Upcoming Employer Live Chats

Are you enjoying the Live Chats?

Well good news for you - here is the calendar for more upcoming Employer Live Chat sessions - keep an eye on this as things tend to change and we are still getting Employers confirming dates!

Make sure you use this amazing opportunity to ask your questions directly to the Employers!

Hi Everyone!

So we are in the lead up to a busy few months. To help you out with regards to when Live Chats are taking place and with whom. We have created the following calendar - this will be updated should anything change - so keep an eye on it!

March Live Chats will be released next week.

Click here - to visit the forums

AAGE Conference

The 24^th annual Australian Association of Graduate Employers (AAGE) Conference took place mid last month. The event attracted a large number of attendees that includes 380 delegates from over 125 employer organisations - including a number of employers who made the trip over from New Zealand. The event was a great success with much mingling taking place.

Although there were 15 award sections we would like to mention only two. Huge congratulations go to KPMG New Zealand for taking home the ‘Will Spensley Memorial Award for Innovation in the Graduate Market’ – this related to the recent adaption of the international KPMG event ‘Ace the Case’ into the graduate recruiting tool for the New Zealand section of the company. Another special mention (if we do say so ourselves) goes to GradConnection! As winners of the ‘Award for Most Innovative Supplier to the Graduate Recruitment Industry’ for the second year in a row, we would like to take the opportunity to say thank you to all of you who have offered and continue to offer your support, GradConnection could not have done it without you!

NZAGE Summit

The Auckland-based Summit extended to a full day this year due to the considerable expansion on attendance from last year. Only in its second year the New Zealand's Association of Graduate Employers (NZAGE) Summit succeeded in attracting more than 80 delegates – who included NZAGE members, graduate employers (current and future), suppliers and tertiary providers for the now annual NZAGE Summit.

Many of our clients were in attendance so it was a great day of catching up and updating them on recent GC developments, while learning from the many different educational and interactive panels and workshops.

The event aimed (successfully) to explore key issues and challenges facing the graduate industry, while providing delegates with the opportunity to explore solutions, share ideas and hear about recent trends from industry experts.
We look forward to what other changes the 2013 Summit will bring!

To learn more about NZAGE visit their website.

This year (as you may have read in our April blog) GradConnection sponsored the Auckland University Engineering Faculty in their 2012 Interfaculty Sports Tournament.

Engineering has now become the largest employer industry to be showcased on the GradConnection website, making it an opportunity we couldn’t miss!

The sports tournament has now been running since 2009 and has continued to grow in both student following and the sports involved. The sports are divided between the semesters and involve all nine of the University’s faculties.

Our ‘guest appearances’ at various sporting events included Basketball, Netball, Rugby, Badminton, Volleyball, Cricket, and Touch rugby games. This provided GradConnection with a great opportunity to engage with future graduates and to increase our brand exposure to the 40,000 current students of Auckland University as well as their many alumni. With our teardrop banner visible on the sideline, GradConnection’s logo on the team’s uniforms, a massive banner hanging in the University Recreation Centre (for both semesters) and an additional Netball and Rugby t-shirt that also showcased some of our individual engineering employers, staff members cheering on the team and sponsored events by some of our employers – GradConnection was well represented!

    Our banner hanging in the Rec Centre, during the Netball semi's.         Our Employer t-shirt in use.

The visible sponsorship and the opportunity for employers to get involved during the different sporting events made this an awesome tournament and provided an opportunity to increase awareness not just of GradConnection but also that of our Clients and their graduate opportunities! So thank you to those who got involved in some way or another to help make this an awesome tournament.

GradConnection would also like to say a HUGE ‘Congratulations’ to the Engineering Faculty for making us so proud (we knew you were going to win all along!) and for being the overall winning Faculty of the tournament!

Our support showed through with the Engineering faculty winning the overall interfaculty sporting award!

Congratulations!      

                                              The Engineering Faculty celebrating with their shield!

Thinking of innovative new ways to attract students to your internship and graduate opportunities in your work place? KPMG did just that by turning one of its global initiatives into a recruitment success this year! The Ace the Case adaption introduced a new and efficient way of enticing students by transforming into a social recruitment process that challenges young potentials.

The KPMG team look back over the most recent round of Ace the Case.

