How early talent recruitment changed post Covid 19

Cohesion, UCAS, Samworth Brothers and Tazio discuss how early talent recruitment changed post Covid.

Thank you to everyone who attended our webinar. We hope you found it useful.

Cohesion held the event to discuss the topic of How early talent recruitment has changed post Covid 19. Whilst we are not yet fully post-covid, we discussed the changes happening in Early talent recruitment and whether we think they are here to stay. We were joined by Becky Hopwood, Head of Sales at UCAS, Victoria Curtis, Head of Learning and Development at Samworth Brothers, and Tom Stroud, CEO at Tazio.

You can watch the recording of the event here:

You can also download a copy of the slides here:  How early talent recruitment changed post Covid (773 downloads )

There were a number of key takeaways from this session. Whilst it was widely acknowledged that there has been considerable disruption across the industry, it was also recognised that the change enforced on us has let to a series of improvements both in terms of speed and therefore cost of delivery. Keeping the candidate at the centre of the process was also a key takeaway with all speakers referencing that ‘connection with the candidates was crucial’ and where there was increased technology and remoteness of process, this needed to be matched with increased activity when it comes to communications and engagement.

Despite there still being widespread uncertainty for the majority of sectors, the outlook for early talent in significantly more optimistic than 12 months ago and Cohesion is actively engaging with a large number of new clients due to our ability to combine the benefits of technology with our very human centric recruitment offering. If you would like to discuss your early talent recruitment needs with us please get in touch: James.Austen@cohesionrecruitment.com

Q & A

Q. It’s an eye opening statistic around the prestige of apprenticeships (only 4% of students associate the word prestige with apprenticeships). In your opinion, what more can employers do to help remove the stigma of apprenticeships in Early Talent.

A. It is important to highlight the longer term career prospects. Students completing an apprenticeship will not come away with less than a student completing a degree and in some cases they may gain more because of the work experience element. Apprenticeships still have a stigma attached that they are only for manual/skilled worker roles whereas the reality is there a broad range of apprenticeships available – Engineering and IT apprenticeships being particularly prevalent. It is important to educate influencers such as parents and teachers about the advantages of an apprenticeship and communicate these messages better.

Q. How have you increased touch points for successful candidates as part of the onboarding process and what changes were made post Covid.

A. At Samworth Brothers we really wanted to ensure our successful candidates stayed engaged between offer and start. Immediately after acceptance they would get a phone call from a member of our HR team for an informal chat to answer any queries they may have. We put all new graduate placements into a WhatsApp group so they can start to get to know one another and encourage them to make contact with current graduates to ask any questions. We provide relocation packs which includes information about the area. Their line manager will also be in touch directly in the lead up to their first day with us.

You can sign up to our next event ‘School Outreach – how to drive social mobility’ which will be held on Wednesday 20th October.

Sign up for the event

UCAS Media

If you have any questions following the webinar, please feel free to get in touch with Becky r.hopwood@ucas.ac.uk or the careers team careersteam@ucas.ac.uk. You may also find the resources below useful.

Advertise your career and apprenticeship vacancies – Career Finder on ucas.com is a searchable database of work and training opportunities. With 70k users per month, over 50,000 registered ‘apprenticeship seekers’, it’s a great resource for employers looking to reach those considering their options following education.

Reach your future talent – our data insights, audience and access channels can help elevate your marketing campaigns. View the UCAS Media employer pack

Samworth Brothers

A family owned premium quality chilled food producers. Samworth Brothers have been running a graduate scheme with Cohesion for 3 years.

Visit their website here: https://www.samworthbrothers.co.uk/

Prosocial

We are currently working alongside experts in developing an online psychometric assessment called Prosocial, which measures both developmental experiences and personal characteristics in a new and innovative approach to graduate and early talent assessment. It allows you to see who has resilience in the way that they face challenges, who can engage best with other people, their organisation, and their work to make a positive difference.

We’d love you to be involved in the testing phase and have early access to this tool, so please do drop us an email if you’d like to find out more: debbie.edmondson@cohesionrecruitment.com