TalentEgg Trends

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TalentEgg in the Star: "Generation Y confronts economic crisis"

I was quoted in an article in today’s Star on the scary future ahead for Gen Y-ers that are graduating and looking for work this year. You can see it here.

Overall, a good story.

However I’d like to take this opportunity to clarify my position on the subject: While I think that a lot of employers are currently ‘freezing’ hiring, I think that’s it’s mostly due to fear and ‘messages from the top’ (i.e. the CEO has instructed the company to put on a hiring freeze until general fear in the market fades).

And on top of that, many employers are still hiring. Just take a quick look at the TalentEgg homepage as one single example and you’ll see dozens of high-quality Canadian employers that are keen to hire top students and new grads.

Looking outside TalentEgg, you only have to look as far as the registration numbers at the upcoming Waterloo Student Job Fair to see that good employers are still hiring.

So to all the students and new grads that are reading this, and to Cassandra specifically (!), this isn’t a scary situation, it’s just a… different… situation.

…Oh, and I’m 25, not 26 🙂

Congratulations to Kraft!!

November 28, 2008 / Adriano Rivera / 0 Comments

The team here at TalentEgg just wanted to congratulate Kraft on their most recent award!! They were recently named the 2008 Marketer of the Year by Marketing Magazine. If you would like to check out the full article, it is entitled “2008 Marketer of the Year: Quality Kraft-Manship” by Matt Semansky. Kraft has supported some very innovative marketing strategies during the last couple years and the article is actually a very interesting read for anyone involved in marketing.

Congrats Kraft!!!

Campus Recruiting Forum- Observations from a great day

November 26, 2008 / Adriano Rivera / 2 Comments

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.

How TalentEgg is different than workopolisCampus and Monster for new grads and students:

November 26, 2008 / Adriano Rivera / 1 Comment

So you just graduated from university, you take a deep breath and come to the humbling conclusion that you must become a real person and get a job. Great. If you don’t have a job waiting for you this is where it can start to get a little tricky. Being the extremely resourceful person that you are, you immediately sit down at the computer (isn’t everything on the internet yet?) and begin searching for your very first meaningful job. You visit all the major sites and some of the lesser know ones too; monster, workopolisCampus, Eluta, craigslist, etc. If you have ever actually tried searching for a position on Monster or workopolis you know it can be a little harder than it seems. What you begin to realize is that there is no dedicated service that helps new grads find entry level roles. When searching with these huge job boards the sheer volume of jobs can become a hindrance rather than a help. There are literally thousands of amazing positions on those sites; the only problem is the other ten thousand no name companies pushing call center jobs at best, trying to scam you at worst. Often times when searching for opportunities for new graduates you end up inundated with a million listings most of which are either unacceptable because it requires a) too much experience or b) not enough education. Let me explain. It is our thinking that a university graduate, who has just spent upwards of $50,000 on their education, wants to be recognized and rewarded for that accomplishment. A new grad job is not a call center employee, it is not a waiter or waitress, it is not a street marketer; it is a career starting opportunity. It is a Staff Accountant position with BDO, it is a Financial Adviser role with SunLife, and, more than anything, it is an experience that will make you more valuable in the future.

That is why at TalentEgg we have made it our business to provide new grads and students with only meaningful entry level positions that will be true career building experiences. Unlike monster and workopolis we screen every company and every job posted on the site to ensure that it is valuable to our new grads and students. We also provide the employer with a space online to describe what its like to be a part of their company. In this way we try and be a little like an online career fair. Our employers understand that to attract the best new grads they have to recruit them. They have to illustrate to you why they are better to work for than the next guy. In the end employers end up with better employees and new grads end up with better jobs, sounds about right, no?