On the 21st and 22nd September, KPMG held our Ace the Case competition in Dunedin at the Forsyth Barr Stadium.  What a great venue – perfect for a weekend of team work, celebration and individual successes!  The majority of participants were from Canterbury and Otago universities. Out of 164 applicants, 31 students were selected to attend.  Well done to everyone who took part - we would have liked to offer jobs to each and every one of you – you were all awesome!

Ace the Case is completely unique in the New Zealand graduate recruitment space and sets KPMG apart from our competitors. Ace the Case is a 1½ day workshop and competition. The workshop teaches you the skills required to read analyse and effectively present advice on a real-life business case.  You then go into what we have coined “Think Tanks” in teams, and are given a new case you’ve never seen before. As a group, you need to absorb the case, agree on the deliverables and pull together a ten minute presentation with your advice. You have four hours to complete this task ….

You then enter the competition phase, where in a Dragons Den type scenario, you present in front of a panel of judges (who are ‘in-role’ as stakeholders from within the case study). You’ll be asked probing questions and rated on your overall performance. The entire assessment centre reflects KPMG’s employment brand “Live, Learn, Discover, Achieve”. (The “Live” part comes at the end when we have a celebratory party)!  Everyone gets time with KPMG partners who give you feedback on every aspect of the weekend – invaluable as a way to improve going forward, and to know what it is you excel at.

For this year and going forward, KPMG has decided to use Ace the Case as our Graduate Recruitment Programme.  This is a new initiative in the graduate recruitment space and gives students the opportunity to perform at their best, as you are given the tools you need to perform well. There are tonnes of opportunities to find out more about KPMG and what makes us tick, with a lot of time spent socially with partners and staff over the course of the event.

Congratulations to the winning the teams from the Dunedin competition!
Audit Wellington and Tax Wellington (Penny, Greg, Chris, Neil and Charlotte) and Audit Christchurch (Helene, Michael, Max and Nisha).

Cheers!

From the team at KPMG.

The establishment of the Waikato Management School’s Networking Event occurred when student’s recognised a gap between theory and practice.

The Networking Evening was successfully held earlier this year, with an overwhelming student response, over 80 student RSVP's were received. Unfortunately due to a capacity of 50 students the number of students attending was restrict.

The successful evening has now become a stable fixture on the Waikato Management School Student’s Association’s Calendar with the event being hosted in both semesters. The large student interest showcased the demand for such an event motivating the evening to go bigger and better with an increased capacity.

Over the last few years response from students and businesses alike have been very positive:

‘’Thanks for the opportunity - I enjoyed the evening.  It's always great to meet and talk with enthusiastic students!’’ 2011

Claire van der Most
HR & Organisational Development Manager-RD1

‘’Everything flowed nicely and I particularly liked how you kept everyone informed with how the evening was progressing and what was coming next.’’ 2011

Nicola Lee
Alumni Officer-The University of Waikato

‘’Good night we had some really good people attend and it is always good to enlighten them about Mainfreight. It seemed well organised and the group didn’t seem to be there for the free food which is always good.’’ 2012

Rachel Hustler
Mainfreight Training & Development Mainfreight

The Networking Evening provides an excellent opportunity for employers to interact with dedicated and eager undergraduate and postgraduate students from the Management School at The University of Waikato. While the event follows a general networking format halftime is marked by speeches from some of our attendees.

The Networking Evening allows companies in attendance to;

• Market their company,
• Meet emerging talent in your industry,
• Seek 499 students or future employees,
• Maintain a strong relationship with the University of Waikato,

The theme of the evening is to establish networks between students and your company while enabling students to obtain an insight into the working life of a professional.

The Waikato Management School Students’ Association in alliance with The University of Waikato Management School & GradConnection would like to extend an invitation to our Networking Evening, which is proudly sponsored by Mainfreight.

For more information please contact; Ryan West 027 372 1213 or Moira Duffy 027 386 0976.

