TalentEgg Trends

Today’s Talent, Tomorrow’s Leaders

Knowledge Hub For Employers, Career Educators And Coaches

Author: Stephanie Davis (page 2 of 4)

How Your Recruitment Efforts Can Be Everywhere, All At Once (Yes, It’s Possible)

March 2, 2020 / / 0 Comments

When dealing with digital natives, it’s only natural they would have a preference for online content. However, in the case of recruitment, post-secondary students highly value face-to-face interaction with potential employers as well, although increasingly in unconventional ways!

In our survey, we found that more students have attended Career Development events, such as workshops, information sessions and keynote speaker presentations compared to Career Recruitment events like career fairs. That being said, the survey results still support the importance of connecting with students on-campus, regardless of the nature of the experience. 60% of students attended 1-5 career development events versus 54% of students who attended 1-5 career recruitment events. This means with the high costs of travel and accommodation for your recruitment team, your time on campus should be wisely spent! With TalentEgg’s hard-to-miss, large format murals, your company can still maintain a brand presence on campus even after your recruiters leave and reinforce your EVP to more students in high-traffic areas.

Students who do attend recruiting events on campus still prefer Career Fairs as their number one choice, followed closely by networking events and information sessions. Make your time on campus meaningful by ensuring your booth stands out from the crowd. With TalentEgg’s in-house design team, we can create custom retractable banners and other event materials for your team to bring with you on campus.

“I think the on campus interview strategy is definitely very good. Sourcing talent from the spot is great and definitely helps relieve some of the anxiety around interviews (That I’ve definitely had) I like this idea.” – Mallory Thompson, Western University, 2019

Now, how about connecting with students on campus without physically being there? You can combine the best of both strategies with TalentEgg’s geo-targeted mobile marketing campaigns. Depending on your recruitment needs, we are able to geo-fence specific campuses, schools, and even academic departments and deliver to them engaging and compelling employer branding ads. Whether you’re looking for the best engineering students at McMaster University or the brightest communication students at Carleton University, we are able to reach your ideal candidate. With more than twice the industry standard in CTR (click through rate) we can measure how much the targeted candidates engage with your job opportunities and employer brand. We can even retarget them across devices after they leave the geo-targeted location for up to 90 days, to remind them on their mobile phone, their laptop and their tablet about your jobs and EVP. Using keyword search capabilities we can drill down to those who have demonstrated their interest in your industry or company as they search the web. It’s a perfect way to reach busy Gen Y and Z job seekers wherever they are and to reinforce your employer brand to the right candidates for your opportunities.

“I love the idea of strategically hiring at campus fairs. Truthfully, I hate going to a campus fair to be handed a sheet of paper telling me to apply online” – Sarah Pointer, Mount Royal University, 2020

Make the best use of your strategies on and off campus to reach your future talent pool. By utilizing all or a combination of the tactics above, you’ll be sure to communicate to students exactly the way they want to be reached! Strengthen your presence and stand out as an employer of choice with TalentEgg’s cutting edge digital marketing tools and on-campus services!

An Amplification of HR Legal Trends from the Last Decade

February 6, 2020 / / 0 Comments

In our ever-changing workforce, it’s more important than ever for employers to stay on top of HR trends and what legal implications they may have on their organization, workplace culture and overall brand. We had the chance to speak with Greg McGinnis, Partner at Matthews Dinsdale & Clark LLP, about upcoming trends in employment law. What we discovered was that the trends from the latter half of the last decade are amplifying. Read on to see how. 

Although there have been many societal shifts within the last few years, Greg comments that there really aren’t any new or radical changes in employment law, but rather previous trends are continuing. He does mention, however, that there’s a common theme or phenomenon happening as a result of previous trends, like the #MeToo movement, legalization of Cannabis and diversity in the workforce, which is fostering an increased demand for flexibility and zero tolerance for toxic workplaces. 

Flexibility and Accommodation

“The main trend, if I can call it that, is that people are looking for flexibility in their work. They’re looking for flexibility in terms of hours of work, days of work, time off when they need it. The big trend is that employees want their work to fit in with their lives, and so employers are increasingly having to accommodate that kind of flexibility. That comes in all kinds of different forms. One form would be people who have young children, who want the time for child care or to attend events in their kids’ lives. Then you also have, especially in Canada, a large population of people who come from other places originally and they travel, so they want to have longer periods of time off to visit family or just travel. There’s an increasing trend towards flexibility at work, where it could be accommodated.” 

