Campus Recruiting Forum- Observations from a great day

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being a presenter at the Waterloo Campus Recruiting Forum, run by Graham Donald of Brainstorm Consulting.

We started the day with a presentation by Graham Donald himself, which provided an interesting overview of the current Campus Recruitment ‘market’ including high-level results of the From Learning to Work survey that Graham, along with DECODE recently published.

The audience (Campus Recruiters from various well-known companies) also shared their challenges, ranging from how to keep up an employer brand when there are no jobs available, how to deal with lower recruitment budgets, how to fill the pipeline given the conflicting economic forces of the times (massive retirement coming up, recession).

In terms of results from From Learning to Work, some of the most interesting were:

• 54% of students would like to find an organization to spend their whole career.
• Students want to be dedicated to a casuse and feel that they’re serving a greater good
• Students care a lot about a progressive working environment, high ethical standards, and a selection of other non-tangible qualities.

Before presenting our panel on ‘Recruiting Outside the Lines’, I had a chance to also attend panels from TMP, CareerJoy, as well as a panel of current students.

The panel of students was possibly the highlight of the day. For both the content as well as the fact that when asked what they do to find jobs for after graduation, one students said she uses TalentEgg! This, of course, made my day.

Apart from making my day, the student panel shared information on what they think of info sessions, company gifts, etc. I found it all to be interesting but at the same time was very aware that these students represented ‘typical’ ‘top’ students. I.e. They were chosen by career centre staff, meaning that they were students who used their campus career centre to the point that they had developed relationships with their advisors and where their advisors felt they should be chosen to speak. I also thought that the students were sharing their opinions (i.e. ‘We think companies who advertise on Facebook are unprofessional’) rather than their actions.

It would have been more valuable to get more personal answers from the panel. For example, instead of ‘What do students think of Info Sessions? How do we attract them to our Info Sessions?’, it may have been more valuable to ask ‘What Info Sessions have YOU attended in the past and were there any non-traditional incentives associated with attending?’.

And in the case of Facebook, statistics speak louder than opinion.

Our presentation was the last of the day. It was a panel comprised of myself, Cathy Chin of I Love Rewards, and Keturah Leonforde of the WLU Campus Career Centre. We intended to speak on the value of Arts degrees but instead mostly addressed some of the buzz topics of the day, such as the Economy, the Facebook issue, and how to tie everything together.

Overall, a fantastic day. I learned a ton and got to meet some great people. Some TalentEgg employers were even in attendence, and it was great to get a chance to ‘socialize’ with the great people from Winners, Reynolds & Reynolds, Kraft, SunLife and more.

I also have to say that the staff from the WLU Career Centre were extremely nice and the facilities were incredible.