Graduate Recruitment Blog New Zealand

After an unnecessarily long and agonizing, thirty-something hour plane ride from my hometown Zagreb in Croatia, I began my journey in New Zealand. 10 years later and still in Auckland, I find myself as a third year university student.

I'm finishing off my Bachelor of Business with a double major in advertising and finance at AUT. I'm often asked how I settled on advertising, to which I think the reply would be it sort of settled on me. I went after what I was good at and once you find you're good at something you sort of naturally start to enjoy it. As for the finance side of things, I'm still working that out! Job-wise, I've been lucky enough to land a marketing manager role at GradConnection NZ as can be seen. This all began after scanning through my inbox one day and noticing an email from GC team regarding a new position. After a overly lengthy cover letter and abnormal levels of hope, I got a call back for an phone interview that, with my luck of holiday timing, couldn't be taken from sunny California. However, upon my return I took the phone interview and got to the face-to-face stage. Long story short it all had a happy ending and I was offered the job.

Working for Rob and Tim is proving to be an interesting endeavor in which I eagerly await the many challenges thrown my way. The relaxed but productive atmosphere and constant personal growth opportunities are currently topping the favourites list here, but surely more will surface with time. I'm excited for what this year will bring and look forward to hearing from you guys here on the website. Should you need anything do let me know!

Tune in soon.

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Erin Boyle recently wrote the following article appearing in seven regional APN newspapers

Graduating from study is an exciting time. There is no doubt embarking on a tertiary course can do great things for your career but to make sure you successfully move on to the next step you will need to consider a few things.

For quite a few disciplines, organisations are keen to hire in advance, so placements for lawyers, accountants and engineers in particular are often done up to 12 months in advance. For those in their final year of study in 2012, it really is a good idea to start planning for those intakes.

Tim Watts and Robert Milne are the directors of GradConnection New Zealand and they say students need to be prepared in advance for their future careers. ‘‘The graduate job market is quite different to the traditional recruitment concept. A lot of the big corporations, like Contact Energy, Telecom, Fonterra, the major banks, they do almost all of their candidate sourcing from March to May for graduates to start the following year. They tend to work out what skills they will require across the board and not just for the ‘in demand’ candidates, like engineers. They will often look for people to fill HR, marketing and all those sort of organisational roles.’’

GradConnection was started three years ago by three Wellington friends who decided to launch their concept in Australia. Then, two-and-a-half years ago, Watts and Milne opened the New Zealand company and, since then, GradConnection has been growing from strength to strength. ‘‘Last year, we averaged about 17,000 hits a month and that peaked at 26,000 visits during our busiest times. We have around 60 clients ranging from major corporations to large nationwide accounting firms.’’

Gradconnection.co.nz enables organisations to create profile pages that can take potential job applicants further than the traditional job ad. These businesses can develop more of a brand presence and showcase all the opportunities and career paths offered. Future graduates access a wide range of tools, as well as potential employers, just by creating a personal profile and chatting on the forums.

Watts and Milne are thrilled with how students, graduates and organisations around New Zealand have responded to the GradConnection website but say that more businesses throughout the country need to be accepting of the skills and talents graduates can bring to organisations of all shapes and sizes. ‘‘New Zealand really does a poor job at investing in tertiary graduates compared to our cousins across the Tasman’’ says Milne. ‘‘So we want to encourage more businesses to come together and feel empowered to hire graduates. A lot of organisations have negative preconceptions about graduates and see them as the ‘too hard basket’, but we want to show that there is so much value they can add.’’

For those who have completed their studies but haven’t managed to secure employment yet, never fear as there are still many opportunities around and Watts has some words of advice. ‘‘Whether you were unsuccessful with applications last year or haven’t even put your CV together yet, there is still time and a variety of starting points. ‘‘Perhaps you could look at roles in other towns? There are definitely some gems outside of the main centres, they might not be as readily abundant but there are the opportunities there that the average student doesn’t look at straight away.’’

He also stresses it is important to not be disheartened by being turned down for jobs. ‘‘I know people who have felt like it was the end of the world that they didn’t get the job they wanted. And it ended up being a blessing in disguise as they took a slightly different path and ended up at the same place or finding they were suited for something else. Don’t take it personally, employers predominantly are looking for the right fit for their organisation, this just may not be you.’’

