By Michelle Boyde

A picture is worth a  thousand words – so the cliché tells us. But are we ready to adopt this philosophy when it comes to the CV. Graduates sending video CVs rather than the tried and tested wordy CV is a growing topic of conversation.

University career advisory services are being approached by companies who can help their students to produce a professional video. The resounding reply from graduate recruiters is they don’t have the resources to look at videos. Equally, it could be a discrimination minefield. A candidate can be judged on experience, qualification and skills alone on paper, but on video all our personal characteristics are laid bare.

But it can be good. If you need someone who is personable, speaks confidently and sounds trustworthy – what better way to judge this without an interview? For candidates who want to impress and make a spontaneous application, it can be unique way to stand out.

I am confident this will be a topic of conversation in 2011. Right now it might not be a channel for graduate recruitment, but times do change. Very few people would dream of posting a paper CV these days – everything is done by email now. So who is to say that eventually the video will not be the application tool of choice?

By Michelle Boyde

Do you offer your employees a bonus for referring a friend or acquaintance for an open position? You probably do. Many companies offer these incentives to find people that match their culture. Human beings like and trust what they know.

This is also true of young graduate talent: 29 per cent of UK students use friends and family for information about employers. This trend is prevalent throughout the world: 25 per in Germany, 28 per cent in the US and 27 per cent in Brazil. They may not know you – the employer – but they are ready to believe the experiences of the people they do know. But, for a generation of Facebook users, who “you know” has shifted; they certainly use the word ‘friend’ more loosely than their parents did.

Furthermore, 78% of internet users trust peer recommendations.

If you are not yet listening to the chatter in social networks, then you really should be. It’s an ideal way of seeing yourself through the eyes of talent.

Your employer brand is global and just like the game Chinese Whispers, everyone who comes into contact with it tells it in their own way – do you know what they are saying?

By Michelle Boyde

Employers are targeting talent younger and younger. I just interviewed an HR representative from the National Institute of Health.  It’s very interesting to hear what they are doing in the US to encourage very young children to take an interest in science. This is definitely long term talent pipeline management.

If UK university courses will cost £9,000 per year, we cannot blame young people for re-considering a university education. How it will affect the graduate recruitment pipeline in specialised subjects is up for speculation. Students who may have chosen a ‘softer’ course may decide to invest in a degree which promises a return – therefore, we may see an increase in graduates choosing degrees in key subjects like the sciences, engineering and IT. Or, will numbers of competent students chose not to enter the university system at all leaving the UK with a shortage of graduates across the board,

Either way, one thing is for sure: employers will need to step-up their industry attraction before students apply to university. Teenagers need to think it’s cool to be an engineer before they summit their UCAS form – otherwise it’s all too late.

You can read the full story in Universum Quarterly 2011 issue four. If you have an initiative for building the brand to pre-university talent email Michelle on michelle.boyde@universumeurope.com.

By Michelle Boyde

With 500 million active users worldwide, Facebook has incredible potential, but is it the right platform for employers to communicate? Only 20 per cent use Facebook for both social and career purposes, 35 per cent of people on Twitter and 16 per cent of people on YouTube. In fact, the majority of members on these social networks disapprove of employers sending them information: 57 per cent of Facebook members, 61 per cent of YouTube members and 50 per cent of Twitter members say “No thank you”.

This data is based on Universum’s “Communicating with Talent Report 2010”, which delves into what and how to communicate to UK career seekers. Universum is hosting its Communicating with Talent Webinar on November 11th and 18th at 4pm GMT. If you would like to attend, please email michelle.boyde@universumeurope.com

By Michelle Boyde

Over the decade Universum has conducted research in the UK, work/life balance has always been our student’s top career goal. In fact, it’s a global career goal with only markets such as Poland, Russia, China and India ducking out of this trend. As much as the phrase is thrown around, most employers would struggle to define precisely what work/life balance entails. For many people, it may be a case of work/life integration. For those that see working at home as a route to achieving this, it continues to be a challenge for many of us in the UK.  The Trades Union Congress (TUC) reports this week that one fifth of UK employers, 4.5 million people, would like to work from home but are not permitted to do so by their employers. How to achieve work/life balance, and of course what it is, will continue to be a point of discussion.

5,800 students from Russell Group universities select their “Ideal Employers”
 Apple and Google were the undisputed winners in Universum’s Ideal Employer rankings this year, released on April 15th, according to a student poll of nearly 12,000 students – yet look at Russell Group’s students only and the choice of employers change. Read the rest of this entry »

The UK Universum Awards took place on April 15th at Regent’s College, situated in the beautiful Regents Park, London. The evening celebrated the top Ideal Employers of business and engineering/IT students in the UK. However, students studying natural science, humanities/liberal arts/education and law also have their favourite employers and the winner are: Read the rest of this entry »

By Michelle Boyde

This week, my local paper reports that over Easter the local Trinity Methodist Church will offer a messaging service: text with a prayer and somebody will pray for you. Even God is now connected 24 hours a day, which means we must accept that students, and in turn recruiters, must embrace social media and the continuous connectivity and instant feedback it fosters.

Also this week, a career service contact told me that LinkedIn, usually the reserve of professionals, is used to connect students and employers for interviews by the career service – no more emails, just LinkedIn. However, Facebook continues to be the platform of choice of today’s students. On April 15th, Sedef M Buyukataman, university relations manager European & emerging markets from Cisco will share how they have used Facebook as the corner stone of their graduate recruitment strategy at the Universum Awards. All employers need to know how to utilize social media channels. If you have not yet signed up to Sedef’s seminar, you can at www.universumawards.com.

Happy Easter!

Student salary expectations from around the world

By Christopher Van Mossevelde

In a survey on career expectations, Universum asked 224,542 students in 16 countries what they expected to earn in their first job after their studies. The results show that Swiss students expect to earn the most (£48,092 per year), followed by the Danish (£43,134), Norwegians (£38,686) and Germans (£34,171). Read the rest of this entry »

Employer Image Rankings

By Christopher Van Mossevelde

With all the talk about the iPad, whether you’re a fan or not, Apple is strongly associated with attractive/exciting products and services, a quality that contributes to their employer brand and lures top talent to want to work for them. Read the rest of this entry »