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Graduate attraction and recruitment

Of O’Connor’s range of HR services, this case study demonstrates:

• Campaign planning
• Press advertising
• Online advertising
• Literature production
• Careers website development
• Graduate recruitment
• Response handling
• Candidate management
• Competency-based interviewing
• Diversity policy and monitoring

“This is an absolutely excellent piece of work, the angle of attack is spot on. Sincere congratulations to you and whoever else in your team helped put this together. Well done! I'm sure this will really help us to get the grads we need.”
Graeme Boylen, Head of HR Operations, Tarmac

Introduction
This case study focuses on our first graduate campaign for our client, Tarmac. Previously, their campaigns had been unsuccessful both in terms of numbers and expense involved. We were asked to completely revamp Tarmac’s graduate brand and relaunch their Graduate Training Programme.

Candidate research
Our first task was to identify Tarmac’s ideal candidate type.

We spoke to current Tarmac Graduates and Tarmac’s Emerging Talent team to identify the skills and attributes of their ideal candidates. We also identified those universities and courses from which such students would be likely to come. We attended recruitment fairs and spoke to careers advisors to ascertain what (if any) perceptions they had of Tarmac.
Online questionnaire

We created an online questionnaire to get feedback on where students look for careers information, what is important to them in choosing an employer and how they like to communicate with potential employers.

Findings
We discovered that students and influencers had misconceptions of Tarmac as an employer, believing that it mainly employed tradespeople and labourers.

Our research showed that students’ key considerations in choosing a potential employer were integrity, size of organisation, environmental policies and career development.

Contrary to popular belief, many students did not use their university’s careers centre but preferred to speak to their tutors and people within the industry. They actively look for employers on the Internet and expect them to have a designated section for Graduate opportunities.

Although Tarmac provided a specific website for Graduates, the theme and message were inappropriate, candidates’ interest was not retained and no application/candidate management system was in place.

University relations
We identified key universities and built up relationships with the students and influential people within their departments.

Printed material
We redesigned Tarmac’s graduate recruitment material, explaining how the company required people in a variety of areas, such as administration, finance, logistics, purchasing and overall management roles.

Telling it like it is
Tarmac’s business - quarrying, construction, contracting - is ‘outdoorsy’, so we made a virtue of this rather than trying to hide the fact. We used realistic images of Tarmac’s impressive quarrying and construction sites. In other words we ‘told it like it is’. We also highlighted Tarmac’s commitment to the environment by showing images of nature reserves created by Tarmac on sites previously used for quarrying.

We helped current Tarmac Graduates to prepare case studies to demonstrate the career development they had enjoyed since joining.

Graduate website
We constructed a brand new graduate website - gradlife.co.uk - and developed a full candidate management system to interface with the site.

Candidate management system
The system channels applications and records personal details, qualifications, skills and experience, diversity data and references. It filters applications and takes successful candidates through the initial competency-based testing, before logging candidates’ availability for follow-up calls, interviews and Assessment Centres.

To ensure the retention of interested candidates, the management system also facilitates automated communications and includes a ‘warm-up area’ for those who go through to Assessment Centre. This allows those candidates to be knowledgeable and well prepared for the centres themselves.

The candidate management system also has a secure online area, where we (or Tarmac) can log in and access full details of each applicant and view application data and statistics.

We also carried out telephone interviews prior to inviting candidates to Assessment Centres. O’Connor has expertise in competency-based interviewing and used these skills to test candidates against Tarmac’s approved High Potential framework.

Results
Twice as many students as last year showed an interest in the programme.

The calibre of applicant was an improvement on previous years.

The efficiency of telephone interviews was improved - by starting the competency testing online, we had a good understanding of the candidate prior to the call.

Higher attendance at Assessment Centres - we invited 30 candidates to the first Assessment Centre and expect a good conversion rate from this. (Previously, Tarmac held two Assessment Centres, each over two days, with around 20 candidates at each. Our first centre was a one-day event and and the necessity for a second centre has not yet been confirmed.)

“We are very pleased with the results this year. Following our restructure, we wouldn’t have had the resource to handle the Grad campaign the way we had in previous years.
O’Connor has relaunched the programme and handled the whole campaign for us this year and we’ve seen an improvement in the calibre of candidate already - we’re even hoping that one Assessment Centre will be enough to secure the grads we need - this will save us thousands!”
Lisa Grainger, Emerging Talent Manager, Tarmac