Graduate Recruitment Blog

The AAGE being their usual helpful selves released the 2011 Careers Fair Schedule last week. This is only my 3rd year on the Grad recruitment campaign trail coming up but so far each year has brought different formats in terms of the schedule the fairs are held within.

The 2011 Careers Fair Schedule

The easiest way to list out the schedule is chronologically grouped by state so here we go:

Victoria

• Monday 7^th March – The Big Meet Melbourne
• Tuesday 8^th March – Victoria University
• Wednesday 9^th March – University of Melbourne
• Thursday 10^th March – RMIT
• Tuesday 15^th March – La Trobe University
• Wednesday 16^th March – Swinburne University
• Thursday 17^th March – Monash University
• Friday 18^th March – Ballarat
• Monday 21^st March – Deakin University

NSW

• 3^rd March Macquarie University
• Friday 11^th March – The Big Meet Sydney
• Monday 14^th March – University of Sydney
• Friday 8^th April – Unviersity of Wollongong
• Monday 11^th April – UTS
• Tuesday 12^th April – UWS (Engineering & IT)
• Wednesday 13^th April – UNSW
• Friday 15^th April – UWS
• Monday 18^th April – Newcastle

South Australia

• Tuesday 22^nd March – Uni SA
• Wednesday 23^rd March – Flinders University (Science, Engineering)
• Wednesday 23^rd March – Uni of Adelaide (Business & Arts)
• Thursday 24^th March – Flinders University (Law)
• Thursday 24^th March – Uni of Adelaide (Science & IT)

Western Australia

• Tuesday 22^nd March – The Big Meet Perth
• Wednesday 23^rd March – Curtin University
• Thursday 7^th April – Murdoch University

Queensland

• Tuesday 22^nd March – Central Queensland University
• Thursday 24^th March – Sunshine Coast
• Friday 25^th March – University of Southern Queensland
• Monday 28^th March – QUT
• Tuesday 29^th March – Griffith (Nathan Campus)
• Wednesday 30^th March – Univeristy of Queensland
• Thursday 31^st March – Griffith (Gold Coast)
• Thursday 31^st March – Bond University
• Tuesday 5^th April – James Cook University (Townsville)
• Wednesday 6^th April – James Cook University (Cairns)
• Northern Territory
• Wednesday 30^th March – Charles Darwin University

Tasmania

• Friday 11^th March – University of Tasmania

ACT

• Friday 25^th March – Tertiary to Work(ANU, UC, ACU)

Links to the downloadable PDF versions of the careers fair timetable can be found on the AAGE site here: http://www.aage.com.au/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63&Itemid=71

Major Changes

Length of the Season

The biggest change to the schedule that you can see is the length of the season which is around 2 weeks longer than it was this year in 2010 with the last careers fair finishing on the 18^th of April. This is going to mean a very long travelling period for employers who do go to the majority of these events or else the alternative which is to cut back on the numbers of fairs attended to avoid 6 – 7 weeks out of the office and on the road.

From reviewing the application close dates from a number of our client campaigns this year, many employers will have closed their application period before 5 of the larger NSW universities have even held their careers fairs. It is worth noting that all of the AAGE organised Big Meet fairs fall in March which may help to get in front of some of the graduates you may not be able to see due to the late dates of other NSW universities specifically.

NSW Fair Timeline Spread

NSW fairs start on the 3^rd of March with Macquarie University, then the next NSW fairs are held in Mid March with The Big Meet Sydney & University of Sydney. The next NSW fairs are between the 8^th and 18^th of April. This makes attending the NSW based fairs a close to 7 week exercise so it will be interesting to see how this impacts in terms of employer attendances.

Easter

Easter is a lot later on in the year for 2011 compared to 2010 which was very early in April. In 2011 it is very late in April. We have noticed that the Easter break is a major trigger of job hunting activity for graduates in Australia due to a large academic workload in the run up to the Uni Easter Break. It may be worth taking this into account if you are able to have any flexibility around your application opening dates to be able to receive applications at that time of the year.

