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?

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?

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.

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

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.

Amongst business students, the employers on top are different: PricewaterhouseCoopers takes the ‘Ideal Employer’ title, followed closely by Goldman Sachs (no. two) and KPMG (no. three). Goldman Sachs’ rank was awarded before the SEC filed a civil fraud suit against them – thus, their brand image might change next year. Last year’s ideal employer J.P. Morgan dropped in popularity this year in the national rankings – down 13 positions and out of the top 10 to be ranked 14th – but in the Russell Group,  the company is ranked sixth and maintains a strong employer brand. Apple is ranked 10th, whereas Google is ranked fourth. Looking at the Russell Group’s business students only, they seem to be keen on working for one of the Big Four: in addition to PwC’s and KMPG’s top spots, Ernst & Young is ranked fifth and Deloitte eighth.

Amongst engineering or IT students, the difference is smaller  between the Russell Group rankings and national rankings. All the top four big IT sector companies are present – Google obviously at number one, followed by IBM (no. two), Microsoft (no. three) and Apple (no. four). In comparison to the national rankings, IBM pushes aside its competitors – Microsoft and Apple – and is ranked second instead of fourth.  Other top ten favourites for engineers or IT students include: BAE Systems ranked eighth instead of 11 in national rankings; BBC ranked ninth for all UK students, but ranked 16th by Russell Group’s students.

Anne Margrethe Mannerfelt, Universum’s director of Western Europe said, “PricewaterhouseCoopers has been the national favourite for UK’s business students before, but has recently been eclipsed by companies that have strong consumer brands or exciting products & services, such as Google and Apple. The Big Four auditing firms are, however, extremely active on campus and target Russell Group’s students; they’re top-of-mind and attractive”.

Number 1 Ideal Employer, natural science – NHS
Highest Climber, natural science – RWEnPower
Number 1 Ideal Employer, humanities/liberal arts/education – BBC
Highest Climber, humanities/liberal arts/education – Nestlé
Number 1 Ideal Employer, law – Allen & Overy
Highest Climber, law – Bain & Company

In response to their first place position, Allen & Overy said:
“This award demonstrates the high regard students have placed on the quality of our graduate recruitment activities, what we do as a business and our training.  In what has been a challenging recruitment year for employers and students alike, we’re delighted that students have recognised Allen & Overy as the most popular employer for law in the 2010 Universum Student Survey”.

To see which employers won awards on the night, please visit: http://www.universumawards.com/uk/Winners.aspx

Registration for the Universum Awards, took place in Regent’s College’s Knapp Gallery, which showcases amateur art. The afternoon continued with seminars from James Platt, Partner & Managing Director, The Boston Consulting Group and Sedef Buyukataman, Universum Relations Manager European & Emerging Markets, Cisco. The awards and dinner took place in Herringham Hall – below some photographs from the event:

With questions about the Universum Awards or ranking release, please contact Michelle Boyde, michelle.boyde@universumeurope.com

http://www.independent.co.uk/student/career-planning/getting-job/why-apple-is-a-tasty-job-option-1944828.html

 http://www.ri5.co.uk/site/news/article/universum-awards-2010–the-uk-winners/

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!

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).

The results are from Universum’s Student Surveys, conducted during the first quarter of 2009. Students who were studying for degrees in Business, Engineering, IT, Humanities, Law and Natural Sciences were targeted at the most renowned academic institutions in the world.

The results do not represent current salary levels per country, yet are an indication of graduates’ salary demands. Each respondent was specifically asked: “What is your expected annual salary before taxes (excluding commission and bonus) at your first employer after graduation?”

The students that expect to earn the least are from Italy (£16,580), Poland (£8,980), Russia (£7,885) and China (£5,049). If you compare the Swiss to the Chinese, the difference is substantial, since the Swiss would earn more than nine times more than their Chinese counterparts.

Students, whose salary expectations were in the middle-range, from highest to lowest, were: American (£29,822), Finnish (£29,025), French (£28,396), Swedish (£28,318), Austrian (£25,771), Dutch (£24,936), British (£22,195) and Spanish (£20,076).

All 16 countries combined, the mean forecasted salary was £25,705 per annum. Expected future earnings for students in the Netherlands, UK and Spain are therefore below average and in comparison to the Swiss, British students would only earn 46 per cent of what their counterparts hope to make.

As the UK has been strongly affected by this recession, this could explain why British graduates aren’t aiming higher. Anne Margrethe Mannerfelt, market unit manager of Western Europe at Universum explained, “Following this recession, graduates aren’t expecting big pay checks and are willing to make concessions, so long as they get the work experience they so badly need”.

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.

The attribute ‘attractive/exciting products and services’ can be seen as one of Apple’s main drivers of employer attractiveness or their differentiating factor: the aspect of their employer brand that helps to seduce potential employees to choose them as their future employer instead of another.

Universum asked approximately 2,300 business students, during the first quarter of 2009, what they associated with their choice of ideal employers. Based on the percentage of business students that related ‘attractive/exciting products and services’ to their ideal employer, an image ranking was produced. Below are the employers that are most associated to the attribute in question.

The “Apple Cult” is well-known. The company has its dedicated followers that religiously snatch-up anything the company produces. Although the company’s products and services have exceptional features and functionalities, which may surpass what its competitors produce, there is still something trendy and hip about the brand: the Apple that everyone wants to take a bite out of, or in this case would like to work for.

Attractive/exciting products and service

Source: Universum UK Student Survey