And while they know it can be a tough market out there, Watts and Milne say there is little room for error when it comes to showcasing yourself to be the best you can be. ‘‘There is so much advice and help out there that it’s unacceptable these days to not be prepared. Think of CV as your first piece of work for an organisation and, if you get an interview, dress for it as though it is your first day of work there. ‘‘Try to figure out how you can differentiate yourself from others and how you can convey that edge to a potential employer in a professional and interesting way.’’

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The Australian Association of Graduate Employers (AAGE) hosts an annual three-day conference, bringing together graduate employers, recruitment professionals and service providers (whose businesses are connected to the graduate recruitment industry) from around Australia and New Zealand to learn, develop, share and network with each other.

The AAGE Conferences allow delegates to focus on broad issues impacting on the industry, to have the opportunity to learn from industry experts, discover the latest trends and to discuss solutions and methods in which to handle industry challenges. The Conference format encourages the open sharing of knowledge and experience, which serves to elevate the graduate recruitment industry as an increasingly important, strategic part of a business.

 New Zealand Delegates.

This year was the 23rd AAGE Conference held at the Hilton Sydney and GradConnection was once again proud to be a gold sponsor of the event. There were around 400 delegates in attendance this year, with a group of eight New Zealand delegates, including Rob and Tim from GradConnection NZ, Otago University, and five GradConnection New Zealand clients: Gentrack, Russell McVeagh, KPMG, Transpower, and Staples Rodway.

  New Zealand delegates hailing the NZ flag.

This year’s theme ‘What’s Your Special Ingredient this year?’ was an acknowledgment to the hunger of graduates when embarking on their career and how employers can satisfy their expectations. The conference hosted a range of seminars and impressive keynote speakers, followed by a comprehensive selection of break out workshops. Highlights for us included:

- Practitioner Seminar: Aimed at those relatively new to the graduate recruitment industry, this seminar covered best practice approach to budgeting, marketing, screening, assessment and reporting. It was facilitated by Su Kulk of Colonial First State, Emma Hale of SA Water and Anna Clarke, OneSteel.

- Leader Seminar: Looked at how to manage the strategic direction of your organisation’s graduate recruitment and development program. This was facilitated by representatives of companies including BP, Westpac, Orica and PwC.

- ‘What Makes You Different’: A workshop on how to build a graduate brand that sets you apart, presented by Andrea Culligan, CEO of Unimail. 

- ‘The Edge Boutique’: A workshop providing insight on making bespoke Graduate development easy. Presented by Josh Mackenzie, Managing Director of Development Beyond Learning and author of The Graduate Edge.

- ‘Designing a Graduate Assessment Centre’: How to design and facilitate an assessment centre to improve your recruitment success, presented by Adele Preston of Orica.

The GradConnection team also made our own presentation on ‘Online Graduate Attraction around the World’. This looked at various online strategies used worldwide, focusing on how to attract star students using the latest online technology. We wanted to introduce everyone to the increasingly important data, analytics and online worlds. Dave Jenkins presented some very interesting conclusions from our GradConnection data. He gave an overview of what is possible with google analytics and how it is applicable to your website, and what the results are of some of the top search terms in the graduate industry. Mike Casey talked about how to generate and tend to online talent communities. He gave a summary of the social media activity on our site this year with particular reference to some of the most successful employer forum sessions on our forums as well as some of the niche forum sessions that created great conversations for our results. Finally, Dan Purchas introduced to delegates the online graduate recruitment industry and the future of graduate recruitment, with a particular focus on graduate recruitment in China, with case study of what has, and has not worked. He also showed the direction of technology in China, with the introduction of "3G everywhere" in China and the current social media platforms in use and what this means for Australia and New Zealand - and how you can keep up.

The conference also included an array of social events. At the conclusion of the first day the Kiwi delegates were invited to the AAGE Chairperson drinks held up the Sydney Westfield Tower this was followed by an open networking function attended by 200 plus delegates. This was more than another just a networking event, this evening set the bar for what would be a great three days in Sydney and included an eye popping performance by a team of talented Brazilian dances!