The Verdict

All in all, this is the 3^rd schedule that I’ve seen in my 3 seasons in the industry so far and each year the schedule has been vastly different than the last. The AAGE report on careers fair attendances has recently been released and it is interesting to see that overall, more organisations are attending these fairs, however attendances as a whole were lower in 2010 compared to 2009 so this longer schedule for 2011 will change these numbers again I think and we’ll be keeping a close eye on the next report to see how this scheduling format has impacted attendances by employers.

I recently attended the AAGE Grad Panel up in Brisbane. This was the second AAGE Grad Panel that I’ve been to, the last being in 2009 in Sydney.

If you haven’t been to a Grad Panel, the basic concept is that 4 – 5 different employers bring along one of their recently hired graduates and the mix of recruiters in the audience are able to ask them questions about a variety of subjects

The Grads

The last Grad Panel I attended in Sydney had a mix of graduates from different backgrounds such as marketing, Information Technology, engineering and human resources. In Brisbane however, three out of the four graduates on the panel were engineers.

So our panel consisted of:

• Reannan from Aecom – Civil Engineering
• Tegan from the Brisbane City Council – Town Planning
• Chris from the Department of Transport and Main Roads – Civil Engineering
• Rubi from GHD – Mechanical Engineering

So we can see, engineering, infrastructure and construction are a definite focus for graduate employers in Queensland.

Vacation Work

All of the graduates on the panel had managed to secure some form of cadetship, scholarship or vacation work program while they were studying.

The 3 grads on the scholarship and vacation programs were not bonded by their employers to become fulltime employees after their programs were over. The grad on the cadetship program however was bonded for a set time period to take a full time position with the organisation.

Even with no lock in period, 2 of the 3 scholarship and vacation students took full time employment with their respective companies after their under grad programs had finished. The main reason they stayed on at these employers was that the areas they wanted to continue working on were available to them as a full time employee. The grad that changed from their vacation employer to a different full time employer stated that the work available to them at their vacation employer was not what they really wanted to do long term which motivated them to move on.

So it seems that these under graduate programs are working really well in the engineering sector and it does help that these vacation programs do make up part of the curriculum in many engineering degrees. These initiatives do have potential to be more widespread in other areas with skills shortages such as Information Technology specifically.

Application Numbers

The number of applications seems to vary wildly. One grad applied for a single position and nailed it while the other grads on the panel applied for anywhere between 8 – 15 positions. The grads who were at universities that included practical work experience as part of their degree were prompted to apply due to notifications from many of their lecturers.

What attracted them?

There were a range of employer attributes that the graduates placed value in. The major recurring theme was Company Reputation which was defined as how the organisation was perceived publicly as well as the experiences that their friends may have had on previous vacation programs.

Other key factors that they were attracted to were things like work life balance, specifically where there were planned social events and social groups that they were made aware of.

The prospect of having access to training programs as well as other learning and development programs were attractive however the exact specifics. Another major plus point was the future opportunities aligning to their specific interests and career goals.

Their expectations versus reality

Always a dangerous question to ask some new employees with their grad managers in the room listening. The common trends in this space were the massive differences between university life and the professional work place. Vacation work and scholarship programs did help to bridge the gap in this area though with a more gradual transition between uni and full time work meaning they knew what they were in for when they started full time. Starting at the same time as other grads did really help as well as they had an instant network.

Structured Grad Alumni Programs

This was a question from the floor around whether they thought that running a structured alumni program for the graduates would be a good initiative. All of the grads unanimously thought that this would be a bit cumbersome to manage and would not really work out in reality. The grads had already built informal alumni programs per se by inviting previous years graduates to their social events which seemed to be working well already.

Hopefully this post will help all of the recruiters out there currently working on Vacation and Internship recruitment hang in there as this does seem to be a very effective way of hiring new talent into organisations. Also a big thanks goes out to Jane at Main Roads who organised and hosted the session for inviting me along!