“The idea that work is Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 and you better just show up – that concept has slowly been eroding for a long time and it’s continuing to erode. There are of course jobs where you need to be [at work] for certain time periods, but even then, people will want extended time off. We see this in every domain, from factory workers to office workers. People are demanding that their personal life and needs are reflected at work.” 

Zero Tolerance for Toxic Workplaces

As a result of the same societal factors that gave rise to the #MeToo movement, Greg has found that the number of complaints being made that require the employer to carry out investigations has significantly increased. “I would say the #MeToo movement is a reflection of the same underlying phenomenon that people aren’t prepared to be treated poorly or suffer in silence. There’s next to no tolerance for toxic workplace behaviour. It is increasingly important for employers to ensure their workplace provides a positive, constructive atmosphere for people to work in and if they don’t do it, they will be facing a requirement to invest in workplace investigations…There’s a whole raft of time-consuming expensive consequences that can result from not dealing with these problems.” 

Diversity 

Diversity is an important value for many organizations. In Greg’s experience, diversity hiring has to be managed effectively by most employers to ensure all job seekers are given an equal opportunity to join a positive workplace, but that’s not always easy to achieve and maintain once your workforce becomes diverse. “Diversity has an impact on workplace culture because when you have new people or experiences, people come to work with different cultural expectations or behaviours that may require an adjustment on the part of the employer.”

Once you recruit a diverse workforce, you need to ensure your policies are, and the workplace is, welcoming, accommodating and, again, flexible. “You have a diverse workforce, you need a diverse workforce, then you need to find ways to reconcile new and different expectations where you need to get the work done. The challenge of diversity is that you don’t really know what’s next, you have to adapt to the people you are employing the best you can, and they need to adapt to you too.” 

Cannabis: Biggest Issue That’s a Non-issue

Now that Cannabis has been legal in Canada for over a year, there have been minimal impacts on employment law, according to Greg. “Cannabis is the big nothing. It may have a long term impact, but the short term impact has been next to zero.”

“It’s not that all of a sudden people are bringing their drugs to work or consuming drugs in a different way. Most employers in anticipation of the legalization of cannabis took another look at their fitness for duty policies, and perhaps even their testing policies and gave some thought on how to approach that. Then legalization occurred and people braced themselves for the onslaught of stoners as if all of a sudden we were all going to turn into Cheech and Chong and it just didn’t happen!”

“Outside of safety-sensitive positions where someone could be seriously injured or killed or your actions could result in someone being seriously injured, or death or property damage, the issue of cannabis has not made any difference. And I think the reason for that is – cannabis is just one intoxicant. There’s a wide array of drugs out there, legal and illegal, and the legalization of cannabis has had a marginal impact on the way cannabis impairment, specifically, has been addressed when it’s been detected.”

Gig Economy

There were concerns about the ‘gig’ economy and the impact on the career prospects for millennial and Gen Z workers, but in regards to employment law, it’s really only made employers consider instituting more flexible work environments. 

“My perspective on the gig economy is that it’s provided opportunities for people to work in small amounts on their schedule that competes with the regular employment pool. So people who want more flexibility can get it by becoming a gig worker. I think the gig economy has expanded opportunities for people. [Employers] have to recognize that their employees can go and do consulting or gig work as an alternative to regular employment. So it forces more flexibility onto employers as well.” 

 

With the evolution and expansion of trends from the last few years, Greg notes that in the legal sphere, changes in the law are harder to predict. “The world of work is driven more by cultural change than by legal change. We’re not seeing a lot of radical legal changes now or anticipated in the future. The society is changing, so we have to respond to that.” It’s important that employers are staying on the cutting edge of emerging and continuing societal and workplace trends, especially when considering incoming talent will come into the workforce with new and sometimes challenging expectations for employers to meet. 

For more TalentEgg Legal Briefs, be sure to subscribe to our monthly employer and career educator newsletter. 

Why BMO Financial is Investing in Students and Early Talent Through Authentic Student Experiences That Leave a Lasting Impression 

February 6, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Professional skills and soft skills are vital for new talent to have when entering the workforce. But what does that truly look like for students who are making their first school-to-work transition? Are they set up for success before getting their first full-time job, or do they still have more learning to do?

