Make your process easy to attract school leaver talent
27 February 2013
Ensuring that online careers information for school leavers can be found and navigated as easily as information about applying to university is key to getting through to a school leaver population, which is open to but unaware of opportunities to enter the world of work.
Wed, 27 Feb 2013Ensuring that online careers information for school leavers can be found and navigated as easily as information about applying to university is key to getting through to a school leaver population, which is open to but unaware of opportunities to enter the world of work.
This is according to Jayne Cullen, business director of the Graduate Solutions division at recruitment advertising agency TMP Worldwide. She was presenting the results of TMP research last night [26 February] at a London region event of the Recruitment Society, attended by Recruiter.
The TMP research questioned 1,054 school-age students. It showed that when researching options for their future “they go to one place, or perhaps two” for information about further education, the principal one being the website of the Universities & Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). The young people think the alternative routes are ‘exhausting’ to research, Cullen added, with the problem compounded because whereas they “get taught how to fill out a UCAS form, they don’t get taught what does a competency mean”.
“UCAS is easy – make your process easy too,” Cullen told the audience. “Their doors are much more open than you think, but our [employers] career messages are not getting through.” However, she warned against assuming that social media is the right place to communicate these, with 51% of students saying they won’t use social media to find out about careers. “They’re saying it’s their space,” she said.
Of the young people open to opportunities other than university – 51% of the total surveyed – 29% said they would consider going to college, 27% a gap year, 19% an apprenticeship, 14% a full-time job, 5% part-time work, 4% travelling and just 2% said a specific school leaver scheme would be attractive.
And she added that just as elsewhere in recruitment, the passive or potential jobseeker is a key target, noting: “If all we do is focus on those who have actively decided they want to go into work, we will fail to fill our positions.”
Cullen noted that the individuals responding to the survey were roughly equally divided four ways between students at colleges, academies, state schools, and the independent and boarding sector. She said she had expected to see very different responses from the four groups, with each holding distinct attitudes. “But I was totally wrong,” she admitted.
Cullen also commented that school leaver talent is a young, growth area, saying that when she joined the firm in 2007, school leaver talent “really wasn’t talked about, it was really all about how do we get the best graduates”, but added that it remains “highly fragmented”.
• Scheduled speaker Andrew Thompson, the chief executive officer of online young talent platform plotr, was unable to speak at the event due to illness.
This is according to Jayne Cullen, business director of the Graduate Solutions division at recruitment advertising agency TMP Worldwide. She was presenting the results of TMP research last night [26 February] at a London region event of the Recruitment Society, attended by Recruiter.
The TMP research questioned 1,054 school-age students. It showed that when researching options for their future “they go to one place, or perhaps two” for information about further education, the principal one being the website of the Universities & Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS). The young people think the alternative routes are ‘exhausting’ to research, Cullen added, with the problem compounded because whereas they “get taught how to fill out a UCAS form, they don’t get taught what does a competency mean”.
“UCAS is easy – make your process easy too,” Cullen told the audience. “Their doors are much more open than you think, but our [employers] career messages are not getting through.” However, she warned against assuming that social media is the right place to communicate these, with 51% of students saying they won’t use social media to find out about careers. “They’re saying it’s their space,” she said.
Of the young people open to opportunities other than university – 51% of the total surveyed – 29% said they would consider going to college, 27% a gap year, 19% an apprenticeship, 14% a full-time job, 5% part-time work, 4% travelling and just 2% said a specific school leaver scheme would be attractive.
And she added that just as elsewhere in recruitment, the passive or potential jobseeker is a key target, noting: “If all we do is focus on those who have actively decided they want to go into work, we will fail to fill our positions.”
Cullen noted that the individuals responding to the survey were roughly equally divided four ways between students at colleges, academies, state schools, and the independent and boarding sector. She said she had expected to see very different responses from the four groups, with each holding distinct attitudes. “But I was totally wrong,” she admitted.
Cullen also commented that school leaver talent is a young, growth area, saying that when she joined the firm in 2007, school leaver talent “really wasn’t talked about, it was really all about how do we get the best graduates”, but added that it remains “highly fragmented”.
• Scheduled speaker Andrew Thompson, the chief executive officer of online young talent platform plotr, was unable to speak at the event due to illness.
