Graduate Careers Australia
The Graduate Grapevine – Number 4, June 2006
Into the Future: Top Issues and Trends for Career Services and Graduate Recruitment
In late 2005, the US National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Future Directions Task Force polled NACE members about current trends and future issues within the US Careers Services and Recruiting field. This article, extracted here from the NACE Journal Fall 2005 edition and is reproduced with kind permission, focuses on the top trends and issues that surfaced in the survey findings and executive summit discussion.
Top Issues: Today and Tomorrow
In the survey and later in discussion groups at the 2005 National Meeting, there were overarching issues for both Employers and Careers Services that received high importance ratings:
- Accountability
- Branding
- Diversity
- Internships/Co-ops
- Technology.
These are not separate but are intertwined, and value appears to be at the core of all of them. For example, while Accountability relates to demonstrating value, Branding relates to building a perception of value. Similarly Internships/Co-ops and Technology can be seen as tools to help employers achieve their recruiting goals which then relates back to being able to demonstrate value.
Below are listed the key findings for Career Services and Recruiters relating to these five issues.
Accountability
If one were to point to just one critical issue for Career Services, Accountability would likely be it.
Being able to demonstrate the value of their service or program is of significant importance for both groups, but Careers Services professionals tended to give higher importance ratings to issues related to value. In fact, of the items deemed most important in the future by Careers Services professionals, two of the top three relate to Accountability: measuring the effectiveness of your office’s programs and services (4.6) and demonstrating and validating the value of the Career Services function at your institution (4.6).
Of course, underlying the importance of Accountability is the idea of providing service and achieving results worth reporting. Not surprisingly, Career Services professionals gave high importance ratings to items related to having the requisite knowledge, tools and relationships to perform effectively. These include: accessing key research on the overall economic environment and its impact on college recruiting and hiring (knowledge); accessing adequate training and skills to deliver effective career development and counselling as well as employment services (tools); managing employer relations in concert with other campus offices (relationships); and working with faculty to assist students and employers in the job-search process (relationships).
For Employers, Accountability is an important issue, but not supreme. Recruiters gave high marks to measuring the results of your college relations and recruitment program as well as demonstrating and validating the value of college relations and recruitment function to your organisation, but these landed in third and fourth place in terms of what is important in the future.
Branding
Employers tended to invest greater importance in issues related to their ability to compete for candidates effectively. It makes sense, therefore, that Branding heads Recruiters’ list of what’s most important now and in the future; Branding both supports and furthers Employers’ efforts to attract top candidates. It is a means to an end. Highest marks went to branding your organisation to campuses, including student organisation administrators and faculty, but a related statement, branding your organisation to Career Centres, also placed among Recruiters’ top five issues.
Employers also noted the importance of Internal Branding: strengthening the image of the college relations and recruitment function within your organisation (4.2) was among their top 10 issues in terms of importance in the future.
In comparison, CAS respondents seemed most focused on Internal Branding: strengthening the image of the Career Services function within your institution placed first in terms of what’s most important now (4.3) and second in the future (4.5). Concern over Branding their institutions and their offices to Employers appeared further down the list. These results seem to underscore the Career Services respondents’ concern regarding their institutions’ perception of their value to the overall enterprise.
Diversity
For Employers, Diversity is a key issue; both now and in the future, focusing on diversity in recruitment and hiring activities ranked among the top three issues for Recruiters. Although their Career Services colleagues placed a similar statement – responding effectively but ethically to employers’ diversity [in] hiring needs – further down on their list (it was rated as a 3.8 now and a 4.0 in the future), Diversity is an issue for both groups.
Internships/Co-ops
While Career Services and Employers seem to view Accountability, Branding and Diversity from distinctly different vantage points, Internships and Co-ops may be the critical issue where they are most in sync.
Recruiting professionals cited identifying talent early through ‘pipeline’ programs such as internships and co-ops as a key issue, while their counterparts in Career Services flagged maintaining or assuming responsibility for experiential education programs. And both groups gave high importance ratings to understanding risk management and legal issues related to the recruiting and hiring process of interns/co-ops and full-time employees.
On the CAS side, benchmark studies show a steady increase in the number of Career Centres providing students with Internship/Co-op assistance. In 1975, just 26 per cent of offices said they provided this service; in 2004 more than 85 per cent of offices said they did so.
Internships and Co-ops are often viewed as a ‘win-win situation’ for the Recruiter (who wants to develop a relationship with and test out the prospective employee) and the participating student (who wants to gain some experience and perhaps get a ‘foot in the door’ with an Employer). But, such programs are also a ‘win’ for Career Services, giving the Career Centre the opportunity to facilitate a mutually beneficial relationship between two of its key constituencies.
Technology
Ask a Recruiter or a Career Services practitioner what the biggest change has been in the field over the past decade, and Technology is likely to be the answer.
As was true with Internships/Co-ops, there is a great deal of overlap in how Employers and Careers Services approach the issue of Technology. For example, both groups see balancing high-tech and high-touch methods as perhaps the most challenging Technology-related issue, both now and in the future. (For Career Services practitioners, in fact, how to use Technology is among the issues they deem most critical in the future.)
Similarly, Career Services and Recruiting professionals seem to agree on the importance of Career Services professionals having the technical skills needed to meet Employer needs; both rated the issue at 3.8 now, and see it as an even more important issue in the future.
There is even agreement on an area that could potentially create some conflict down the road: integrating college web-based candidate management systems with employers’ applicant tracking systems. Employers rated the current importance of this at 3.3 and CAS respondents gave it a similar rating – 3.0. For both groups, the issue currently stands in the ‘somewhat important’ region. At the same time, both agree this will be much more important in the future; CAS participants rated its future importance at 3.7 while Recruiters rated it at 4.0 in the future.
Where Do We Go From Here?
The study and executive summit provide some clues as to practical steps practitioners on both sides can take, including:
- Communicate what’s most important to you. As one participant noted in a discussion at the National Meeting, one size does not fit all, and that’s especially true in terms of what issues are most critical to your campus or organisation. Don’t assume that your counterpart knows what you value, want or need.
- Recognise what’s most important to your counterparts and identify what you can do to support their efforts in that area. For example, Recruiters can assist their colleagues in Career Services in measuring results and demonstrating value by reporting back to the Career Centre with relevant statistics – how many students were hired from the campus, retention rates among new hires from that campus, starting salary information and such. Similarly, as Branding is a key issue for Employers, Career Services practitioners can provide Recruiters with information on how to best image themselves to their campus’ students and key stakeholders.
- Seek, act on and offer constructive feedback. Ongoing communication is key, but collecting feedback is only one step; you need to act on it as well. At the same time, you need to be willing to offer feedback; let your counterpart know if their efforts are effective, and how they could be improved. Be sure to go beyond providing informal feedback – if formal feedback is requested through a survey, for example, take the time to provide it.
- Continue the dialogue. The field is evolving, and what we think will matter tomorrow may not match the reality. Share your thoughts. Take part in discussion groups, surveys, events and other opportunities to ensure we identify where we are, stay on top of where we’re going and look for ways to help each other meet today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.
Source: This article appeared in the NACE Journal Fall 2005 edition and is reproduced with kind permission.
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