Graduate recruitment process - General - Careers Clinic

10 Graduate recruitment process

24 Aug, 2018 10:22

Morning all - it's Friday!

Each year we attend university careers fairs with the aim of attracting graduates for our two year graduate programme. Last year we attended as usual and were handed 250+ CV's. We have two graduate vacancies advertised and have emailed all 250 students and have only had one application.

I appreciate, due to slow management decisions, we are very late making contact and the majority will already have planned or started their career elsewhere.

We're about to book the next round of careers fairs for the Autumn and I'm wondering if we'd have better results using specialist websites and social media. I'd appreciate your views on whether you think this is the way forward. Do you have any experience of sites such as Gradsouthwest?

Thanks

Jackie

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Keith | 0 Posts

24 Aug, 2018 10:33

You will have better results following up immediately - the delay using whatever method you have will signal to any decent candidate that you are not interested. Its a huge disengagement factor.

Attraction isn't really the issue as you got 250 CVs for only 2 jobs - process is.

In the current climate that's a great ratio....

I would probably go to the fair again, alternatively just used LinkedIn and see what I attracted, or just contact a couple of local universities.
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Jackie | 0 Posts

24 Aug, 2018 11:29

In reply to Keith:
Thank you Keith. I agree. I think attending and not following up is worse than not attending. The issue over the past couple of years has been that we attend the fairs with no vacancies signed off, so then it can be a few months before we know what our exact graduate requirement is. I will propose that we attend the two local fairs and work on improving our online profile for this year. For next year we will sort out the process and get the recruitment signed off before the local Autumn fairs so that we are in a position to shortlist and invite to interview before the Christmas break.
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David | 0 Posts

24 Aug, 2018 11:39

In reply to Jackie:
Hi Jackie

Possibly, it might be far better to forget about for the time being inconvenient facts like not being signed-off and get on promptly with preliminary sifting of applicants into a 'long list' - no matter at this stage exactly how many vacancies (or even none at all) ultimately get formally approved.
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Jackie | 0 Posts

24 Aug, 2018 12:12

In reply to David:
Hi David, we have sorted by degree subject those that applied through the latest careers fairs and have made contact with them all. The issue we have is that it has taken several months for managers to come to a decision on whether they want to recruit this year and we have had little if any info to give to the graduates to keep them interested.
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Lesley | 0 Posts

24 Aug, 2018 20:13

What is the point of going to a career fair if your recruitment process hasn't started until 6+ months later? You need to align your marketing activity with the recruiting activity!

Many graduate recruiters start targeting students from their first year at university attracting them early with internship programmes and will offer the best performers on those internships graduate jobs, before they even start advertising their graduate vacancies.

Autumn is usually the busiest time for careers fairs for graduate recruitment, with most employers opening their recruitment process up in late autumn, with vacancies closing in the winter and interviews in the spring, so that students are heading into final exams with conditional offers secured. However, this timeline is moving earlier and earlier every year and it's not unusual for top graduates to start receiving offers around Christmas now.
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Jawwad Siddiqui | 0 Posts

26 Aug, 2018 11:44

Hello Jackie,

Although career fairs its great to create awareness about your organizations, but visiting one university or even 4 or 5 limits your reach to candidates.

My organization has a Graduate Recruit Program every year and this year we had 6000 applicants from all over the country and our only means of advertising was social media.

Most of our recruitment process is digital for it helps us in screening candidates aswell. Going digital on social media would help you find candidates who are currently looking for opportunities. But even these applicants will be valid for a short amount of time, if you delay your process in contacting these candidates they will again not be available or will be working elsewhere.
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Steve Bridger | 0 Posts

Community Manager

28 Aug, 2018 11:58

In reply to Jackie:
Hi Jackie... I wonder whether we should move your thread to the Careers Clinic (open to non-members) to see if we can draw on the experience of some recent graduates? What do you think?
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Jackie | 0 Posts

28 Aug, 2018 12:03

In reply to Steve Bridger:
Hi Steve, yes that would be helpful. I'm aware that the process needs speeding up but would also like ideas on websites that graduates are accessing. We're currently using university careers sites, our own website and LinkedIn.
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Steve Bridger | 0 Posts

Community Manager

28 Aug, 2018 12:08

In reply to Jackie:
Done :)
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Lesley | 0 Posts

28 Aug, 2018 13:10

In reply to Jackie:
University Careers Sites and LinkedIn are good places to start.

I would probably look at Instagram if you can - especially if you can get some good visual content from your current graduates.

Another useful approach could be running a chat on twitter/facebook/google hangouts/WhatsApp etc. to allow candidates to ask questions about the process etc. The platform doesn't matter so much as providing the opportunity, advertising it and managing the chat well.

One thing that also works well is getting current graduates and scheme alumni involved in the design of the programme and recruitment process to use their thoughts about what works and also help potential recruits meet those who have been there.
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