How to Recruit Graduates Like Johnson Johnson

How to Recruit Graduates Like Johnson Johnson This article is sponsored by Shortlister. Its graduate season again and every large employer in the country is fighting for their slice of the top graduate talent pie, but what are the best in  the graduate recruitment business doing to secure the highest possible quality of grad? Josh Mills of Shortlister.com caught up with Phillip Haig, University Recruitment Partner for Johnson Johnson, to discuss the graduate recruitment  strategy that made them finalists at the In-house Recruitment Awards last year. Josh Mills: Its coming up to two years now since you joined the business, how did you find the transition from your role as Recruitment Manager at  Manchester Met University, to University Recruitment Partner at Johnson Johnson? Phillip Haig: Interesting! Obviously it helped a lot to have that experience of working in the University context and being able to apply it to a corporate  recruitment role has given me a real advantage. One of the main areas that my experience with Man Met underlined the importance of was internships and  getting the students and graduates in to positions that increase their employability. You know, HE is becoming incredibly metricked  and rightly so, when  you consider the levels of investment on the part of the students in terms of tuition fees and employers in terms of graduate salaries. With that kind of  investment at stake its made maintaining strong working relationships with the right universities incredibly important for us. And those relationships  have got to be mutually beneficial. We make a point of going above and beyond attending the usual careers fairs and on campus activities with our  preferred pool of targeted universities. JM: And out of interest which universities make it on to that list? PH: Given that were still a small graduate recruitment operation in terms of manpower we have to be pretty selective in the organisations we work with. What were looking for from our university partners is for them to be really pushing industrial placements that year in industry is so important to  whether a candidate will have the basic professional skills, confidence in the office etc. to succeed once theyve been onboarded. JM: Johnson Johnson were nominated for Best Graduate Recruitment Strategy last year and you had a massive hand in the direction of that strategy. What aspect of the strategy stood out for you as particularly successful? PH: I think its got to be the university partnerships thats been the real success story. One of my favourite stats is that 70% of the graduate hires we  make start with the on campus activities we engage in. We attended over 40 events and not just careers fairs either. JM: So weve heard about your successes, what challenges have you faced? PH: A challenge weve faced and I think its one thats fairly common to everyone working in the grad space, is to make candidates realise that there  are opportunities available that they wouldnt necessarily immediately think of when they think about an employer. Take Johnson Johnson for example:  a lot of the candidates we speak to at universities who are interested in marketing dont necessarily realise that there are attractive opportunities  available in B2B marketing with our business. Its understandable as people do think of J J as a consumer brand and obviously everyone sees the ads  on TV about baby oil all the time and it just reinforces that B2C impression of us. Theres an element of education to be done there, for sure. Its an  ongoing process, but were making good progress. Two years ago our graduate recruitment wasnt even a centralised function, so that gives you an idea of  how far weve come. JM: How do you continue to build on that progress then? PH: Im a firm believer that a high impact recruitment strategy requires the involvement of non-recruitment staff which in itself creates the challenge  of actually getting the recruitment staff to the careers events! It can be tough but I think if you make it clear to them that theyre helping to ensure  the quality of the grads who are going to be working with them in 12 months time they see the value. Its an invasive, direct approach but then to really  stand out  from the crowd youve got to demonstrate youre doing things differently, in a way that illustrates to candidates that you understand what is  important to them so that means pushing benefits like fast career progression. I think were on the right track overall. Hit rate at assessment centre  and first year performance have both improved and weve eliminated agency spend. Its going to be a lot of work getting to where we want to be but the quick wins have been encouraging. JM: Taking a wider look at the industry now theres been a lot of talk recently about how LinkedIn is struggling to attract younger people and, in  particular, recent grads who dont necessarily have a professional network to maintain on the platform. As someone who understands the grad space, how  would you go about addressing this? PH:  Im not sure that I think that the entire problem is down purely to the grads not having a professional network. A significant factor from my point of  view is that LinkedIn doesnt offer the same degree of personalisation that other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or even Instagram offer. I  dont think if I was the CEO of LinkedIn I would necessarily be in a rush to copy Facebook, but I think LinkedIn as it is currently doesnt give users scope  to express themselves in a personal way which, if youre trying to engage the present crop of grads coming through, is crucial. For them I think the  current set up of LinkedIn is just too uniform. Having said that, I dont think the onus should be entirely on LinkedIn theres a lot more universities  could do with it, for instance. Its a great starting place for building relationships between HE bodies and employers. Employers should also really be  encouraging their placement students to sign up to the service and start adding p eople theres a lot more everyone could be doing. JM: Finally Phillip, we ask all of our interviewees to make a prediction on recruitment in the next 12 months. It can be on anything tech, trends,  policy etc. What changes can you see on the recruitment horizon in the next year? PH: I think its got to be technology hasnt it? Theres still an enormous amount it can be leveraged for. For instance I think were going to see  employers building and developing relationships with communities of their placement students and interns, past and present and using social media to keep  them warm. Its taking the idea of a talent pool a step further than just having a list of potential candidates who work in a certain discipline. Youd  communicate with them regularly and use relevant, valuable content to keep a relatively close relationship going with them. At present this would  require more attention and activity to keep going than most recruitment departments have the resource to spare for however given the clear business  benefit, and how interconnected we are used to being in all other aspects of life, I think it will become more common. The technology is already there to  achieve this its just spread between different platforms, like email and Facebook, so I suspect well see more integrations between different networks. Phillip Haig is the University Recruitment Partner for Johnson Johnson, finalists for Best Graduate Recruitment Strategy in the 2014 In-house  Recruitment Awards. Author: Josh Mills is Marcomms Coordinator for Shortlister.com  the video screening specialists.