As Lisa Kramer, Director of Enterprise Campus Recruitment & Early Talent Programs at BMO Financial says, “In the years that I’ve been in the campus recruiting space I would say there is still a gap between what students are learning in their academic programs and the skills and capabilities necessary to work in a corporate environment. That’s why I think it’s important for us as employers to provide those types of experiences and learning opportunities to students when they’re coming in”. This is one of the reasons why BMO launched their new BMO Student Experience this past year. It focuses on investing in the future workforce, recognizing and providing opportunities for development to increase hiring conversions and foster a culture of authenticity, growth and development.

We had the chance to speak with Lisa to learn more about the BMO Student Experience and how BMO is positioning themselves as an employer of choice on campus and beyond.

A Return on Student Investment

Lisa started with BMO a year ago to transform the recruitment strategy for students and early talent and highlight what it’s actually like to work for BMO. “We’re trying to drive higher conversion rates – “recruit once, hire twice” type of mentality, so when we get students in the door, we show them how awesome it is to work here in hopes that they return for subsequent work terms or join us upon graduation”, Lisa says. Historically, BMO has had good programs and hired many students, but their team identified the need to offer more than just work experience and training. This is where the idea of the BMO Student Experience was developed. 

From TalentEgg’s most recent survey, 71% of post-secondary students and grads said that the most important thing they’re looking for in a career is gaining job experience, building their future career paths and development. So it’s important for organizations to showcase how they can offer these requirements to students as well as provide real, authentic examples. This is something that BMO has done very well through their presence not only on campus but online as well. 

“One of the big things for us was utilizing social media and making sure we could connect with students in a more authentic and engaging way. Moving away from the reliance of the “corporate speak” on the web page and start to tell stories about what it’s really like to work here”, Lisa comments. The BMO campus team has focused on telling real stories about students who work at BMO, as well as letting students and their recruitment team takeover the BMO Campus Recruitment Instagram account and host Instagram Live sessions where students across North America have access to their team. 

New Campus Influencer Program

One of the key components of the new strategy was introducing BMO’s Campus Influencer Program. While many organizations have an ambassador program, the BMO team wanted to do something different, something that would resonate with students and how they’re currently engaging with content, branding and goods. Enter: Influencers — the biggest wave of marketing to take over the laptop and cellphone screens of Gen Z and Millenials. “We’re seeing a lot of students and early talent that are heavily influenced by individuals on YouTube and Instagram, so it’s really a play on that. We took students who worked for us over the course of last summer and who were returning to campus to help us amplify our message”, Lisa says. BMO’s Student Influencers are communicating through their own personal social media accounts and using their own networks to spread the word about BMO. 

The benefits? BMO amplifies their employer brand through students who can authentically share their experiences with the company, point interested candidates to the right connection and provide feedback and invaluable information back to the BMO recruitment team about what students are interested in and how they want to connect with BMO as an employer. 

“It’s been fantastic to have that intel because obviously in a perfect world we’d love to be on campus every day, every campus, every program connecting with students but that’s not possible. So the influencer program has been a really great extension of our campus recruiting team.”

What Students can Expect

To continue investing in student development, a part of BMO’s strategy includes a Student Leadership Summit that will be held for returning students this year. Students will have the opportunity to spend three days at the BMO Institute for Learning with their peers to network, build leadership skills, hear from BMO leadership and more. “By investing in them and their skills, it’s our hope that this is just the start of a very successful career with BMO that will continue in the years to come”. 

Throughout their time with BMO, students are given the opportunity to gain professional skills through networking within the business and connecting with other students outside of work through the BMO Social Squad. They also learn practical nuanced skills such as using Excel or PowerPoint. In addition to what the campus team has created, all students have access to BMO U which is an online learning tool where students can complete thousands of courses for free during their work term. “We hope that by providing that experience they will, in turn, have a great work term and will want to come back and work for us again. This obviously helps drive conversion and it’s really our investment in our future workforce. We need to invest now to help identify the talent that we need in the long term.”

Final Advice for Students and Fellow Employers

Lisa provided some final pieces of advice to both students and fellow employers. For students, it’s so important to make connections. Of course, students should do their research and come out to see BMO when they’re on campus, but they should come prepared and reach out to recruiters. “We had a BMO Hangout at one school where the recruiter met with 10 students and hired 8 of them!”, Lisa highlights. As an example, Lisa suggests instead of saying “Hey, here’s my resume, do you have a job for me?”, students should come with personal and focused outcomes, like “Hey Lisa, I saw BMO on campus at this particular event, I heard [name] speak about XYZ and that’s an area I’m really interested in and was wondering if you could tell me more”. “Making that personal connection is key if you want to stand out”, she says. 

For fellow employers, Lisa comments on the importance of playing a key role in the development of future leaders. 

