Next, spend some time understanding how you fit in the graduate market. Are you a big brand attracting graduates regardless of your strategy? Are you a known player in a sector, i.e. always part of a top 10 league table? Are you unknown in the sector and market? Are you trying to recruit graduates for a skill for which you might not be known? Your strategy will have to be based around these issues.

Make sure you that you have the infrastructure and senior-level commitment to support graduates and that you can use them well. Graduates want to grow their management skills and develop them over the long run. Set out promotional opportunities and career paths.

Think about your budget. Define it up front, and decide how you will allocate costs across departments. Decide how many positions you need to fill, and what expertise is required.

Succinctly outline your programme for graduates, including how it differs from the competition. Who “owns” the graduates? Which business areas will participate? What is the duration of the programme? What are the qualifications needed? What training is provided? How will you manage the graduates? What will they be paid and what happens when the programme is over? These are all details that can be overlooked if decisions are made in a hurry, but getting them right is critical to success.

The best resource you have for helping you put together a graduate recruitment campaign is right under your nose – last year’s hires! Get previous graduate hires involved in the programme. They understand your target market, and are more likely to know what will attract them – is it money? Is it training? Create a working group with these people in – they will add value.

What are your experiences with planning and strategy? Leave a comment here, we'd love to know.

-Susanna

PS -- Our next post is on “Understanding your market – Generation Y”

** This post is an excerpt from Advorto's “15-minute guide to graduate recruiting”. You can download the full report for FREE.

The 15-minute guide to graduate recruiting – Available for FREE

Wherever you look, graduate recruiting is in the headlines these days. It’s graduate recruiting crunch time for the legal world and the decision of Trinity Mirror to put its graduate scheme on hold this year helped to contribute to its stock price tumble.

While graduate recruiting is top of mind, we’ve taken the opportunity to release the latest in our series of 15-minute guides.

The “15-minute guide to graduate recruiting” is available now for FREE.

This practical, hands-on guide is loaded with tips and suggestions about graduate recruiting, including how to:

1. Define your strategy
2. Understand your market
3. Pay attention to the user experience
4. Build your brand
5. Make recruiting a process
6. Communicate in their language
7. Go green, and ethical
8. Use a Recruitment Management System
9. Build a graduate talent pool
10. Create a student placement scheme
11. Go on campus
12. Construct a top rate graduate recruitment site
13. Make use of video
14. Create a graduate recruitment newsletter
15. Utilise social networking sites like Facebook
16. Start a recruitment blog
17. Design an effective selection process
18. Think out of the box
19. Measure results

I’m going to cover each section in the next few weeks in Recruitment 2.0. If you don't like your information serialised, you can go ahead and download it now.

Hope you like it. I look forward to your comments.

-Susanna