Tag: #earlycareers

COVID-19 Series: Recruiting Graduates Without a Campus

Posted on by nfuqua

As organizations around the globe confront the challenges presented by the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, even the most seasoned talent leaders find themselves in uncharted territory. We’re talking to our experts here at PeopleScout about the issues that are most pressing during this uncertain time.

We are focused on the safety of our employees and clients, friends, families and loved ones. However, it is important for many organizations to keep their talent acquisition functions moving – whether to provide essential services or to serve our communities by providing jobs. Many organizations are also now adapting to a newly virtual workforce.

In that spirit, this podcast shares insights from PeopleScout Resourcing Consultant Zuzana Sevcik on how to recruit graduate candidates when students aren’t on campus.

Zuzana is currently working on our Lendlease team in graduate recruitment to source bright-minded graduates that will help to shape and deliver the future of the construction and property industry.

She has an educational background in Business and HR and successfully established and managed a start-up company. Now Zuzana has discovered her passion for graduates and is currently working on her fourth graduate recruitment cycle.

High-Speed Hiring for Key Professional Roles

Posted on by Kate
High-Speed Hiring for Key Professional Roles

Travel & Leisure Recruitment

High-Speed Hiring for Key Professional Roles

A major international airline faced time-to-fill challenges in key professional roles within the organization including finance, purchasing, legal, IT, technical operations and human resources. PeopleScout partnered with the client to implement a full-cycle, end-to-end RPO program focused on hiring speed and agility to improve time-to-fill metrics for professional hiring across multiple key positions.

44 % reduction in the time between offer acceptance and clear-for-hire
OFCCP compliance standards maintained in the heavily regulated airline industry
OFCCP compliance standards maintained in the heavily regulated airline industry
100 % class fill rates for customer service hires

Scope and Scale

A major international airline faced time-to-fill challenges in key professional roles within the organization including finance, purchasing, legal, IT, technical operations and human resources. PeopleScout partnered with the client to implement a full-cycle, end-to-end RPO program focused on hiring speed and agility to improve time-to-fill metrics for professional hiring across multiple key positions.

PeopleScout’s solution provides additional hiring support for union roles and manages airport frontline hiring at all airport stations, above and below the wing, including conducting in-person interview events, making hiring decisions, onboarding and campus hiring.

Situation

PeopleScout partners with a major international airline to manage the airline’s multifaceted and unique hiring needs. PeopleScout supports the hiring of all professional hires in the U.S. and conducts on-site hiring events that include interviewing, selection and onboarding to meet the client’s hiring requirements in short timeframes.

Solution

STREAMLINED RECRUITMENT PROCESS

PeopleScout’s full lifecycle RPO program streamlines the recruiting process to meet the client’s needs.

FULL-SERVICE EXECUTION

PeopleScout executes each phase of the recruitment process from screening candidates, candidate notification, scheduling and submitting written offers to onboarding new hires.

CAMPUS HIRING PROGRAM

PeopleScout manages the client’s campus hiring program. PeopleScout oversees event coordination, travel arrangements, relationship building and brand positioning to recruit undergraduate and MBA students.

OFCCP COMPLIANT

To help the client remain compliant in the heavily regulated airline industry, PeopleScout maintains OFCCP compliance standards.

PROGRAM DATA ANALYSIS

PeopleScout sends regularly updated status reports and analyses of program data to deliver insights into performance metrics and identify areas for improvement.

Results

Optimized Screening Process

PeopleScout optimized the initial candidate screening process, resulting in improvements in the interview-to-offer ratio, time-to-fill and overall quality of hire.

Reduced Acceptance Time

As a result of PeopleScout’s RPO program, there was a 44% reduction in the time between offer acceptance and clear-for-hire for union frontline positions.

Engaging Onboarding Experience

PeopleScout’s delivery team enhances the client’s candidate experience and provides the company’s new hires with an engaging and thoughtful onboarding experience. This resulted in the client’s Candidate Experience Awards wins from 2016 to 2018.

100% fill rates

PeopleScout delivers 100% class fill rates for customer service hires.

At a Glance

  • COMPANY: Major international airline
  • PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS: Recruitment Process Outsourcing
Let’s Connect

Attitude is the New Experience

Posted on by epadmin

There have been numerous studies on turnover rates in multiple industries, and they all land on a similar conclusion: a high proportion of staff fail within the first 18 months of starting a new job. In fact, one study found that figure to be 46 percent of 20,000 new hires in America. When you look at the reasons why, 89 percent of those who failed did so due to cultural misalignment or attitudinal reasons, rather than technical capability.


