By Nic Scott, CEO, Fairsail
In many ways, employers in the UK have never had it so good. With high levels of graduate unemployment competition for places on the graduate recruitment schemes of leading employers, a process known as the milkround, is high.
At this time of year the pressure is all on the applicants. According to the UK's most widely-used graduate recruitment website , by 18th December a quarter of the top milkround applications are closed for the year. Most others will close by the Year End, with just 23% left in the New Year.
For the employers though, it is very much a case of ‘Hurry up and wait’, with so many candidates keen to secure employment and record number of graduates, there is a lot of filtering to be done. Much has been written about this glut of graduate level entrants to the workplace - most of it negative. Employers face the dilemma of needing to compete to sift the best candidates out, while keeping their options open until the candidates they select deliver on their academic promise.
Just to add to the complexity of hiring in today’s work environment, the HR resources of many companies have never been spread so thin. With workforce reductions digging deep and more regulations and responsibilities than ever falling in the laps of Human Resources, reducing the burden of recruiting, without impacting its quality, is a struggle.
The answer lies in marrying HR best-practices with the latest technology and Social Media. Effective graduate recruitment today then requires three major disciplines
- Attracting the best under-graduate applicants from the widest field
- Rapidly and cost-effectively selecting the very best ahead of the competition
- Maintaining engagement across an extended selection process
Attracting the best
As the leading supplier of Total Talent Management software, Fairsail, has helped clients face this challenge daily. Using personalised microsites, accessed by candidates directly, or via the sites which attract the most candidate traffic, customised applicant tracking allows brands to accurately portray their brand from the offset. With today’s candidates more internet aware and ‘brand savvy’ than before, this ensures that candidates are given the best impression from the offset as well as enough accurate information to decide if a traineeship position is right for them.
Rapidly selecting the best
The concentrated nature of the milkround and graduate recruitment as whole means that an organisation finds itself inundated by applications in the December to February part of the year. Rapid and consistent screening is essential in order to secure the best and move them to the next stage before the competition gets to them. Fairsail has pioneered the delivery of online pre-interview evaluation and helps manage the flow of interviewer feedback, often from several sources, perhaps across varied technical skillsets, into a single coherent decision process.
Keeping the best until graduation
The low attention span of today’s Generation Y may be both a cliché and a truism. In reality, it is a challenge for traditional recruiters trying to engage the Facebook generation in a process designed for snail mail (let alone the disappearing world of email). Without a well-designed process which helps candidates keep their potential employees front-of-mind, the risk is that the upfront investment in luring the best candidates into the process will be squandered as they reassess their options closer to graduation. At Fairsail, our Social Media engagement model means that employers communicate steadily and consistently in the way that today’s graduates wish to be addressed.
The overlying paradox then is that despite undergraduate unemployment at unprecedented levels, it may be harder than ever to attract and select the best graduates and, as importantly to nurture their interest through to the time, some months later, when they are actually productive. Without using the modern HR techniques enshrined within slick Social Media class software, like Fairsail, the risk is that the milkround delivers outstanding graduate trainees for someone else’s workforce.
