Happy December!

Each month, TalentEgg shares 4 top tips for employers that hire students and recent graduates. Without further ado, here are this month’s tips for campus recruitment excellence.

To see November’s top tips, click here.

To find out how TalentEgg can help you connect with top students and recent graduates, click here.

1. Set expectations and goals

Used to commentary and reinforcement from parents, teachers and peers, today’s students and recent grads excel when they’re given regular assessments and feedback.

In order to provide the right amount of productive feedback, you’ll want to establish a detailed understanding of a candidate’s potential role and clearly indicate both short- and long-term goals.

“New graduate positions need to cater to new graduates. Offer us a position where we can help, and provide a way for us to learn on the job.”
– Timothy Boodram, Graduate, University of Toronto

Starting a new job is scary, especially when it’s your first. Helping Gen Y candidates understand the day-to-day reality of a potential role will help them see their place in the big picture and calm their fears at the same time. See how these employers help set expectations for incoming students and grads:

This is a great opportunity to help students get to know the “real you”, resulting in better-prepared applicants.

2. Be targeted

Gen Y can multi-task like no generation before and is skilled at managing and prioritizing multiple pieces of information at once.

While this ability is a workplace asset, it also means that you need to present student- and grad-focused information to your audience in a way that matches what they’re looking for.

The Kraft video, linked below, is a great example of authentic, super-targeted recruitment communication that appeals to students and recent grads.

This is an ongoing process of improvement and development. Are you asking your Gen Y hires how you can improve? Are you listening?

3. Maintain a connection

Your campus recruitment activities should operate year-round.

Regular messaging keeps all candidates engaged with your brand and opportunities outside of campus recruitment season.

Prospective candidates will be more likely to prioritize attending your events and meeting your deadlines over  an organization that only reaches out certain months of the year.

Successful candidates will have an even higher retention rate from offer to start date if they feel like you’re interested in building a relationship with them, not hiring alone.

Don’t overextend yourself – put together an engagement plan that works for you!

4. Treat students like adults

Students and new grads face a lot of challenges in transitioning from the classroom to the workplace: many of these challenges involve communication.

When you’re engaging with a group facing a major life transition, it can be easy to use the wrong tone or oversimplify.

“Let us prove to you what we can do and then you can see first hand what our generation is all about.”
– Kari Merriott, Graduate, Georgian College

Striking a balance between an engaging tone and providing the right content isn’t easy. Here are a few examples of employers doing it right:

Inexperience and incapability aren’t the same thing. Be sure to give students the credit they deserve.

Want to find out how TalentEgg can help you attract and recruit top students and recent graduates? Learn more here.

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