To try and buck this trend, I’ll share with you a few tips on why it’s so important to attract and retain the right people, rather than the right skill set and how you can adopt this approach in your organization.


First, you need to have a great culture, which is essential to keeping people in the building. Each company’s culture and mission will be unique, and you need to make sure you have values that you stand by. Secondly – and this is the main area that I’m going to focus on in this article – you need to have a recruitment strategy that is aimed at finding the right people for the organization rather than the right skill set at every opportunity, from graduate roles through to senior management. At our client PHD Media Worldwide (PHD), we’ve focused on hiring people that align with our values of collaboration, courage and curiosity with conviction – and it’s really, really helped!


“Hire for attitude, train for skills” is a phrase that every HR professional has uttered once or heard being uttered from colleagues. However, unfortunately, only a small number of businesses apply it (like, actually apply it) to their recruitment strategy. Whilst a lot of job advertisements will focus on the soft skills and cultural alignment piece, often the interview process can revert to focusing purely on the hard skills and capability a candidate has from day one.


We work in an ever-changing industry, with the constant emergence of new technologies, new software and increasing shift in focus from traditional channels to more sophisticated digital channels. Change takes place now at a faster rate than ever before, and what you knew yesterday might not necessarily prepare for you tomorrow. So, with that in mind, why do some businesses focus on purely trying to tick skills boxes? The candidate who feels fully aligned with their organization’s strategy and beliefs and is a part of its continued success will be more motivated to learn the necessary skills for tomorrow than someone who only has today’s skill set and not the buy-in.


Here is how we can go about finding those right candidates in various levels of the organization:


Graduate Roles


For so long, the media industry, for example, has only considered candidates from a media/advertising/marketing-related field and often opt for interns who have gained first-hand experience working with their particular agency. When interviewing candidates with a specific degree and asking them what they know about a media planning and buying agency, their knowledge levels are comparable with that of any other degree – very little!


A huge amount of the first 12-18 months in a media agency is about learning as much as possible. A very small amount of what you learned in university actually applies to what you are now working on in terms of real briefs with real multi-million-dollar budgets attached. With that mind, at PHD we’ve had a lot of success in opening up our doors to entry-level staff from any degree/non-degree background.


Zac and Tiffany, two great coordinators who joined PHD in the last 12 months, even wrote an article recently on how university prepares you for your first job in media. Notice how throughout the article, it never mentions that it’s the marketing theory they were taught in school or the principles of advertising that has helped them succeed. Instead, it’s the focus on meeting deadlines, presentation ability, working under pressure and as part of a team. These are the skills that you need to succeed in your first job, and when you couple them with the right attitude, you can really learn anything, relatively quickly.


More Senior Roles 


Believe it or not, it’s those same soft skills that apply to the more senior roles that we look to fill. Let’s face it – at one point or another, we have all had to “fake it ‘til we make it” in our careers. A little white lie in an interview, a little oversell of our abilities and BANG, we’ve landed ourselves a gig without a clue of what we’re actually going to do. When faced with this situation, those with a good attitude, flexibility and the ability to learn quickly will be able to adapt and succeed in their roles better than those without these critical skills.


Additionally, no one knows exactly what they are doing on day one. We all have our own systems, processes and ways of doing things. At PHD, we have our proprietary planning tool, SOURCE. Unless you have worked on it before, there is a learning curve for everyone to pick it up, and it’s the pace and ability with which people pick it up that matters, as they would have zero experience in using it before. All companies have their own processes and tools, which they will expect you to learn over time.


Yes, you need to have a fundamental understanding of what you are talking about and the more senior the role, the more of an understanding we expect you to have. But we want to talk to someone about their attitude towards certain situations, learn how they act when everything goes wrong (because it does sometimes) and what they would do in the difficult times and how they bring a team along on the journey with them. Ultimately, someone who ticks the attitude box will get the job, and we will often wait until that person comes along, rather than simply fill a role with a candidate who doesn’t fit.


So, What is Attitude?


Attitude, for me, is a collection of soft skills that you can apply to every job. It’s not necessarily something that someone has been taught (or could be taught) but more an approach to work, an approach to learning and the way someone conducts themselves personally and professionally.


