Finding the touch point for the right target market can provide invaluable information for talent managers

Fay Humphries, who heads up the graduate recruitment and career development division at Student Village, takes a look at how the Web be used to tap into job-seekers’ headspace

HOW long do graduates see themselves staying in their first jobs? Retention of entry-level talent is often perceived as a major headache by graduate recruiters, but is it as big a problem as they might imagine?

Asked how long they planned to stay with the company that first employed them in a poll on www.gradx.net, Student Village’s student career and lifestyle portal, students replied as follows: five years or longer (36%), two to three years (27%), three to four years (21%) and one to two years (16%).

The results of this poll were pulled six weeks after it was first posted on www.gradx.net and by then, 797 students had responded. So, while retaining graduates may well still be a problem, but the majority of them begin work for the first time actually planning on staying for a while. Which would suggest that graduate recruiters experiencing high turnovers rates might want to look at how the company treats its new staff members, rather than blaming this on ‘flighty’ employees.

We run these trend trackers on the portal throughout the year to tap into what students are thinking and how they approach some of the issues they face when mapping out their careers and looking for work.

One of the more pressing issues for students today is finding funding for their studies. This is the reason why the Bursaries section on the site is among the most-often visited on www.gradx.net and why so many of the questions submitted via our ‘Ask the Experts’ application centre around what funding options are available to cash-strapped students in South Africa. It’s also borne out by the results of another poll run on the site, which read: “My studies are paid for by…” 375 students participated in this one in the month before the results were pulled.

The results panned out like this: NSFAS (48%), My parents (32%), A bursary / scholarship (14%), A sponsor (three percent), Eduloan (two percent), and My bank (two percent).

Some quick conclusions? Those working in the graduate recruitment space are all aware of the issues NSFAS is facing regarding the difficulty of communicating effectively within its target market. An online campaign could be a good idea. Also, given that bursaries are being sought by so many students yet being granted to comparatively few, it would be a good idea for more graduate recruiters to seriously consider including these in their talent attraction strategies. There are already companies who have done so and shown a positive return on this approach in number of graduates hired AND on the number of graduates retained.

The results of a third poll looked like this:

“What do you want out of a graduate programme?” (455 respondents in six weeks)
Formal training (47%), Good mentors (18%), Rotation to different departments (12%), Responsibility for my own projects (11%), Lots of money (eight percent), and Quick promotions (four percent)

Other polls can be viewed here (www.gradx.net)