Examples of these recruitment practices include: a company selecting on the basis of A level points rather than alternative qualifications eg BTEC National or GNVQ or an Access course; a mature student may have been unsuccessful at A level but subsequently proved their worth and intellectual potential in a work context; expecting candidates to be able to move location several times during their graduate training programme; some companies only advertise their opportunities at universities from which they have previously recruited ‘good’ candidates; a company application form that looks for ‘extra curricular activities’ excluding part time work – a student from a poor socio-economic background may not have time for anything but study and work – or a mature student with a family may not be undertaking the activities commonly sought eg team sports, Union activities etc; recruiting only the graduates with whom the recruiter has had some previous contact eg relative of an employee, undertaken work experience and so on.
To counter the above
Birmingham
City
University Careers Service has been seeking to both bring more employers onto campus and encourage students to be more proactive and earlier in the cycle of their studies. We organise careers fairs and a central careers education programme, we advertise vacancies for our students – casual and part time as well as full time permanent ones for graduates, we are the leaders on the on-line Personal Development Planning (PDP) course to which all of our students have access. We also work with academic staff on embedding employability in the curriculum where it can influence many more students than we could hope to reach with our limited staffing.
We want to increase the numbers of students, and graduates, and staff who are accessing our services so that we can help many more of our students and graduates to find satisfactory (to them) employment and opportunities.
Birmingham Professional DiverCity is advising local employers on practises that increase the diversity of their workforce and customer base. As a result of this companies could recruit a work experience or placement student, or offer part time hours, or recruit a graduate, or simply seek opportunities to find out more about local talent by getting involved with on-campus activities like Careers Education activities.
By recommending well-known names like Wragge and Co to use our services we in turn can use that ‘name’ to attract more students to our events, broker introductions between employers and students and staff, and eventually affect the ideals outlined above. Big names also attract staff which in turn can increase the credibility of the Careers Service, and encourage staff to do more to market our events to their students.
“It is not just about ‘names’ though. Most graduates work for small and medium employers, and that’s where the opportunities lie. Every employer Birmingham Professional DiverCity introduces to us is an opportunity for at least one of our students or graduates – and possibly many of them! In return every time the Careers Service successfully helps an employer we are increasing the chance that they will consider our services, and / or our students again in the future. Every employer contact is invaluable, whether it be a mentor to a student right now and then a job for a graduate in a couple of years, or support for an event from an organisation that is so well known students set aside the time to attend and thereby receive some good job-hunting advice.
Partnership with Birmingham Professional DiverCity is most welcome.”
