Judging for Target Jobs National Graduate Recruitment Awards 2015!!

This week, I was lucky enough to be asked to judge the Target Jobs National Graduate Recruitment Awards 2015 at the Guardian Head Office in London! As a committee member of Enactus and on the graduate job hunter I was honored to be asked to be part of the judging panel!

I am a judge today! 🙎 At @guardian head office judging The Target Jobs National Graduate Recruitment Awards!! pic.twitter.com/hZmuIddZEZ
— Steph Clark (@stefclarkx) February 13, 2015

So off I went to the Guardian offices where I met lots of other students, both university and school leavers. I was put into a team with 7 other university students and we were given the task of judging 'The best student marketing campaign for organisations recruiting more than 50 graduates a year'.

Teams are working hard judging away!!! pic.twitter.com/xJwu2P6Bep
— Steph Clark (@stefclarkx) February 13, 2015

We had over 50 campaigns to sift through, so it was a super long day as most organisations had sent through huge packs, some of which contained videos, iPads, interactive games and storyboards. However, it really gave me a chance to see a) how large organisations are marketing their graduate schemes to potential recruits and b) which firms I would love to work for based on the innovation, creativity and messages that were displayed.

At the end of the day- the more students you reach and inspire, the more will apply and therefore the better chance you will have of recruiting a higher standard of candidate! I understand that some firms have bigger budgets than others, but I'm talking FTSE 100 companies here- you would be surprised by the lack of imagination that had been brought to the table!

I can't reveal the campaigns yet due to confidentiality! However when the awards take place in June I will try and do a follow-up post about the ones I liked!

The firms that shocked me weren't the kind of organisations you would expect! I was really shocked by the marketing campaigns I rated the highest! I was also surprised by how engaging and exciting I found these campaigns- marketing jobs or a workplace wasn't something I'd really ever thought about. Of course marketing products and services is something that had been drilled in to me, but never marketing a job! It really is true that you can market anything and everything!

However, the whole experience did make me thing about what stands out in a recruitment marketing campaign and I did a bit of research to find some really creative examples (these weren't part of the entries I was judging):

IKEA

When IKEA needed new employees, they created a piece of direct mail and consistent with their branding in the style of a flat-pack instruction manual. They then slid this into every flat pack piece of furniture purchased by a customer. This was a really simple, yet effective idea and a way of reaching a wide target audience, yet was completely cost effective. The physicality of the job advert was also really shareable, it allowed a talking point and perhaps cut through the noise of other, typical job adverts such as those in newspapers and online. I believe one would be much more likely to take notice, read the advert and perhaps show it to someone who they felt might be suitable, if they didn't feel suitable themselves.

OgilvyOne
The kings of advertising, if anything, should be able to market a role within their advertising empire right? I love this recruitment video for an internship, which invites candidates to send in a video of them 'selling a brick'. The actor is superb and it really sells the tough world of advertising and doesn't candy coat the skills and determination needed.
This was a highly targeted social media and YouTube campaign which really meant 1-on-1 contact between candidate and employer before any sort of formal interview!

Mastercard
Mastercard effectively used social media to find their new interns and used the hashtag #InternsWanted to attract graduates, who then submitted a new innovative idea to help Mastercard move towards cashless payment. This really meant that the employer could gain a sense of candidates' creativity and entrepreneurship without having to read through lengthy application forms. The entrants won an internship based on the number of 'likes' or 'retweets' they achieved! 
Of course, this is a totally new way to hire employees and it wouldn't work for every role- but the engagement and connection is really new and exciting! 

Those are just a few really interesting recruitment campaigns which have totally made me think about the creativity that can surround marketing job roles or companies as employers! It's such an interesting area and I'd love to read any more so please do tweet them to me at @stefclarkx or pop them in the comments!
Overall, I had a great day at the Target Jobs judging day and can't wait until the winners are revealed! I also met some really great fellow judges and mentors on the day who I hope to see again in the future.
Stephanie.

Career Choices

I was lucky enough to be able to volunteer to work at the Bristol University careers fair on Tuesday representing IBM and inspiring students to apply to the internship, placement and graduate schemes that IBM offer. 

 The careers fair looked awesome in the University Great Hall!

As a UWE student I found this quite daunting, the two universities are historically and brutally, rivals. I was pleasantly surprised that everyone I spoke to was extremely friendly and even when asked what I studied and where, there was no judgement! I feel like the two universities are very different in what they offer, the courses people study and the types of backgrounds the students come from- which isn’t necessarily a bad thing! What I did expect (frown upon me for my stereotypical attitude) was for the students to be very career-driven, headstrong and to have done plenty of research and be very sure of what they wanted to do in life.

I was very surprised to find out that most students had no idea what career path they wanted to follow, what opportunities were available to them and what they wanted to do after university.

I would say I have known roughly what career path I wanted to take for about 2 years now. I want to work in Marketing as it is my passion (hopefully you have gathered that by reading this blog) and something I seem to do well in (according to my exam results/coursework/ability to get a job in said field….).

However, this has not always been the case…

When I was doing my GCSE’s I had my heart set on a Journalism and French Degree, I loved English and I knew I wanted to do something creative that involved writing, I also enjoyed French and loved the idea of studying abroad for a year. When it came down to choosing my A-Level options I went for English and Photography for the Journalism aspect, French and Drama (just because I had no idea what else to choose).

Then I decided to visit Sheffield University on an Open Day as I really wanted to go there and I saw they had a Journalism and French Degree course. I liked the University and decided to go to a talk on Journalism… I am so glad I attended that talk, it was one of the biggest eye openers I have ever experienced in my life.

The lecturer explained that if I wanted to apply for the cause then I had to be 100% committed to Journalism and I had to work extremely hard in a competitive job market, where graduates usually start on a salary of £10,000 if that. He said it was extremely hard to find a job in Journalism as it was, never mind one that pays well.

I decided that from that moment on, I had made the wrong choice and I didn’t want to go into Journalism. After my first year in A-Levels I failed French so that was languages out of the window too!

I do remember being stuck at this point and having to seriously consider what Degree I wanted to apply for as if I remember rightly you have to choose your degree discipline quite early in A2.

I knew it still had to be creative and to do with writing, as I was doing really well in English A-Level. I looked at Public Relations and thought that it was something I really found interesting and wasn’t too far from Journalism, but might be too specific.

Then I looked at where the jobs were at the time, and what percentage of each set of graduates from each course got a job in their chosen field after university. Marketing seemed to rank fairly highly and there were lots of Marketing Graduate jobs available when I did a search.

So, that was it! I risked everything and just went for Marketing, without doing an AWFUL lot of research I must admit. I feel like if you ponder over something for too long you might be put off the idea, I’m the kind of person to say yes and then stick to it, whatever the consequences might be.

I’m so lucky the risk paid off as I really do love Marketing and now I’m lucky enough to be working in it, I’m so glad I made the right choice. I was initially so worried, as I had never studied Business or anything similar, and when we arrived at uni a lot of people had done Business A-Level and therefore knew lots about the degree. I also squirmed when I saw the timetable and “Finance”, “Stats” and “Economics” were on the list. I had absolutely hated maths at school and I was certain after I left that I would never have to do it again.

Well Finance turned out to be my favourite module (Admittedly, economics was my worst) but what I’m trying to say is that you should CONSIDER THINGS YOU MAY NOT HAVE CONSIDERED BEFORE. Take a leap of faith in an uncertain direction!

So I would say the same applies after university, take risks, try new things and even if you aren’t sure what you want to, make sure you know what options are available to you.

Sorry about my life story!!
Steph