Early talent professionals connect, share ideas, and discuss challenges for 2023.
Talent Solutions’ first graduate industry roundtable for 2023 was a fantastic opportunity for early talent professionals to connect, share ideas, and discuss the challenges they are seeing for the year ahead.
Talent Solutions facilitates these roundtable discussions periodically throughout the year and company director Seren Wilson says they are a valuable opportunity to “give a little and gain a lot".
“Attending the graduate industry roundtable provides our community of graduate practitioners with the opportunity to gain insights from others facing similar challenges to their own, keep a finger on the pulse in terms of what is happening in the industry, build networks and gather ideas,” she says.
Two key challenges were identified across the sector at the latest roundtable discussion - ‘diversity and inclusion’ and ‘competition for early talent.”
Diversity and Inclusion
Across the professional services, law, engineering and transport, government, public sector and FMCG industries, the common challenge identified was that of diversity and inclusion.
Having a diverse and inclusive workplace will help attract and retain new talent as often graduates identify with organisations they feel fit with their values.
For male dominated industries such as engineering and transport, it is challenging to attract and retain female graduates. Across other industries it is difficult to attract ethnically diverse candidates.
How can we change this?
Ideas discussed at the roundtable included:
Implementing specific graduate programmes and roles for these harder to reach groups of graduates an example of which is Mainfreight’s Women in Leadership programme. Other ideas discussed included partnering with Tupu Toa, an entity that facilitates 12-week paid-internships for Māori and Pacific tertiary students.
Connecting with university clubs and societies that focus on diverse student members.
Virtual internships that can be used effectively to promote to specific channels for example: women in engineering, or Māori students in technology
Using gender-neutral language on job descriptions and recruitment collateral to avoid potentially dissuading female applicants, particularly for industries in the STEM department.
Highlighting the diversity that already exists within your organisation. Highlighting the career paths of your own diverse leaders can be an effective tool to underline the commitment your organisation has to diversity.
Engaging with diverse groups prior to them entering tertiary study - the pathway for students into tertiary subjects starts in secondary school with students selecting NCEA/IB subjects - educate students in secondary school on opportunities for them in industries (engineering, STEM, data science) and how to get there.
Competition for Early Talent
The top challenge for graduate recruiters across all industries is the highly competitive nature of the graduate labour market. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and uncertain economic outlook in 2023, many graduates continue to be concerned about their future job prospects. As a result, many graduates are choosing to pursue further study, take a study break or travel abroad.
There is a common belief that there are fewer graduates applying, accepting, and filling the roles that organisations have available
How do we overcome this?
Topics discussed at the roundtable included:
Build a strong employer brand. Some organisations are starting their employer brand marketing at secondary school level, with most organisations considering how to reach first and second year students (rather than the traditional focus on final year students).
Virtual internships and internships have been found to be incredibly effective to tap into specific groups of students (see point above) and students earlier in their studies.
Focus on retention of current employees, so the need for graduates isn’t as crucial. By retaining middle and upper-level employees, there are more people able to coach graduates (better training and introductions contribute to better retention levels).
Review your current graduate programme and compare to the market (the NZAGE survey data and Talent Solutions Pulse data is great to benchmark against). What are the areas where you can strengthen your programme to ensure it is competitive in the market and highly engaging to your target market?
Use targeted recruitment strategies! Leverage social media, attend university career expos, and build relationships with university clubs and societies to target the demographic of graduates you want to attract.
Here at Talent Solutions, we are committed to supporting our graduate community and our graduate industry roundtables provide us with the opportunity to facilitate conversations for our clients to build networks, share ideas and support one another.
If you would like to chat about how we support clients with attraction strategies such as building effective marketing campaigns, virtual internship programmes, or keep warm activities, please reach out.
Keep an eye on our email newsletters and LinkedIn page for details on how to register for our next one.
We look forward to having you join us!
