Have we glimpsed the future of graduate recruitment?
27 October 2014
A communications agency is using the dating app, Tinder, to find top graduates for its development programme. Users who visit the Tinder profile of BJL are met with an image of an empty yellow seat waiting to be filled, and can swipe their finger to the right to show interest in the opportunity and “get their career off to a flyer”. Everyone engaging with the campaign is asked to respond to one of several briefs before being whittled down to a group of 20 finalists.
Is this style over substance or is such innovation the way forward for attracting Generation Y?
There’s a definite future in creating targeted approaches to potential employees. In much the same way that, in this digital age, technology allows products or organisations to advertise to a specific audience based upon their browsing history.
Not every organisation will necessarily look for the graduates via the Tinder website – but as a concept this is very innovative. It gives BJL access to a large population of the available graduate talent pool in a highly cost effective way.
My experience of looking at many well-established organisations’ graduate recruitment processes is that often they have simply automated an archaic form-based approach which is likely to turn Generation Y applicants off. Instead they could be taking advantage of the power of technology to create an interactive experience, allowing, for example, CVs to be posted in multiple formats and using data management tools to extract the data they want, which may appeal more to the pool of people they want to attract.
We also know that some organisations fail to provide the instant acknowledgment or real-time feedback on applications. This is particularly disappointing as research has shown this to be one of the key characteristics that set the millennial generation apart. Many organisations still tend to respond in a time-frame that suits them, rather than at a pace that suits their potential future talent. For me this is a hangover from the economic downturn, when supply far outweighed demand. As the economy improves this equation is reversing and organisations need to get sharper and more innovative and differentiated in the way they attract and process applications from the graduates who will be their future leaders.
