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Recruitment & Retention

Published March 2008

On The Hunt For Talent

Lindsay Edmonds Wickman

"Get 'em while they're young!" might be the rally cry for today's talent managers who are starved for candidates and struggling to retain those who've joined organizational ranks. College campuses are a great place to find the best and brightest, but recruiters have to dip their hands in many different pools to get their attention.

The word recruitment often conjures images of job fairs where hordes of college students wait anxiously for their one chance to impress a potential employer. Yet recruitment strategies today involve much more than the traditional, generic job fair scenario. It has become an ever-changing, ever-evolving strategy to attract the best young talent. Each class that graduates from college is different from the last, but that doesn't mean the fail-safe methods from 10 years ago should instantly be discarded.

On-campus recruiting still is ranked as one of the most effective recruiting tools tied with company internship programs, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers' (NACE) Job Outlook 2008 survey. Other top recruitment methods referenced include job fairs, faculty contacts, employee referrals, Internet job postings and student organizations and clubs.

Ranking last in the survey were virtual career fairs and video interviewing, evidence that face-to-face time still is important in the recruiting realm.

"Technology is necessary, but it's not sufficient," said Emanuel Contomanolis, associate vice president and director of Rochester Institute of Technology's Co-op and Career Services. "I cannot think of any student who basically sight unseen would jump and accept an offer of full-time employment. They may be connecting with people electronically, but ultimately they want to see a face, they want to see a place — they want to understand the culture because the culture is more important to them than ever before."

In today's über-competitive job market, the best recruitment method is a pervasive and diversified one. As a result, talent executives should develop a synthesized plan to encompass tried and true methods with new, cutting-edge developments.

"Most employers, especially those that are recruiting effectively, are utilizing a variety of means to reach candidates rather than just one or two time-tested sorts of things," said Contomanolis, who is also on the NACE Board of Directors. "The idea of the employer that just comes to the career fair, for example, and does nothing else, that really isn't the most effective strategy any longer. You really need to be looking at a variety of means to reach candidates, and I think most employers are trying to leverage whatever university relationships they have."

From Baby Boomers to Generation Y

College graduates don't all have dollar signs in their eyes. They're leaving the collegiate experience expecting to find similar stimulation and development opportunities in their first professional off-campus job. Hiring managers need to tailor their recruitment strategies to reflect this and highlight any development opportunities available in their working environment. Contomanolis said today's graduating students are far more interested in a company's culture, work-life balance and development opportunities than their predecessors.