Engagement & Candidate Experience more essential than ever before for student recruitment

The recruiter battle for the strongest graduates is becoming so intense with students more empowered than ever before – making engagement and candidate experiences the top recruiter priorities for 2018, according to two industry leaders.
In a study of almost one million applicants and excerpts of responses from almost 40,000 business students across  four international regions. leading global talent acquisition software provider WCN and employer branding thought leader Universum have compiled The must know student recruiting trends for 2018.
The report offers factual insights into why attraction and engagement are key to hiring the best future leaders and empowering them to choose where they start their professional careers. Based on the analysis conducted by WCN, the following global conclusions can be reached:

• Competition is tougher than you might imagine – Across the applications reviewed for high-volume recruiters, we saw an average of 50,000 students applying for graduate/campus programs (which have several different positions available across businesses rather than just management traineeships). Of those applying, only approximately 2% make the offers stage, whereas an average of 70% of candidates find themselves screened out from the start
• Fallout rates are big so engagement is king – Decline, withdraw and renege rates vary across the world but a universal finding is that from the thousands applying, the numbers falling into one of these three groupings are consistently in the hundreds – further proof of the frantic competition inherent in graduate hiring and the need to work harder in engagement and hosting events dedicated to nurturing in the process.
• Diversity continues to be a big challenge in student hiring – Female applications underwhelm male applications in quantity but females are more successful than men at receiving offers. Research by WCN and University College London shows that even in blind screening, the language used to answer questions can influence invites to interview and more can be done to help recruiters understand how to break unconscious bias traits.
• Working Abroad is a booming area amongst graduates – Despite ever-changing political climates, more and more overseas students are applying for roles outside of their country of nationality looking to experience work in different offices and nurture their desires to travel. The numbers securing roles varies but are prominent in the UK despite the Brexit vote, whilst large numbers of UK applicants are finding success in APAC offices and Canadians cross the border to work in the US.
• The prominence of elite universities is also a mixed bag – Whilst analysis of US data shows less leaning towards students with Ivy League backgrounds, UK data shows a bigger leaning towards Russell Group universities despite criticism from social mobility lobbyists.
• Gaps in ethnicity still exist – There is a gap in roles being filled by Black and Hispanics across all regions which could be eased by more diversity focus – particularly in the US and UK where the proportion of roles filled are significantly lower than applications received.

WCN Founder & CEO Charles Hipps comments: “The findings in this study, coupled with the perspectives provided by Universum, show just how intense student recruitment is becoming around the world. Mounting competition is ramping up business pressures to recruit faster and be more agile but employers also face the threat that increasingly it is students who hold the power in determining which business is the best fit for them.
“This report clearly demonstrates the need for recruiters to expand sources, find diamonds in the rough and improve diversity in a hugely competitive landscape. Engagement is key to this and recruiters really need to be thinking about how to accelerate their commitment to hiring superstars by personalizing approaches to candidate nurturing so that you can vie to be faster than your competitors.”

Universum’s data reveals stark insights into what students expect to choose an employer as ideal for them including:

• 48% of students would not choose an employer as ideal if they do not know enough about them and 13% would be put off if they felt employers did not recruit from their school.
• Top drivers for choosing a graduate/rotational program include demonstrating business integration (52%), development opportunities (51%), mentorship (28%), leadership programs (36%) and having a variety of rotations (30%).
• In every country profiled, having a work/life balance and offering security/stability in jobs were ranked as the top two career goals for business students. Being a leader or manager of people was third everywhere but Hong Kong where having an international career took precedence.
• In every country profiled, working for an international company/organization or working for a privately-owned national company/organization were the top choices for what students most want to do after graduation.
• Working in a friendly work environment was the top attraction preference for students in APAC but was much lower in the UK and US where high future earnings (UK) and leaders who will support personal development (US) were most important. Professional training and development appeared in the top 5 for all regions.
• Universally across all regions, students selected social media as the most used and most effective communication channel and Facebook as the best of these websites. Employer websites and career fairs were second and third in every study.

“Our research shows that students indeed have more options than before – they are both indicating a broader interest for different industries and employers as well as assessing their personal fit with the values of their future organization”, comments Universum Managing Director for Americas, Jonna Sjövall.
“Fair and friendly trumps elitist and competitive for sure. Graduates want to know if they can be themselves at work and are asking for transparency both in terms of the recruitment process, selection criteria and the culture”, she continues. “This makes it even more important for recruiters to be good at fine-tuning their communication with a diverse talent pool.”

Full regional breakdowns of how graduate recruiting is performing based on office locations can be found in the full report – which is designed to help stimulate thinking about how to be more adaptable to what emerging talent candidates now expect.
Intelligent approaches to talent acquisition, talking advantage of technological tools such as WCN’s award-winning suite of recruiting products, can help tackle talent scarcity and introduce you to candidates you may otherwise overlook at any given stage of your hiring journey. Universum is an insight driven analytics, research, consulting and activation firm specialized in Employer Branding.
Universum Talent Research was conducted between October 2016 and March 2017 – the number of respondents for business students in each region are as follows: 1,771 – Hong Kong, 2,715 – Singapore, 8,677 – UK and 26,809 for the US.

Click Here to Download a Copy of our Latest Student Recruiting Trends Report

About Universum:
Universum is the global leader in employer branding, during our 25+ years we have established ourselves in 60 markets throughout the globe and our diverse workforce is physically present in 20 countries. Our services include actionable research, strategic advisory, data-driven communication and social media solutions for talent branding, sourcing and analytics. A trusted partner to over 1,700 clients, including many Fortune 500 companies, as well as global media partners that publish our annual rankings and trend reports. We work with over 2000 universities, alumni groups, and professional organizations to gather insights from students and professionals in order to advise employers on how to attract and retain talent that fits their culture and purpose. On an annual basis Universum surveys over 1,500,000 students and professionals worldwide. Find out more at www.universumglobal.com 
About WCN:
WCN is a leading pioneer in the field of innovative recruitment technology. With over 20 years’ experience, WCN solutions are built to accelerate and improve recruiting from start to finish, creating a more meaningful and transparent experience for recruiters and candidates. Using WCN talent acquisition technology, organisations can drive real change by accelerating and improving the entire process of finding, assessing and managing events and hiring the best talent at every level — from emerging to lateral hires, veterans and diversity. To learn more, visit www.wcn.uk