 Jan Blair of Russell McVeagh and Brazilian dancer.

The annual Gala Dinner was another hit. Featuring a 'blue carpet' entry, the Gala Dinner was held on the second evening during the Conference at the Hilton Grand Ballroom. This black tie Gala Dinner also incorporated the annual AAGE Graduate Recruitment Industry Awards (AGRIAs) presentation, aimed to reward and recognise excellence in the graduate recruitment industry.

 Tim Watts and Rob Milne of GradConnection with other NZ delegates on the 'Blue Carpet'.

This year GradConnection won the Australasian Best Supplier of the year award. This award recognizes the best service supplier within the graduate industry, voted on by graduate employers across New Zealand and Australia. This was the first time the award has been won by GradConnection and is real credit to the hard work that has been put in by the teams on both sides of the Tasman. GradConnection also picked up Best Stand at conference and were also an unlucky finalist in the Most Outstanding Contribution to the industry award with Tim Watts losing out to Ben Reeves (Current AAGE CEO).  

The whole GradConnection team receiving the Best Supplier Award.

This was a fantastic event and is still being raved about by those who attended. If you want to know more information about the AAGE, the conference, or our presentation please contact us or check out the links below.

GradConnection Presentation

Other Presentations

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The GradConnection Team got together with Missy from Jobs.co.nz to write a blog about how GradConnection can benefit students AND employers.

It was only end of last year Missy donned the grad cap, and walked the stage to receive that important piece of paper which symbolised 4 years of hard slog as a Massey Design student based in Wellington. Along with many other students Missy was desperate to get a job, but did not know the exact path to take. That's where GradConnection steps in to connect students to the right graduate position for them.

This blog also outlines the enormous benefits to employers in using GradConnection's services. There can be a lack of understanding as to the benefit of recruiting graduates. However, a graduate is teachable. They have been taught all their lives and are used to learning from someone or some system that is able to advance their knowledge and steer them down the path to success.

To read the full article and find out more about how GradConnection can help you as a student or employer, check it out here.

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Last week at the 2011 annual Australian Association of Graduate Employers (AAGE) Gala Dinner, GradConnection won the Best Supplier award. This award recognizes the best service supplier within the graduate industry. The award is voted on by graduate employers across New Zealand and Australia. It is the first time the award has been won by GradConnection.

To see the full story on Scoop, check it out here.

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Great to see the Robert Milne and Tim Watts mentioned in the Herald. This article discusses the beginnings of GradConnection NZ. "We first discussed setting up GradConnection in NZ at the cricket," says Milne. "I was looking to do something different and this seemed like a good thing to do."

Check out the full article here.

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GradConnection is excited to be relaunching our new blog! 

Following our updated website we have now been able to update our blog. Here we will be posting:

• our opinions on topical graduate employment issues;
• news articles we are mentioned in;
• presentations we make at various conferences; and
• generally what GradConnection is getting up to

We hope this will be a blog where employers can keep up-to-date with graduate employment issues and trends. We would appreciate thoughts, feedback and discussion on any of the posts we make. Happy reading!

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This is a recent article written for the Employment Today Sept/Oct Issue

The last five years have seen a dramatic shift in the way employers, both large and small, approach graduate recruitment. It is all about buy-in from senior management or the realisation from an employer that they have an ageing work- force with a lack of fresh ideas, enthusiasm and no succession planning.

More recently graduate employers have realised that there is a greater range of disciplines they can look at to fill their graduate positions. This not only allows organisations to expand the talent pool from which they are recruiting, but also to bring in a dynamic group of young tertiary talent—resulting in a wider range of ideas, opinions and a balanced organisational culture. In the last two years, GradConnection has seen banks consider engineers for their analytics positions and professional services firms considering science graduates for their consulting teams. In particular, with the emergence of graduate leadership programmes, organisations are interested in hiring graduates from broader disciplines if they are passionate, driven and have a desire to succeed.