The AAGE Conference 2009

The annual AAGE conference (The Australian Association of Graduate Employers) is happening in Sydney next week between the 11^th and 13^th of November with graduate employers from all over Australia attending to share their thoughts about the state and future of graduate recruitment in Australia.

Paul Russell the AAGE Director and Chair and Ben Reeves the AAGE CEO will officially kick off the 3 days of the conference that will consist of workshops and presentations by members of the AAGE Committee, industry suppliers and other international graduate recruitment experts at the Sofitel Wentworth in Sydney. The conference covers a wide variety of topics ranging from how to attract graduates to your organsiation’s program, assessment and selection techniques and how to develop, engage and retain graduates once they have joined your graduate program. You can check out more information about the conference sessions on the AAGE Conference Program.

GradConnection at the AAGE

One thing that the GradConnection team is looking forward to is hearing about the High Flier’s graduate statistics from the past 12 months as well as future forecasts on how 2010 is shaping up. We’ll also be manning the GradConnection Exhibitor stand where we will be providing a sneak peak of some of the statistics that graduate job hunting visitors to our site have provided us throughout this year, so make sure you stop by and pick up a copy for yourself.

The After Party

Aside from all of the learning opportunities at the AAGE conference, there is a great set of social events over the three days, the highlight of which (and this is a completely unbiased view) will be the Gala Dinner After party which coincidentally is hosted by us this year. The venue is the 47^th story of the Australia Square tower building, the Orbit Bar. The theme is based around an Oscars after party seeing as the Graduate Recruitment Industry awards are announced earlier in the evening. Stop by our expo stand to pick up an invite with a map to the venue from the Gala Dinner. We have to give a big shout out to Ainsley from OneSteel for helping us to organize the night.

The AAGE Conference After Party at the Summit Bar

If you are attending the AAGE conference next week, make sure you come by our stand and say hi. There are no excuses – you can’t miss the stand – and we’ll also see you at the After Party!

For more information on the AAGE Conference check out the AAGE site at: www.aage.com.au

GradConnection – Home of the GradMaker

Continuing on from our video shoot is Mike Casey’s video on the IT graduate sector using information gathered in the first 6 months of 2009 from the GradConnection site & the below press release written by Richard McGowan of RMG Communications.

Graduate Employers and Grads use the internet to expand job searches

University graduates rank business analysis and project management as the two most popular jobs in the IT industry, according to new data from GradConnection, the website where companies can interact with university students and graduates about employment opportunities.

From preferences offered by 16,000 university students, the GradConnection data shows a total of 9.6% of graduates are seeking careers in IT, placing the sector as the fifth most favoured industry behind Accounting (13.6%), Engineering/Mining (11.2%), Government (10.1%) and sales/marketing (9.9%). The GradConnection data covers graduate input across 15 Australian industry sectors.

Within the IT sector, the most in demand jobs are business analysis (43%), project management (38.4%), development (35.2%), support (33.8%) and web development (32.5%). The least in-demand role from the data is software architecture at 16.6%.

“With the current economic difficulties dampening job opportunities across most industry sectors, students and graduates are using the internet to search widely for job opportunities in their chosen professions,” said GradConnection director Mike Casey. “IT is one of the most diverse industries because of the spread and reliance on technology by companies in diverse areas of business. The internet allows companies in all business sectors the opportunity to offer specialist IT opportunities, even if IT is not the company’s specific output.”

The GradConnection data also reveals the type of corporate qualities that graduates are most attracted to in potential employers. The top qualities are equal opportunity employment (86.7%), health and safety (36.8%), environmental sustainability (35.3%) and community contribution (22.7%).

In terms of the job benefits, graduates rate work/life balance the highest (37.1%), health cover (31.1%), structured training (30.2%) and overseas work opportunities (28.6%).

On the sometimes controversial question of certain “freedoms” offered by companies to their employers, IT hopefuls rate gmail as the most important (60.1%), Facebook (37.4%) and msn at 32.3%.

