Graduate strategies for the new world order

The "umpteenth" (twentieth) event in SAS' graduate recruitment knowledge-sharing breakfast series examined the need for urgent changes to graduate recruitment thinking and activity in the light of the credit crunch, including the need to embrace new marketing methods and media channels.

Held at London's Andaz Hotel on Thursday 11^th December, the event was chaired by marketing and research director Jason Frank, who co-hosted the opening session with head of graduate Hannah Berry.

In Jason's view, there are four key priorities for addressing the ‘new order' (regardless of whether this is merely an economic blip or a real sea-change).  The first involves ‘breaking free of the fallacy of control' - moving from a conventional, controlling marketing approach to more of an influencing role, in addition to understanding the complexity of influences on student choices.

The second means really listening to the graduate audience, and here Hannah Berry explained how the SAS student blog had provided some valuable insights about the current student mindset, ranging from the confusion brought about by information overload to cynicism about corporate blurb and anxiety and uncertainty about what to do in the present climate.

Jason then emphasised the importance of influencing as distinct from selling, and highlighted the growth of ‘word-of-mouth marketing'.  His mantra was to "think like a PR person, not a marketer" - i.e. seek to influence, rather than control; create and sustain conversations; manage reputations; and earn, rather than buy, a share of voice.  The whole of the ‘web hub' should be used to communicate rich, insightful content, interact with the target audience and build effective relationships.

Finally, marketing activity should focus more on creating meaningful content, navigating complexity, and engaging and mobilising people, underpinned by effective new channel expertise.  Jason also stressed the importance of keeping things simple in an age of information ‘saturation'.

Two case studies followed.  The first, presented by Paloma Alos and Joe Waterman from KPMG International's global people marketing function, looked at KPMG's inaugural ‘World Jobs Fair' - a 48-hour virtual event conducted in late September.  Since KPMG recruits some 20,000 graduates every year, the key objective was to develop a consistent global model, embracing the needs of all recruiting countries, to create a pipeline of ‘globally-minded' candidates and build an effective talent pool.

The results were impressive: over 12,000 résumés were uploaded, and over 9,000 applications were received.  In sharing the various learnings Paloma intimated that any future events would probably be reduced to 24 hours, and stressed the need for anyone involved to take the next day off!

For the final item on the agenda, Donna Miller, HRD of European operations at Enterprise Rent-A-Car, led a session on ‘onboarding excellence' based on her company's highly effective programme.  Not to be confused with induction (short-term and admin-oriented), onboarding is designed to help new starters to integrate smoothly into the organisation, familiarise themselves with its culture and values, and contribute productively as quickly as possible.  And to succeed, it requires the participation of not just HR but also line and senior management.

Donna outlined the steps involved in devising an effective onboarding plan, highlighted the kind of errors that can frequently plague onboarding programmes, and stressed the need to monitor the value of any such scheme.  (As she said, "What gets measured gets managed.")  Her conclusion was that effective onboarding makes a major contribution to employee engagement - and "engaging talent is good business," of course.  The many resulting benefits can range from increased loyalty and retention rates to enhanced communication, greater positivity and a heightened sense of ownership.