Comparing public sector with private sector organisations who actively hire New Zealand graduates makes for dire reading. Currently, the majority of responsibility for employing tertiary talent falls on the private sector, with only a handful of public sector organisations regularly recruiting graduates. While the private sector is actively increasing its recruitment of graduates the public sector is stagnating.

Of late, we have seen a shift in thinking from the senior management in organisations who are either initiating discussion about the recruitment of graduates or acting on the recommendations of their HR professionals. This buy-in from senior management is essential and allows organisations to enter the graduate market at an increased pace and with a more comprehensive graduate programme.

The final organisational shift that GradConnection has witnessed is that succession planning is coming to the forefront. Organisations are realising that they have an ageing workforce and little, if any, emerging talent is being developed to become the future leaders of the business.

Key trends—graduates

From the database of students who use GradConnection as a tool for researching, comparing and contrasting the different graduate employers in the market, we compile an annual Graduate Motivations report. We have found Graduates are first and foremost looking for an environment that supports them—they are looking for mentoring closely followed by continued education support. They are also conscious of an employer’s social responsibility, aware of their place and impact on our wider society. GradConnection’s challenge to all employers is to look at the talent flooding out of our tertiary institutions around the country and ask: “What is our organisation doing in this space? Do you consider that your organisation is investing in this untapped talent source? If not why not!"

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I recently made a presentation at 2011 HRINZ National Conference, August 9, 2011

Early this year the first GradConnection Graduate Motivations Report (the report) was published reflecting on what students and graduates are looking for in a New Zealand graduate employer. In tracking approximately 75,000 visits to their website over a nine month period in 2010 GradConnection was able to quantitatively outline interesting trends, desires and motivators that the future leaders of our businesses are requesting when they embark into their working careers - information that until now has been simply guess work for employers hiring graduates, entry level staff or students into graduate programmes.

This session was interactive and informative, developing and teasing out key themes in the report and other supporting research. A live case study of a well known New Zealand organisation was worked through showing what they are doing to provide the right working culture for our leaders of tomorrow to flourish in. As people learn best from hearing other peoples experiences (positive or negative) a panel discussion made up of some our well known New Zealand organisations added first hand insights. The panel included:

• Belinda Lally -FNZ Limited (previously Office of the Auditor General & Telecom New Zealand) 
• Richard Westney -KPMG (previously Fonterra) 
• Anoka Nallaiah-Transpower  

I also provided additional information from other employers I work with as well as current international trends picked up from the UK Association of Graduate Recruiters conference held in Wales in July.  

To see the Presentation Slides go to http://conference.hrinz.org.nz/Site/National_Events/conferences/2011/Conference_Presentations.aspx

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I recently commented to the New Zealand Herald on why students go overseas, but how we should encourage them to stay.

New Zealand is getting more educated. Between 1986 and 2009 the number of Kiwis with a university degree rocketed from 100,000 to 538,000. But just what this means for the country is unclear. As the recession took hold a couple of years ago, jobs for graduates dried up and more students opted to stay at university and gain post-graduate qualifications. There are signs that the fortunes of graduates leaving university now are improving, but many still struggle to find work. However, I have seen a positive shift as more graduate jobs have been available this year than last.

ASB launched a new graduate programme in the past six months and is actively looking to recruit between 20 and 30 graduates a year. BNZ and AIG have also introduced new graduate recruitment schemes. "There's a need to bring youth into organisations for their different skills and experiences,". It is a competitive market for graduates seeking work, but also for firms. So what is the best course to guarantee a job? There is no such thing as a dud degree. I suggest to: "Do something you love, but throw in something that shows you've given some thought to what you're going to do afterwards".For example, round out a BA in Russian literature with an economics or statistics major.

Employers hire well rounded people so, although academic record is important, they will want to see evidence of part-time or volunteer work and extra-curricular activities. Breaking into the job market can be a hard slog but there are opportunities for graduates willing to look outside the main business hubs, particularly in regional areas such as Hawke's Bay and Tauranga. "It's a matter of applying yourself, being determined to get that job...Chances are most people will be rejected from multiple jobs before they get the right one. Fort hose who persevere they will find an entry-level role but they might have to adjust their expectations."

To read the full article go to: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/education/news/article.cfm?c_id=35&objectid=10742034

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