Exploding myths…

... was the theme of The Careers Group, University of London's recent conference on graduate recruitment, held at the Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, on Thursday 29^th May.  It was attended by delegates from a mix of graduate media and marketing organisations, careers services and, of course, employers.  First up on the day's agenda was the proposition that ‘all employers must adapt their graduate recruitment practices to accommodate the needs of Generation Y'.

Welcoming the audience, Susan Goldie - head of careers consultancy at The Careers Group - introduced TCG director Anne-Marie Martin to deliver the opening keynote speech.  Conceding that today's market was bigger and more complex than ever and that employers were generally more demanding, Anne-Marie charted the various changes to the graduate marketplace over the years, but also maintained that some aspects of the market hadn't really changed drastically - underlining her point with a number of telling observations made over the last century or so, many of which still resonated now.  Stressing the importance of accurate targeting, she said that the biggest difficulty facing today's graduate recruiters was the problem of assessing future potential.  And despite all the hype about Generation Y, students' hopes and fears don't really vary that much from one generation to the next.

Then Dr Paul Redmond - head of the careers and employability service at the University of Liverpool - addressed the issue of generation theory, accurately and entertainingly outlining the defining characteristics of the baby-boomers, Generation X and Generation Y in the process.  He maintained it was crucial for graduate recruiters to take into account the distinctive attributes and aspirations of Generation Y when devising their recruitment strategies.

The morning's panel session consisted of four brief presentations.  Susan Hazledine, a lawyer and graduate recruitment partner at Allen & Overy, spoke on ‘Finding top talent in new universities' - and her thesis was that "we should all be recruiting from new universities".  These were often sources of high-quality talent - good, in particular, for finding people from non-traditional HE backgrounds who nevertheless demonstrated great motivation and resourcefulness despite lacking the usual support.  In addition, new universities often had better connections with the commercial world, and tended to be more focused on training their students to be prepared for it.

Adam Buxton, graduate recruitment assistant manager at KPMG, spoke of the advantages of broadening the talent pool by recruiting international graduates studying in the UK.  (Around 15% of students studying at British universities aren't from the UK - which is exactly the proportion that KPMG recruits.)  He maintained that, as well as demonstrating a will to work not always matched by their UK counterparts, international graduates typically deliver a number of additional benefits by, for example, supporting business development in emerging markets, differentiating the employer from the competition and helping with the attraction and retention of both people and business.

Karen Constantine, head of employer relations at the Employers Forum on Age, looked at ‘targeting graduates from other generations'.  She highlighted the diminishing pool of young talent and exploded a number of myths about mature workers (such as their presumed likeliness to take more time off sick and their supposed inability to learn new technological skills).  Her main theme was that age is a poor determinant of ability, and that employers should therefore focus on skills rather than age, ensuring that that their recruitment and retention processes are completely age-neutral.

Then Emma Reynolds - a live representative of Generation Y as well as co-founder of e3 unlimited and Ask Gen-Y - spoke ‘In defence of generation Y'.  She maintained that Generation Y should be characterised as an attitude rather than an age-range, and talked about the skills and attitudes that Gen Y employees bring to the party.  Her answer as to whether recruitment processes should be adapted to the needs of Generation Y was "absolutely yes" - but she stressed that this should be in the context of the new world of work (i.e. 24/7, instant access, measured on output etc).

The post-lunch session concentrated on how to attract Generation Y candidates, aiming to challenge the myth that ‘Social media in recruitment is more hype than substance' in the process.

Firstly, Michael Clarke - assistant director of TCG - entitled his graduate recruitment 2.0 progress report ‘Could do better'.  He said that while people had been getting excited about the recruitment potential of social networks just a year or so ago (as they now were about mobile platforms), it now seemed that a certain ennui was creeping in and that the sites weren't really working for recruiters (as suggested by recent AGCAS and NORAS reports).  But after showing a series of video clips featuring students talking about their perceptions of social media, he posed the question: "If all graduates are using social media, is it good enough to say ‘We know they don't like it, so we won't go there'?"  He concluded that Facebook was "a necessary part of any marketing mix to this demographic."

Dan Beynon, the commercial director of Educate, focused on engaging students through social media.  A veteran of running over 200 online campaigns for over 100 organisations, he outlined the various ways of recruiting and engaging people through these sites, from creating groups to developing full engagement campaigns.  He stressed the need to be creative in the right context, and to observe the rule that content is key.

Penelope Levitt, an account manager at Campus Group, then talked on the importance of face-to-face communication as an adjunct to the newer techniques.  She highlighted the value of on-campus student brand managers in raising awareness and engagement with target audiences, and looked at the value of relevant tours and events (and the different measures for evaluating their success).

Chris Muktar, a co-founder and partner of the recently established WikiJob, described the site "an online communication platform used by students and graduates re job-seeking."  (Like most sites based on user-generated content, it has a credibility that appeals to today's audience.)  He highlighted key differences between Web 2.0/social media and the earlier generation of web technologies, suggesting that today's graduates regarded print media such as directories and career magazines as "boring" and reminding the audience that online marketing cost less.  He concluded by recommending that recruiters should reconsider the proportions of their budgets spent on print and online, and take the opportunity to impress graduates with their online proposition.

Alex Hens laid claim to representing the youngest company on the day - he's a director of 3D MarComms, incorporated less than a week ago, as well as head of digital strategy at ThirtyThree.  He focused on what organisations can achieve by using Web 2.0 effectively, and how they should go about it.  He reminded the audience that people were already talking about their organisations - the question was, were they ready, willing and able to join in?

A brief panel Q&A session then followed before Susan Goldie brought the conference to a close.

●  The next event from The Careers Group - ‘The Guardian London Graduate Fair from the Careers Group' - will take place at the Business Design Centre on Tuesday 17^th and Wednesday 18^th June.