GradConnection – Home of the GradMaker

Without realising it, I am actually good friends with the project manager who won the 2008 Times Graduate Recruitment website awards in the UK. I worked under Regan Andrew as part of his team at Inland Revenue (IRD), the New Zealand Tax department as a humble and eager student, helping to build and promote online services to the New Zealand tax payer.

That was about five years ago, and now Regan is in the UK, and has recently made a huge impact in the UK graduate recruitment industry by project managing the Transport For London graduate recruitment microsite, that was judged #1 for content and #2 for design by successful UK graduates.

Personally, I am very interested in how to make effective and attractive graduate

recruitment websites and the best ways to market them, so I got on Facebook and had a bit of a chat to Regan about his successes with the Transport of London website, and what graduate recruitment teams in Australia and New Zealand could learn from his experiences.

First off, Can you tell us a bit about why your website won the Times award? What were the criteria and what made your site come out on top?

A company (High Fliers – the same company that performs the AAGE surveys) interviewed 16,000 graduates about graduate recruitment campaigns from a range of UK organisations, one aspect of which was their websites. The graduates ranked our site 2nd for overall design and 1st for content. I think that we ranked highly because everyone involved was 100% committed to delivering what the users of the site wanted and needed.

Do you think the UK graduate market is unique or would you take the same approach for graduate program websites in Australia and New Zealand?

The UK market is not unique. However, I’m not sure that the exact same approach would be appropriate in NZ or Australia, as the size of the market and the level of competition is far greater here. Also, the HR industry in the UK is more transactional and consequently, applicants’ expectations are different.

What was your key measurement to the success of your graduate recruitment website? Simply the number of applications or did you take into account the number of visitors, time on site, bounce rate etc…

A range of factors were taken into account, including standard metrics such as usage, conversion rates, calibre of applicants and client satisfaction. However, the key factor was what graduates themselves thought of it. To understand their views, our organisation contributed to a study in which 16,000 graduates were interviewed about 100 graduate recruitment campaigns.

Are graduate recruitment websites similar to any other websites or do you need to pay special attention to key areas?

A focus on the needs of users is common to all well designed web sites. Graduate recruitment sites have unique content requirements that flow from this theme. Users generally want to know about:

• The schemes / openings that are available
• The types of candidates being sought (including minimum requirements)
• Benefits, including pay rates
• Previous graduates – what they did whilst undertaking the graduate scheme and what they have done since How to apply

So I know you have been a web guru for a number of years, what got you into building a graduate recruitment website and what tech skills came in handy?

Web guru eh?! I didn’t actually build the site… I just managed the building of it. We had five suppliers and a team of internal specialists working on the project. My technical input was the application of management and design methodologies. Having a background in web technologies was helpful, but not essential.

Did you use any social media in conjunction with your graduate site? Did you utilise a facebook fan page, how about twitter?

No social media mechanisms were used in our 2008 campaign, although we did provide a RSS feed for the recruitment fairs.

Did your traffic come via organic search engine traffic or via other mediums?

Search engine traffic is always important for websites. However, a massive proportion of our traffic was generated through navigation paths from the core website (which ranks in the top 100 websites in the UK and amongst the top 2,500 worldwide).

From your experience, what did graduates most like about your site?

The clean design and the content.

What did you most like about your site?

That we went live on time, we were within budget and graduates liked it

If you were to outsource a graduate recruitment website, what kind of budget would you expect to need?

There are too many factors to consider… the size of the organisation in question, the target audience, the complexity of the schemes etc. However, if you’re thinking about outsourcing you should first think:

Do we have the skills in-house to do this well? Are the people with those skills available within our time-frames? Is this the best use of their time? If no, then you need to outsource.

We had a mixed approach, with specialist agencies hired for specific tasks (e.g. overall campaign design, flash components, web page development, security review), whilst internal teams developed content and provided quality assurance. We selected this approach because of time constraints… the website had to be designed, built and delivered in just over a month.

Can you give any advice to grad managers in Australia and New Zealand around how to make a good graduate website, and what are some of the pitfalls?