What does one look for when gauging attitude?
  • People who look for solutions to problems rather than people who find problems without resolve.
  • People who raise their hand rather than point their fingers.
  • People who make mistakes and have a sense of humility but then focus on what they can do next time to improve.
  • People who, when times get tough, dig in and rally everyone to achieve the same, rather than openly complain to others.
  • People who genuinely love their job and are interested in joining the organization – this is half the battle, finding someone who wants to be on the same journey as you.
  • People who genuinely seek development/career growth opportunities.

Too often, and it’s so easy to, we get bogged down by the immediate needs of our new hire. It may be replacing someone who has left, or it might be a new role that has popped up because of workload increases. However, it works, every time, to be cautious and focus on hiring the right person for the organization, because the longer-term impact of having the right person will really pay off and the struggle of having to dig a little harder to find them will soon be forgotten.


Read the original article on AdNews.au.

How to Effectively Recruit Recent Graduates

Posted on by epadmin

How to recruit college graduates is a question many talent leaders are wondering. According to UCLA’s Trends in Executive Development report, “experienced leaders of the Baby Boomer generation continue to retire at a pace of 10,000 per day.” The mass exodus of Baby Boomers from the labor market leaves a sizable workforce gap void of seasoned and experienced talent.

When Generation Xers and Millennials ascend into leadership positions to replace Baby Boomers, mid and entry-level positions are left vacant. To fill these positions, organizations are increasingly turning to recent college graduates. In fact, according to a survey conducted by CareerBuilder, 74 percent of employers say they plan to hire recent college graduates.

For organizations looking to fill the gap left by retiring Baby Boomers, recruiting and hiring talent from universities is a significant first step. In this post, we examine some of the best practices and strategies for attracting, recruiting and hiring recent graduates.

The Benefits of Recruiting Recent Graduates

how to recruit college graduates

Most recent graduates do not have years of experience. However, what recent graduates lack in professional experience can be made up elsewhere. Many students participated in volunteer activities, performed leadership roles in student government or clubs and completed internships, all of which can help develop critical workplace skills. From technical aptitude to adaptability, recent grads have characteristics that can be additions to an organization. Below, we list some of the main benefits of hiring recent graduates.

Recent Graduates are Ambitious and Enthusiastic

After graduation, many students are eager to begin their professional careers; they want to make a good impression, and they want to succeed. A sense of gratitude may also accompany a new hire’s desire to do well in their role. This can lead to a strong commitment to the job from the beginning, not to mention enthusiasm to learn, succeed and make leadership proud.

How to Recruit College Graduates: Recent Graduates are Tech-Savvy

Recent graduates have more than likely spent time learning and mastering new technologies, making their ability to navigate technology capabilities and functionalities second nature. What’s more, according to an Accenture Strategy Survey, nearly three-quarters of Generation Z graduates have taken digital, coding or computer science-related courses in college. These skills can give newly hired graduates the opportunity to share their knowledge across an organization.

Greater Diversity Outcomes

With graduating classes becoming more and more diverse, organizations have a prime opportunity to recruit talent from all walks of life. Pew Research projects that both colleges and workplaces can expect to see diversity numbers climb, with the class of 2025 expected to be the most diverse in history. Embracing diversity and incorporating it into overall corporate culture has many benefits. According to a survey conducted by McKinsey and Company, businesses with a diverse workforce are 35 percent more likely to have financial returns above industry averages.

Long-Term Talent Development

Hiring graduates with a focus on developing their skills affords organizations the opportunity to recruit the leaders of the future. Organizations can groom recent graduates and equip them with the knowledge and skills needed for leadership. By thinking about the long-term needs of the organization, hiring managers can proactively fill forecasted skill, workforce and leadership gaps with fresh, ready-to-learn talent.

Sourcing Strategies for Graduate Recruitment

When recruiting recent graduates, organizations need a strong presence where they work, live and go to school, and on the platforms and technologies they use the most. The majority of today’s job seekers are Millennial and Gen Z graduates. To reach young talent, it’s critical for organizations to connect with them in the ways they can relate to – namely through technology. Below we list digital sourcing strategies for recruiting the best talent among recent graduates.

How to Recruit College Graduates on Social Media

Social media’s ubiquitous nature makes it one of the most effective recruiting tools for Generation Z and Millennials. To reach a large pool of recent college graduates, organizations should establish recruiting-focused Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook pages that highlight entry–level jobs. Social media recruiting tips include:

  • Organizations should utilize Facebook’s Graph Search option to find graduates with the specific skills and educational background they are looking for in candidates.
  • On LinkedIn, organizations should use keywords relevant to open entry-level positions to attract the right candidates as well as posting jobs in alumni groups and university pages.
  • Although Twitter only permits 280 characters in posts, organizations can add videos about their company and photos to gain the attention of recent graduate candidates.

