Campus recruiting strategies enable companies to diversify their hiring pool with candidates from a wide array of backgrounds, taking advantage of the representation available on college campuses. This approach is particularly relevant as members of Gen Z, known for being one of the most educated and diverse generations, enter the workforce. A significant 74% of employers consider diversity and inclusion goals a primary reason for participating in campus recruitment, highlighting its importance in fostering a more inclusive workplace.
Furthermore, campus hiring provides companies direct access to a vast talent pool, enabling them to fill various vacant roles quickly.
Despite all the benefits, there are inherent challenges with manual campus hiring including
- Large number of candidates to be assessed in limited hiring days from distant or multiple campuses.
- Insufficient human resources to handle the extensive hiring process efficiently and increased workload on HR teams, already stretched with other responsibilities.
- Potential biases in selection, affecting diversity and inclusivity.
- Manual and inconsistent criteria and processes for candidate shortlisting.
- Inadequacies in existing technological tools to streamline the process and manage the integrity of the process.
- Difficulty in assessing candidates’ alignment with organizational culture.
- Challenges in providing timely and constructive feedback to candidates.
- Ensuring the quality of hires meets organizational standards.
More and more organizations are taking the talent assessment route to hire the fresh talent from campuses. Organizations find value in digital assessment platforms to make campus assessments easier and seamless. But the question is what to look for in your next campus assessment provider.
Based on our experience of helping 1800+ organizations conduct campus hiring needs for the last 15 years here is a shortlist of key things to look for:
- Flexible Delivery Models: Often organizations feel challenged if they have to conduct assessments across the geographical locations or need to conduct paper -based assessment across multiple locations. Look for a partner that has the ability to offer Internet-based, Computer/Center-based, OMR-based solutions & Paper based tailored to your specific needs.
- Unified Assessments: Comprehensive evaluations encompassing cognitive, psychometric, Aptitude, Domain and Skills. 82% of businesses are currently using some form of pre-employment assessments in their mass recruitment process. A candidate commonly undergoes 3 to 5 assessments, including resume review, aptitude tests, technical assessments, psychometric profiling, and interviews leading to longer hiring cycles and assessment fatigue amongst candidates.
- AI-Powered Remote Proctoring: Ensuring the security and integrity of assessments conducted remotely. With scale, there is a risk of assessment results being manipulated in different ways, which may affect the authenticity and reliability of the outcome. Look for a partner that can offer the flexibility to the clients to choose the level of proctoring as per their needs. Also, it should be able to to integrate easily to any existing application, assessment platform or LTI compliant apps ensured continuity and safety of investments in the existing tools.
- Extensive Question Bank: Talent assessment results are as good as the questions asked. Organizations often struggle to have a question bank to choose from for assessing aptitude, cognitive or psychometric traits. Also, the questions become repetitive and on expected lines after few runs. Look for a partner that has a large bank of questions available for customization to align with your assessment goals.
- Administrative Support: Managing the administrative burden of registrations, coordinating with students, offering technical support, and declaring results fast can be overwhelming for the HR teams. Look for a partner who can manage the campus process end-to-end for you so that your team can focus attracting students and building your employer brand.
- Extend Your Reach to Campuses: The bulk of top talent gets picked up from the top campuses and the organization who don’t get slots to conduct campus hiring drives often miss out on this top talent. Look for a partner that already has pre-established tie-ups with campuses so that your organization gets access to the top talent.
In conclusion, effective campus hiring, especially when conducted with the right partner, is pivotal for organizations. It ensures access to a pool of diverse, skilled, and innovative talent, vital for driving growth and competitiveness. A strategic approach enhances an organization’s brand among future workforce pools, optimizing resource use and maximizing recruitment outcomes. Partnering with a knowledgeable entity guarantees compliance with legal and ethical standards, promoting diversity and inclusion. Ultimately, well-executed campus hiring is not just about filling immediate vacancies but is a strategic move towards fostering long-term employee retention and aligning talent acquisition with broader organizational goals.