• Follow a user centred design methodology and undertake user testing early in your design lifecycle
• Follow basic web standards such as accessibility, this will give you better cross-browser compatibility, higher search rankings and more people will be able to use your site
• Know your target audience and make sure that both your creative design and the writing style of your copy attracts the people you are looking for
• Graduates are probably not coming to your site to look for computer games! Online games are expensive to develop and will not make your organisation look “cool”
• Make sure that you have an integrated approach to your campaign – your website should complement the campaign, rather than being the campaign in its entirety
• Be very careful with your copy. Don’t use acronyms or jargon and keep your copy brief

Many thanks for your time to comment Regan, very glad to see you’re making a similar impact in the online space in the UK. I’m keen to see what you end up doing in the next couple of years!

Also a quick welcome to subscribers we have had joined our blog from South East Asia over the last few weeks. Hopefully we can give you some valuable insight into the Australian and New Zealand graduate recruitment markets. If you have any interesting tales you can contribute to this blog then please let us know!

Mike

Last Friday lunch time, Dave and I attended the Australian Association of Graduate Employers (AAGE) Sydney graduate panel. The session had a good turn out with around 40 people attending from around 20 – 25 graduate employers as well as a scattering of various suppliers to the graduate recruitment industry. The AAGE runs the graduate panel sessions at least twice a year and I had missed the last one which was at the annual conference in November last year.

The Lunch

Seeing as this was a lunch time session, I better cover the important things first. The catering was pretty good with an interesting selection of sandwiches containing such tasty fillings like prawn and avocado as well as chicken, cranberry and brie and there was also a good selection of biscuits and fruit so thanks a lot to the Reserve Bank for hosting the session and putting on a good spread.

The Panel

The grad panel session is an interesting concept; five different AAGE member organisations participate by providing one of their recently recruited graduates to field questions from the audience about their experiences finding a graduate position and what life has been like after starting work. The Sydney panel was made up of grads from the following firms:

• Accenture (IT Graduate)
• Commonwealth Bank (Marketing Graduate)
• GHD (Civil Engineering Graduate)
• OneSteel (HR Graduate)
• Reserve Bank of Australia (IT Graduate)

The Questions

Numbers of applications made and offers received: There was a wide range of extremes on the number of applications the grads had made and the number of offers they had received. One grad had made 55 applications all carefully tracked in a spreadsheet in order to receive 2 offers whereas another grad had made only 3 applications in total but received offers from all 3 companies.

Sources used in the graduate job hunt: The graduates all seemed to have used the internet as a primary job hunting tool. Search engines played a big part in discovering and researching graduate employers. The graduate who had 2 years of prior commercial work experience seemed to be the only one who heavily used job boards as a resource.

Impact of the GFC on graduate recruitment: this question was inevitable but the reality was that the GFC has no impact on this intake of graduates as when they were being recruited early in 2008 the economy was still going strong and the GFC had not fully developed into what it is today. It will be interesting to see what next year’s graduates have to say about it though.

Did you feel that you had enough prior knowledge or experience to start your graduate role: Most of the graduates on the panel said that they had all had previous relevant work experience in their chosen fields and this was the key factor that had helped them to quickly get up to speed once they joined the workforce permanently as a graduate. It’s a bit of a no brainer but previous work experience is potentially one of the key factors that will determine how quickly they will adjust to working life at your organisation.

There was a scattering of other questions throughout the session but one I found interesting ‘how do you feel about psychometric testing as part of the assessment process?’ which apart from one of the grads they all expected and were comfortable with, although a further point was that the purpose of the testing did need to be explained to the candidates sitting them to give some meaning to the process.

The Verdict

Overall it was an interesting experience and if you are in the graduate recruitment field I’d recommend that you make an effort to attend these events once a year. You get to see five of Australia’s larger graduate employers bring a showcase of their top graduates for public scrutiny. If you are interested in attracting these graduates to your organisation it will provide you with a good insight into what these graduates are thinking.

If you attended an AAGE Graduate Panel session let us know what you thought, and if you are interested in attending these events in the future you may want to investigate becoming and AAGE member as attendance for members to these events is free.