How to Recruit College Graduates with Mobile Recruiting

Mobile recruiting is growing in popularity as more and more applicants initiate their job searches on their mobile devices. What’s more, 86 percent of recent graduates feel positive about text messages being used in the hiring process. Organizations can use SMS messages to alert candidates of new opportunities and coordinate interviews. While sending job opportunities via text can be valuable, organizations should be careful not to overdo it. Mobile-first talent technology like PeopleScout’s Affinixtm can help organizations leverage mobile recruiting tools to attract candidates to entry-level positions.

How to Recruit College Graduates with your Career Page

Members of Generation Z are always online, so investing in a well-designed, content-rich career page for students to learn about job openings is well worth the effort. If possible, organizations should personalize a graduate career page to highlight alumni hires, experiences of recent graduates and employer messaging tailored to engage potential hires. Graduate career pages should be optimized for search engines and contain relevant keywords so job seekers can easily find it. Links to the page should also be included in communications with prospective candidates.

Building and Maintaining Campus Relationships

Establishing strong relationships with universities is a key element to successful campus recruiting.

To start, organizations should reach out to a university’s career center. When communicating with the career center’s team, focus on communicating what your organization can do for the university. Once a relationship is established with the career center, organizations should leverage that connection to start nurturing relationships with faculty.

Organizations should become active in different campus activities, even if those activities are not directly associated with recruiting. For example, organizations can identify student groups related to their industry and offer sponsorship programs for activities and events. This is a great way to create a positive brand image on campus. Below, are other strategies for building relationships with universities and students:

  • Organizations should participate in networking events hosted by the university to get to know potential candidates, faculty members and administrators who can help in campus recruiting efforts.
  • Sponsoring academic conferences and events on campus is a good way to illustrate that an organization is a committed partner in supporting the educational mission of the university.
  • To boost their profile on campus and connect better with faculty, organizations should enlist the help of campus ambassadors, former employees who attended that university.
  • Organizations should offer university staff and students on-site visits to their offices to share their company culture and give students a real-world view of the workplace.

Engaging Students at Campus Career Fairs

College job fairs have been a mainstay of on-campus recruiting for years. To make the most of career fairs, organizations should carefully tailor their approach. In this section, we outline ways organizations can better engage students at campus career fairs.

Bring the A-Team

Companies should bring employees who will best reflect the experiences and values most important to students. Often, these individuals will be recent graduates, members of the leadership team or employees currently holding positions candidates may be particularly interested in.

When selecting a team, identify employees who have a passion for what they do and an interest in building relationships with students. Also, organizations should be sure to have a diverse range of culture, ethnicities, age, and gender reflected in the recruiters at their booth.

Follow Up

After the career fair has wrapped up, organizations need to quickly follow up with interested candidates to refresh their memories and keep the organization “top-of-mind” as a future potential employer.

Tips for post-career fair follow up include:

  • Collect as much information from students as possible and use that information to send targeted emails. For example, you could notify them of upcoming hiring events in their area.
  • Provide candidates with specific, tangible options for engaging with your organization after the career fair, such as the contact information of employees they met with at the fair, links to career pages and invitations to in-house meet and greets.

Timely, professional and tailored correspondence to candidates immediately after a career fair can help improve employer branding.

Outsource College Recruiting

When recruiting recent graduates, organizations can leverage the technology of outside resources to maximize their reach and improve recruiting outcomes. From sourcing and screening to interviewing and hiring recent graduates, a Recruitment Process Outsourcing partner can effectively deploy technology to assist organizations with campus talent acquisition.

As the business landscape becomes more complicated and organizations look to adapt to changes, hiring young forward-thinking graduates will continue to be important for remaining competitive. Learning how to recruit college graduates and implementing an RPO solution to help recruit students can imbue an organization with expertise, tools and technologies to create the talent pipeline needed to find tomorrow’s talent today.

Prospects for the Class of 2018

Posted on by epadmin

The National Center for Education Statistics estimates that approximately 1.9 million bachelor’s degrees will be awarded in the 2017-2018 academic year in the United States. These graduates will be among the millions worldwide who will be entering the job market with a degree for the first time.

