Where are all the great graduates?
Prompted by a NZ Herald article about the shortage of jobs for graduates we advertised a graduate role on Seek recently. What a disappointment!!!!
- Only 30 or so responses
- 80% from outside NZ
- 85% didn’t bother with a cover letter, despite us requesting one
- With the remainder the cover letter was generic and/or clearly aimed at a job that wasn’t the one we offered
- It appeared that no-one actually visited our website to find out what it is that we actually do.
Where are NZ’s best and brightest?
No related postsTags: graduates, recruitment
December 1st, 2009 at 12:14 pm
Hmmm….the short answer I suspect is “overseas” that’s where they are heading! Interesting timing when you look at the Government’s approach to bridging the gap between Aussie and oursevles in the household income stakes - that $64,000 gap is significant and perhaps one of the many predispositions that influence our ability to attracted the graduates. Having gone through the employment traps looking for suitable people, your findings are not limited to the graduates! The international candidates tend to provide generic applications to a point that they are effectively saying “don’t pick me”! However your responses do highlight perhaps the shift in the population dynamics - I do see this as a take on the “Gen Y” attitude - it’s all about me, not the employer - a carefree approach.
Sarah, would you share your advertisement with us? It would be interesting to test that against our style - perhaps we need to change the content to attract the right people? Given the costs associated with avertising it’s important to learn what we can from the successes and failures.
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:06 am
Hi Pete,
Yes, happy to share. See below. Your insights are useful. I would have thought we’d be swamped with liberal arts applicants. I will be contacting my old department today.
I think our experience with you guys is one of the things that has made us think this is a starter. For us, three things have lined up:
1. The right raw material - enthusiastic, energetic and eager to learn
2. The right client - supportive, recognising a learning curve exists
3. The right mentor - experienced and good at helping new staff learn what is required of them.
Advert below.
Cheers
Sarah
Information Leadership has worked with over 100 different organisations in the past 5 years.
Our work ranges from Knowledge Management Strategies to SharePoint design and implementation.
This is a great opportunity to join a ‘can do’ organisation and build broad industry expertise.
We offer:
Flexible working
Great assignments
Strong support and mentoring
The opportunity to start your career off the right way and then further development opportunities
You will be working on our SharePoint implementations as a Floorwalker.
The role involves supporting Senior Consultants and working ‘on the ground’ with users to help them understand and get value from new tools.
To be successful you will need:
A good first degree (A grade marks) - Arts or Information Systems preferred
To be technology savvy
An outstanding communicator - in both written and spoken English.
To apply, please look at our website at http://www.informationleadership.com and then send us your CV and a covering letter telling us, specifically in relation to our business, why you are Information Leadership’s next top recruit.
December 10th, 2009 at 10:49 am
Hi Sarah, did you send to Vic School of Info Management? They have a LIM students list they post jobs on. Alasitair Smith or Dan Dorner could be contacts. Cheers, Claire
May 9th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Hi Claire,
Sorry, about the delay in responding. The new baby is quite a distraction!
I was just doing some admin on my blog site and saw you’d made a comment. I’ve tried calling the School of Info Management but didn’t have much luck. Thanks for the contacts you’ve given.
I will get in touch with Alistair and Dan.
Cheers
Sarah