On The Hunt For Talent

Lindsay Edmonds Wickman

“Get ’em while they’re young!” might be the rally cry for today’s talent managers who are starved for candidates and struggling to retain those who’ve joined organizational ranks. College campuses are a great place to find the best and brightest, but recruiters have to dip their hands in many different pools to get their attention.

The word recruitment often conjures images of job fairs where hordes of college students wait anxiously for their one chance to impress a potential employer. Yet recruitment strategies today involve much more than the traditional, generic job fair scenario. It has become an ever-changing, ever-evolving strategy to attract the best young talent. Each class that graduates from college is different from the last, but that doesn’t mean the fail-safe methods from 10 years ago should instantly be discarded.

On-campus recruiting still is ranked as one of the most effective recruiting tools tied with company internship programs, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ (NACE) Job Outlook 2008 survey. Other top recruitment methods referenced include job fairs, faculty contacts, employee referrals, Internet job postings and student organizations and clubs.

Ranking last in the survey were virtual career fairs and video interviewing, evidence that face-to-face time still is important in the recruiting realm.

“Technology is necessary, but it’s not sufficient,” said Emanuel Contomanolis, associate vice president and director of Rochester
“You really hear a lot from students about this whole idea of work-life balance. Students are saying: ‘It’s really about the lifestyle I want, and work is part of that lifestyle,’” Contomanolis said. “They’re far more sensitive than their predecessors have been to things like, ‘How much flexibility do I have over my workplace, the times I work, the nature of the projects I’m involved in.’ How do I balance my job with the kind of lifestyle that I want?’ Students are more willing today than in prior generations to make some of those tradeoffs on location, certain types of employers, even dollars if a different kind of (work) scenario better meets their lifestyle.”

Competition Is Heating Up

Research indicates there is a great job market for students, but it’s not great for companies as wave after wave of baby boomers begin to retire, leaving marked skill and leadership gaps in their wake. Because there is more competition for top candidates, hiring managers have to be more creative to fill vacancies, and they have to recruit on every type of platform.

“[Employers] are trying to connect more and become visible with student groups,” Contomanolis said. “They may be using student ambassadors to help identify students that they think may be a good fit; they are having alumni come back to campus to represent the organization; and they’re willing to look at different ways to increase their visibility on campus from sponsoring events to offering to provide guest speakers or panel presentations.”

Martin McDonald, a recruitment consultant with HR outsourcing firm TWC Group, believes that with the current high level of competition, companies can’t just keep going to their 10 key schools.

“We’re not skimping on quality,” he explained. “We’re going to hire the best of the best, but to find the best of the best, we can’t just fish in the same ponds where we’ve always been. We have to cast that net a little bit wider. That’s a big difference from eight years ago, four years ago, even one and a half years ago.”

Tech-Centered Recruiting Outlets

College students’ academic and personal lives revolve around the computer and more specifically the Internet. Each visit to their dorm rooms lead to a perfunctory checking of e-mail or instant messaging, not to mention frequent Facebook and MySpace visits. Hiring managers must consider how best to harness these modes of communication for recruitment.

“More companies are talking about creating social networking communities for their candidates,” Contomanolis said. “Imagine if you will a group of students who are applying for a job with an employer, and that employer is setting up a social networking community for those candidates to be able to interact with people in the corporation.”

The bottom line is companies need to be visible on the Internet if they want to attract recent college graduates.

“There’s definitely an effort to make Web sites more appealing and attractive. You can think of it as just pure marketing, whether you are marketing a position at the company or you’re marketing your product,” said Jeff Benrey, CEO of Trovix, a confidential online career service that uses search technology to match job seekers with companies.

Full article: http://www.talentmgt.com/recruitment_retention/2008/March/572/index.php