Welcome to this week’sDiscuss HR, the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK.
Well this week the grouphas been discussing HR like no other week. Today’s article comes hot on the heels of yesterday’s networking eventsin London and Bristol and will shortly be followed by tonight’s event inBirmingham. By the end of today over 100 of our members will have met! So,thank you to all of you who attended.
Today’s article is anexceptionally relevant piece due to the current state of the recruitmentmarket. It is rare that a week goes bywithout further figures highlighting the poor state of the graduate recruitmentmarket. Today experienced career coachand engagement specialist Paul Goring looks at who is the main beneficiary of agraduate job; the graduate or the employer? (Ed Scrivener)
A graduate’s first job –who benefits most?
So, the recession is badfor the graduate job market we hear; less jobs than ever before (AGR survey2010 says vacancies down by 25%), the average salary seems to have been stuckat £25,000 for a couple of years and the number of graduates competing for eachjob is rising all of the time.
Student debt is puttingincreasing pressure on salary expectations and job security concerns mean thateven where graduates are in work the majority constantly looking for the nextstep in their careers (70% in a recent US survey). We are constantly having ourheart strings tugged by the media and student bodies about how tough it is outthere for new graduates but perhaps we should take some time to ask thecritical question; what about the poor old employers? Admittedly being joblessand having high turnover and poor ROI are very different problems.
I have recruited in the UKand Europe for global financial services and FMCG businesses and graduaterecruitment remains, in my opinion, the toughest recruitment decision toconsistently get right. Why? Well, because in my view, UK graduate candidatesparticularly are still demonstrably undercooked in terms of their employabilityskills and their aspirations. Also, training demands are typicallyGeneration Y and their global career mobility means picking and keeping theright candidate is getting tougher and tougher.
When recruiting a graduate,one has comparably the least amount of tangible evidence to go on, especiallywhere the essential work experience bit is missing. Plus, one often faces acandidate across the interview table / room who, more often than not, does notreally know what you want, or how to show you that they have it....
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| Hired 1,200 graduates recently |
The large recruiters ofgraduate talent compete, as they always have done, for the top talent with suitablylarge budgets. They have well grooved employer brand,attraction, selection and retention strategy and are prepared to lose candidatesalong the way to get the people their business needs. The big players know thatthere will be wastage along the way and that their ROI calculation is based onthe number that stay, move into senior roles and thrive.
My concern is for thesmaller, less frequent, graduate recruiters. If you want to recruit say 1-5graduates a year, if you have a fixed small budget and you are not in The TimesTop 100 Graduate Employers, how do you start and how do you expect to retainyour talent and is it all worth it?
Making an impact with themost brand savvy generation that has ever lived is tough. Some companies, through genius advertising(Prêt a Manger a few years back) or quirky careers fair strategies, make theconnection but it is really tough to pre-empt and positively answer thequestion ‘who?’ when graduates see your vacancies. Perhaps the brand of theemployer is just as crucial as phone, shoes, clothes and car?
The relationship betweenrecruiter (employer) and graduate employee has evolved at an alarming pace overthe past 10 years. Just as there is an ongoing desire to achieve the strongestA Level (Highers) results and Degree classification possible, it seems that thefight is now on to obtain employment with the most creditable blue chip companyor household brand company, as quickly as possible, since that seems to bewhere the superficial career kudos lies. The loyalty factor to the firstemployer is receding at a rate which must make the employers question theirexpenditure and look closely at their ROI.
Creating a talentpipe-line is, of course, completely necessary when any business looks at theirstaff demographics, age top heavy senior positions and lowering retirement ages. But there is no point having a talentpipeline if the talent never reaches its destination or if the pipe-linesprings a leak – that can be an expensive business!
Asking the question ‘whydo we recruit graduates?’ is, I think, key. Taking first job graduates is abrave move. Yes, you get raw talent and,increasingly, the pick of a very big pool of talent but what do you actually getlong-term from that strategic decision?
I worked for an SME in the90’s and in a conversation with one of the senior managers, in my recruitmentcapacity, I questioned the suitability of a graduate scheme of 12-14 graduatesa year for a company of our size (800/850 staff). His view was simple, pointingat one of the rising stars of the business who was walking across the office,he said, ‘if we have to select, recruit, train, develop and lose 13 of the 14graduates we take on over a two year cycle, if he is the one that we keep and hemakes it, then it is worth it.’
That example comparesneatly, for me, with the emphasis on the ‘what do we get’ review of graduaterecruitment that is now more prevalent especially with many businesses feelingthe pinch of the recession and where every penny being spent is scrutinisedendlessly. Businesses simply can no longer afford to bring in 15 to get onestar and, in fact, more have to realise some tangible return beyond aspeculative investment.
Given the combination of alow retention rate, high training costs, high career aspiration levels andsalary needs, the temptation must be to sit tight and recruit second jobbersonce they have more skills, career focus and sector stability? But their income expectations will, of course,be higher, there will no doubt be agency costs and no guarantee that you willkeep them. Every choice seems to be atough one.
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| Ernie, the fastest recruiter in the west |
I guess that we are allused to the budget review process that inevitably makes us question ourstrategies, results and whether the metrics we employ to measure successactually gives us more than a simple set of statistics. We are, as recruiters, resourcers and HRprofessionals forced to reflect on the way that we do things and question ifthere is another way and, as a result, I think increasingly the graduate marketis becoming a different place.
Perhaps the next keyquestion is what do we want / need to get from our graduates and what do theyexpect / need to get from us? I regularly lecture at my local University on theconcept of employability and graduate recruitment. One of the best ways to getto the crux of the issue quickly with the final year students who attend is towrite on the white board, ‘What do Employers Want’ and ‘What do We Want’ withreference to their careers and especially to their first graduate job, then askingthem to construct the two lists.
When, at the end of the session,the group realises, often with great surprise and concern, that few if any ofthe entries appear on both lists, they then know that we/they have a problem. Perhaps some of us as graduate recruiters /employers should do the same exercise to hammer home the reality of the situation. If one party wants marriage and theother a short fling, someone will get hurt.
There used to be a realcache about having a graduate scheme and many employers in the 80’s and 90’sfenced off budget, invested in elaborate training programmes and involvedsenior management figures to help nurture the talent but it seems, from where Isit, that the market is now very much bipartite.
The elite employers andstudents continue with their courtship but the rest of the market are having tofocus much more on matching not just skills and potential but also price, askingthemselves ‘how much to train and retain’ and then crucially ‘is it worth it?’
About the author
Paul was the Recruitment Manager at EndsleighInsurance until 2007 when he moved to Paris for two years and became theexternal consultant on AXA Insurances' Global Talent Acquisition StrategyReview Team which led to extensive Generation Y, Employer Brand, candidateengagement and career event research across Europe. In 2009 Paul returned tothe UK and founded Consortio Recruitment Solutions Limited, which he is atpains to emphasise is not an agency! Primarily they are focused onhelping businesses find and keep talented people through process review,employer branding focus and management skills training. Consortio are alsoactive in the FE and HE market, helping improve student employabilityskills. Paul also heads up another business, The Brand Button, this is aworkshop & training based business focusing on personal, business andcareer development through personal branding. Paul is a member of theAssociation of Graduate Recruiters, the Institute of Recruitment Professionalsand is also qualified with the British Psychological Society to Level B int.
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DiscussHR is the blog for Human Resources UK, the leading LinkedIngroup for those involved with HR in the UK. Next week’s Discuss HR will be published on Thursday 6thOctober and will be written by Leadership Coach Dorothy Nesbitt.
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