“GO BACK TO UNIVERSITY!”

Ten years ago the only way to get graduates was to spend money in ‘Prospects Today’ (as it was called then!), put some information or a poster in a University Careers Service or attend a Careers Fair.  Since that time the ‘online revolution’ has sidelined the University Careers Services more and supposed experts (myself included!) have talked about the death of the milkround.

Online advertising has certainly proved to be much more cost effective and has widened the target audience dramatically. For those of us who capitalised on this route to market, it has proved itself to be a huge success for a number of years and we’ve had a great competitive advantage when competing for the top tier of graduate talent.

 

Things have changed …

There are now, of course, a growing number of job boards (of mixed quality) and almost everyone who is anyone now uses them.  The reality, however, is that they are just not as effective as they once were.  A number of clients we talk with are sensing the same thing and the really efficient ones even have the figures to back it up!

I am not saying that we should all stop using the job boards but we do need to take a close look at whether they are still delivering at the level they used to.

 

It’s nothing personal!

I believe what has also happened, is that we’ve stopped engaging in the same way with our potential customers: the finalists and the graduates.  In striving for greater efficiency we’ve relied too much on technology and not enough on building personal relationships.

 So what will now give us the competitive edge when we’re competing to attract the best graduates?

Go back into the Universities and build relationships!  Not just with the Careers Services but also with specific academic departments.  We should also be talking to some of the student population themselves and finding out how we can help them: for example in enhancing their employability.  In return, this will give us the opportunity to make inroads with the high calibre students before everybody else does!

If you are a large recruiter, that might be at many levels, within many institutions.  If you are an SME you may just be in contact with your local University or just specific academic departments within a few Universities. Remember, every University today has real talent within it.  Like all things, life goes in cycles and in this case, I believe graduate recruitment practice has swung from University ‘milkrounds’ to online tools and is now coming back to Universities again - but with a twist. 

The companies most successful at reaching the graduate talent they want, will apply what they have learned over the years and use a blend of (a) the job boards; (b) the web (a targeted and cost effective means of driving on campus activity) and (c) getting directly involved with Universities and the students to build those all-important personal relationships.

So the solution is to keep using the online job boards but not to take it as a given that they will deliver as they become saturated.  Re-establish, or start anew, with the right contacts in the right Universities – we are!

 

Simon Reichwald
Director, Graduate Success