A strong economy with low unemployment and robust growth projections should indicate that the graduates of the Class of 2018 have bright prospects for finding their first job after graduation. And while it is true that many graduates will benefit from the current strong demand for talent, others may face unexpected challenges. NACE, the National Association of Colleges and Employers, reports that employers plan to hire 1.3 percent fewer graduates from the Class of 2018 for U.S. positions than they did from the Class of 2017.

The study notes that volatility in just a few industries will impact the overall hiring outlook. Two industries, in particular, are driving this overall decrease: insurance firms and retail employers. Insurance firms responding to the survey projected a decrease in hires by 42 percent due to the recent natural disasters, including Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, which led to high payment amounts for catastrophic losses. Retail employers plan to decrease their hires by almost 33 percent, citing the changing landscape of the industry and a lack of job openings as the key factors. 2018 marks the first decrease in this hiring projection since the Class of 2010.

Despite the obstacles that some new graduates may face, the members of the Class of 2018 in the U.S. will be entering the workforce at a time of record high job openings. Yet a study released earlier this month notes that three-quarters of this year’s graduating class do not have jobs lined up after graduation. In the current extremely competitive job market, employers hoping to attract these first-time job seekers need to understand their concerns and expectations.

Wage Pressures for 2018 Graduates

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, approximately 70 percent of college students borrow money to pay for their tuition. The average debt to a student borrower is $27,975. A significant number of candidates from the Class of 2018 will be entering the job market with student loan debts that they will seek to pay off as soon as possible. This makes compensation a major factor in choosing a job. In addition, many of the most attractive employers are located in large cities with a high cost of living. The Class of 2018 job seekers may find themselves balancing their need for a sizable paycheck with other attributes employers have to offer.

Which Majors Pay the Most?

While many students choose their field of study based on interest and applicability to their future careers, graduates of the Class of 2018 can evaluate their choices based on projections of their future earnings. In the NACE Winter 2018 Salary Report for the Class of 2018, students with engineering, computer science and math and sciences degrees are the top-paid graduates at the bachelor’s degree level.

The average starting salary for a 2018 graduate in engineering is $66,521 followed closely by those majoring in computer science at $66,005. Math and sciences majors will average $61,867. While an undergraduate degree in business was once thought of as a ticket to a high starting salary compared to a degree in social sciences and humanities, the initial average earning for business is only slightly higher for the Class of 2018. A business major can expect an average income of $56,720 while a social sciences major can plan to earn an average of $56,689 and a humanities major will average $56,688.

Global Outlook

For much of the world’s largest economies, the strong demand for talent provides a good environment for first-time job seekers. The notable exception is in much of southern and eastern Europe where youth unemployment remains high. Due to the uncertainties related to Brexit, especially regarding the free movement of labor, the Class of 2018 is potentially facing fewer options of work locations than their predecessors.

In Canada, new college graduates can use data from the recent BMO’s Regional Labour Market Report Card to help determine the best locations in which to search for jobs. Moncton, New Brunswick topped the City Labour Market Performance Rankings, increasing from a six-year low. British Columbia and Ontario are showing the strongest results for overall job market conditions by province. Local unemployment, job growth and business investment are some of the elements that contribute to the ratings provided by the report.

Australian college graduates are increasingly turning to part-time work for employment. The Guardian reported earlier this year that there is a pronounced trend towards part-time employment among graduates. Between 2008 and 2017, the proportion of employed graduates working part time increased by 17 percentage points to 38 percent of all graduates. And part-time employment is growing in Australia. In the March 2018 Australian Employment Report, part-time jobs grew while full-time jobs decreased.

UK Study with Global Implications

A study from Universities UK found that one in three graduates are mismatched to the jobs they find after leaving their university studies. While universities and students themselves can take steps to address this issue, employers need to attract the right people at the right time for the right positions. Given the amount of early attrition in much of the world’s major economies, this problem is not limited to the UK.

Finding the Perfect Match

A key element in solving this “graduate to job mismatch” is in the recruitment process itself.  Take a moment to consider what attributes a new graduate should have to be an ideal candidate for your company. How can you know if these ideal candidates exist? And if they do exist, how can you successfully compete with other companies to attract them?

What steps do you need to take to increase the chances that it will be your job offer that is accepted and not one of your competitors? If the answers to these questions are not addressed in your current recruitment process, it may be time to turn to an expert. Enterprises that have shown success in the delivery of products and services should consider turning to a Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) company to provide the needed expertise to attract the millions of new graduates coming into the job market this year. And with many graduates receiving their degrees this month and job markets tighter than they have been in years, the time to act is now.