Description:

As someone who has run early career recruiting efforts at medium and large companies while also working extensively from the candidate side, I have experienced the challenges that hard-to-fill roles bring to any recruiting effort. And while necessary, they also require extra bandwidth to have a successful hire. My proposal is that there is a solution, even in an increasingly virtual environment, which creates a mutually beneficial experience for recruiters, companies, and candidates; makes the process faster and easier; and offers more confidence that the hire will convert into a sustained asset for the company. As early career recruiters know, “early career” does not mean easy-to-fill. Hard-to fill entry level roles are becoming more abundant across organizations. The reason for this stems from a variety of reasons including: • recruiting talent to roles that don’t even exist yet (85% of jobs that will exist in 2030 haven’t been created yet) • candidates being unfamiliar with job titles • job location is not where candidate want to live • job descriptions and culture brand does not reflect what attracts early career candidates to the opportunity • managers with unconscious biases and hyper-specific skillset requirements • increased encouragement to recruit diverse talent While incorporating all of these will attract better value creating talent to the company, they do impact how recruiting is accomplished. To counter these increased challenges for hard-to fill positions, many companies are evolving to remove as many barriers from the process as they can and instead focus on experiential recruiting. These include removing evaluators like minimum GPA and specific degree requirements, recruiting from specific educational institutions, and allowing more positions to be done remotely. Conversations with students though let us know that removing these barriers is not enough to cause them to apply to hard-to-fill positions and it’s not necessarily because they don’t want to apply. Instead, it seems to be more associated with the simple notion of “We don’t know what we don’t know.” And they identify that: • I thought the company only did X. • What does my major/interests have to do with that role? • It too entry-level and I don’t see a career path from it. • I’ve never heard of that Job Title what is even involved in it? • The location and salary don’t match what I see for myself • From what I have heard the culture or greater purpose of the company doesn’t align with my values. While we were on campus, it was easier to engage with students, make authentic connections, and have exploratory conversations after understanding their interests, talents, and goals. But as early recruiting trends towards a more virtual environment that opportunity becomes more limited. Many companies are being impacted by student’s lack of knowledge on the company and potential opportunities, and, unfortunately, we cannot trust that the student know enough get them to a webinar, virtual event, virtual career booth, or into our talent network to engage and assess. Through presentation, reflection, and discussion, the goal of this NACE presentation is for a co-presenter and me to outline the experiences of the recruiter/company/candidate; to identify why these gaps are occurring; and provide insight on a solution beneficial to the recruiters, hiring managers, and early career candidates— one that reaches beyond talent already interested in the company/role and instead authentically and equitably engages talent outside of the company’s sphere of influence. Traditionally, internships, co-ops, and part-time positions have assisted in this process, but these are limited by the same challenges of getting candidates to apply. That solution is micro-internships. These “hands-on” experiences allow companies to see beyond a resume and match talent with current and future hard-to-fill roles.

Audience:

University Relations & Recruiting

Level:

Intermediate

Track:

Sourcing, Recruiting & Talent Acquisition

Type:

Traditional

Main Speaker:

Brenton Hard, Parker Dewey

Additional Speakers: