Bell is packed full of superstar recruiters who find and hire hundreds of high potential students every year, including Minami Alguire who is the senior manager for talent acquisition. We had the chance to hear how the recruitment team is passionate about welcoming students to Bell, helping them find their fit, eliminating bias and seeing their potential to contribute meaningfully straight out of school. Finding one’s path after school can be daunting and it makes them proud to see the way that their recruiters show up for students. They make connections and share their expertise with students at recruitment events, and work with hiring leaders to make matches between students and teams that are great for business and key post-graduation milestones for the student hires.
Bell is a space where recruitment and development merge. There is so much opportunity in student hiring to bring fresh ideas and skills into a company and to invest in future generations. With the strong support from their executive team, they have both the passion and the commitment to make great things happen in the campus recruitment space!
The best way to help students and new graduates get involved with Bell opportunities is for them to speak to recruiters directly! They publish their events calendar on their career site https://jobs.bell.ca/ca/en/c/students-graduates-jobs and on their TalentEgg page https://talentegg.ca/employer/bell/events. Their virtual career fair is one of the highlights of the recruitment calendar. Not only will you get to meet some current grads, hiring leaders, and recruiters, but you can also hear from executives, participate in speed interviews and access exclusive webinars and resources from the recruitment team.
Keep reading to learn more about how Bell welcomes new grads and students into the telecommunications, media, and retail industries via their award-winning internship and new graduate leadership programs!
Bell’s main initiative for students and new graduates
At Bell, they welcome students and new graduates into the telecommunications, media, and retail industries via their award-winning internship and new graduate leadership programs. Whether they are looking for their first summer position between semesters at school, or ready to kick-start their career with a full-time role, Bell knows exactly how important the transition from school to work is and they have over ten years of experience successfully launching grads into leadership positions.
Commitment to mental health in the workplace
On campus, Bell Let’s Talk partners with schools across the country to equip post-secondary schools with digital tool kits to engage students in conversation around awareness and self-care. Last year, Bell announced the launch of the $3.1M Bell Let’s Talk Post-Secondary Fund to support Canadian colleges and universities in implementing the National Standard of Canada for Mental Health and Well-Being for Post-Secondary Students
One of the four pillars of the Bell Let’s Talk campaign is workplace leadership, and Bell is proudly committed to leading by example in this space too. Since 2010, more than 18,000 Bell employees and 13,000 Bell leaders, have completed mental health training. Bell’s initiatives to improve mental health awareness, training and benefits have reduced short-term disability claims related to mental health by over 20%, and reduced relapse and recurrence by more than 50%. Earlier this year, we enhanced our psychological care benefit to provide unlimited coverage for mental-health services!
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Initiatives
For Bell, diversity, equity and inclusion is more than a seat at the table. It’s the key to the skills and innovation that make the whole greater than the sum of its parts. We all benefit from a diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment! Sometimes DE&I shows up at work in big ways – like their 2020 announcement to hire a minimum of 40% BIPOC talent in their new grad and intern programs – sometimes it shows up in the little things, like colleagues eagerly learning how to pronounce someones name. At Bell, they don’t just accept difference – they celebrate it!
#TeamBell is also passionately committed to DE&I, they currently have three Employee Resource Groups, which are run entirely by employees to support their members and allies. These include Women at Bell, Pride at Bell, and Black Professionals at Bell.
3 major hiring trends for the future
- Transferrable skills – knowing how to showcase the transferability of skillsets between roles or industries will be important as candidates look to pivot between industries or make key career changes. It’s also important for hiring leaders to be able to see the value that a different background can bring to a role and the way that skillsets can be developed through non-traditional experiences.
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion – continued focus and momentum on diverse, equitable, and inclusive hiring practices. Diverse lived experiences are often intersectional, and there is room in this space for deeper conversation around the nuances that can exist in diverse experiences and ways to make the workplace more equitable and inclusive.
- Technical solutions – Personal connection is an important part of the candidate experience; however, there are also opportunities in recruitment to leverage technical solutions more effectively to optimize the hiring process (giving recruiters more time to build professional relationships with candidates in their networks!).
Taking steps to eliminating bias in the hiring process
Bell has a number of steps in place to reduce and eliminate bias in their hiring process. These include conscious inclusion training to help employees and people leaders to develop a better understanding of unconscious bias and the critical role they have in fostering and inclusive workplace. Alongside diverse interview panels to show candidates a realistic glimpse into Bell while also ensuring that hiring decisions are made with diverse thoughts and inputs to make sure Bell continues to be one of the best companies to work for in Canada.