“Some schools and programs are certainly invested in the development of soft skills and we do certainly see in our campus recruiting efforts that students are better prepared. However, I think it’s important, if we’re truly looking for a diverse workforce, that we’re helping. We [as employers] play a part in this development and shouldn’t just rely on our school partners to prep students. It’s our role to help drive that forward. I do think it needs to be a partnership between employers and educators in terms of getting our early talent and future workforce ready for the roles of the future.”

“Once students have that first job, in order to truly build [their] career, it’s the soft skills and professional development that we really need to help students with. Things like how to write a proper email, how do you present to different levels within the organization, what level of detail do you provide in those communications? Those are all nuances that are important for students who are coming into organizations to learn, and it’s our role as an employer to help that with that.” 

Students entering the workforce value the opportunities to continue learning and developing skills that will help them in their career journey. 88% believe they need additional training to launch their career, according to our most recent Survey. Lisa and the BMO campus team are focused on doing just that. To learn more about BMO’s Reimagined Student Experience, see their student-focused article on TalentEgg here.

Lisa’s a disrupter…currently transforming the Enterprise Campus Recruitment and Early Talent Program at BMO!  Lisa began her career in student recruitment right after university, developing her talents at three universities (Laurier, Waterloo, and Ryerson), before taking her expertise to the corporate world, where she has taken student recruitment practices to a higher level. ATI Technologies, CGI, Siemens, Accenture, and RBC have all benefitted from Lisa’s expertise. Lisa was the inaugural winner of Talent Egg’s Campus Recruiter of the Year Award in 2013.  Lisa is known as an accomplished and flexible leader who leverages strong interpersonal skills and teamwork to achieve business objectives. By defining and implementing a shared vision, she’s driving results and excellence across her team. When she’s not at the office, she can most likely be found in an arena with mobile phone in hand, watching her two daughters and balancing life as a busy working hockey mom!

TalentEgg launches Canada’s first candidate showcase featuring video profiles allowing students and grads to communicate strengths beyond the resume, improve visibility and directly connect to employers

August 1, 2019 / / 0 Comments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Aug. 1, 2019 (Toronto, Canada). TalentEgg is pleased to announce Canada’s first talent marketplace featuring video-based features allowing candidates to introduce themselves beyond the resume and get noticed by employers. The platform helps Gen Y & Z candidates to tell their story in their own words by providing convenient, easy to use functionality that allows them to record their video introduction, upload their resume, and respond to interview requests from employers, from any device, on their schedule. With the TalentEgg Candidate Video Showcase, recruiters and employers now have the ability to search the job seekers’ video profiles with resumes and invite them to a video interview directly from the profile.

Video interviewing is now a mainstream assessment method in recruitment and student and grad job seekers are practicing and developing their digital interviewing skills while at University and College. Now they have an opportunity to put those skills to work in the real world and on their own terms on a platform where they can control their own message. The TalentEgg Candidate Video Showcase offers the candidate the ability to upload their resume and record a video introduction directly into their personal candidate profile. They can include a descriptive paragraph about themselves and credentials which are displayed to the employer and is searchable based on location, school, year of graduation, program of study and preferred industries, or by relevant keywords.

“Employers are looking for more efficient methods to recruit and interview graduates and improve campus recruiting efficiency. Students and grads are looking for new ways to get noticed by employers outside of traditional methods. Schools are looking for more ways to help their students and grads make the transition from school to work effectively by showcasing great candidates to employers of choice,” says Mary Barroll, President of TalentEgg. “TalentEgg’s Candidate Video Showcase brings all of these features and capabilities together at one digital job marketplace destination. We believe it’s a real win-win-win and an exceptional opportunity for schools, employers and job seekers alike, and a gamechanger in the campus recruitment space.”

“The resume is no longer an adequate tool for representing the potential that candidates can bring to the workplace. Job seekers are increasingly frustrated with their inability to differentiate themselves in their job search. They are eager to share more about themselves by answering questions and sharing other aspects of their character that, in the case of students and graduates, can supplement their sometimes limited work history,” says Catharine Fennell, CEO, videoBIO. “We are pleased to provide the video technology to support TalentEgg’s job marketplace to advance connections between employers and job seekers.”

To learn more and add a profile visit https://talentegg.ca/register

For more information please contact:

Mary Barroll
President, TalentEgg Inc.
Mary@talentegg.ca

Rachel Evans
VP of Operations, TalentEgg Inc.
Rachel@talentegg.ca

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