Earlier this month we came across a very thought provoking article from BBC news entitled ‘End of Empire for Western Universities?’ In which Sean Coughlan investigates the changing trend that 2020 will see four out of every ten young graduates coming from India and China. Coughlan explains how this shift will be the first redistribution of university graduates since World War II, and it is a significant one! Following WWII the top producers of University graduates were America, Western Europe, Japan and Russia. The year 2020 will provide a completely different line-up, the rank order of which is;

China
India
United States of America
European Union
Indonesia
Russia

By 2020 China is predicted to hold 29 percent of the world’s university graduate population. A huge number, which is only accentuated by its equivalence to the United States population between the ages of 25 and 64! This figure is further increased by the fact that the closest western countries, The United States and The European Union in comparison will only have a combined graduate population of only just over 25 percent.
The only Western country to buck the trend is The United Kingdom who will move from holding 3 percent to 4 percent of young graduates by 2020.

What does this mean for the worlds dynamics?

Well, throughout history every era has had a geographic focus, a particular area that held the power due mainly to strategic placement. Now with the introduction and constant evolution of the ‘Information age’ the world is no longer limited to roads, waterways and physical access. Humanity is now focused on consuming and producing information from the online world. Never before has this been more evident.

The world is moving away from mass production and shifting towards knowledge economy occupations. This shift is providing improved employment rates by producing new types of employment and earnings, which provide a strong incentive for countries to increase their graduate percentages.

The article is very fascinating as it shows that while Asian economies are racing ahead and their shear numbers of graduates and PhD students surpass the western world, it is the west who continue to uphold the position of control as they control the educational institutions.

Where does this leave us?

Well as a country I think New Zealand already taps into these resources by encouraging international students to grace our shores, share their knowledge and we in return will share ours. So perhaps this is more the meaning that Coughlan was going for, maybe the numbers of certain country’s graduates are increasing due to the spread of their population? However at the same time how do we encourage our own citizens to gain a university education?

Where will this take Grad recruitment? How will this be incorporated into our graduate programmes? A future with a more diverse work force will mean a change in the make-up of not only hiring criteria but potentially also that of the business set up. What adaptions will be made countrywide, so that we can move with the times but also keep that Kiwi feel we are known for!

Have a read and see what you think. Otherwise we may just have to wait and see what 2020 brings!

And as another semester at AUT University comes to an end, I find myself enrolling in the Co-operative Education (Co-op) paper. In order to complete my Bachelor of Business undergraduate degree, I am required to complete this compulsory paper in my final year of study at AUT.

Co-op requires students to find a work placement either in New Zealand or overseas for a total of 360 hours over a 9-week period. This unique approach to business education enables students to learn in the workplace while simultaneously undertaking a related programme of academic study. The paper enables students to implement classroom knowledge to real-life situations and challenges presented, which is just what I will be doing in my internship at BMW of North America. As of next week, I will be moving to New Jersey to join the Marketing Communications team at the company’s US headquarters for six months.

I have always been passionate about the BMW brand, but it was the company’s unrivaled and consistent commitment to excellence and innovation that really drew me in. Having turned their group of websites inside out while gathering information on this automotive giant, I stumbled upon the internship and the rest was history. My new role will see me lend support to general marketing and sales tasks, while conducting project analysis, design and implementation and process improvement initiatives within the company’s regional and national marketing teams. While I will be returning to New Zealand to complete my Finance major at AUT, this will be a fantastic opportunity for me to observe best practice work and learn from real-world marketing professionals.

Generally, co-op can be an excellent opportunity for students and employers to trial their compatibility and see whether a permanent placement offer can come to fruition. The paper structure provides students with work experience, progress feedback from lecturers and, as in my case, can by all means double as your OE. To any students who would like to do their co-op or similar form of work experience overseas, I advise you to simply start searching the internet inside and out until you find what you are looking for. There is a plethora of information and opportunities on there, you just need to do bit of digging.

The AUT Co-op department has established a great network of employers; participating companies to date have included Air New Zealand, Ernst & Young, Saatchi & Saatchi, TVNZ, Ford and DDB New Zealand among many others. For employers, participating in the co-op programme is as easy as creating a position within the company and getting in touch with the Co-operative education team. If this is something that you believe could be of value or interest to your company, check out the AUT Co-op page and download their brochure.

I must admit, coming to a decision has not been easy; my time at GradConnection has been invaluable and I thoroughly enjoy working with Tim and Rob. Nevertheless, they have been very supportive of my decision to take on this opportunity and I could not be more appreciative of their understanding. Thank you Tim and Rob!