Hiring Top Talent: Best Practices in University Recruiting

benchmark surveys with 79 companies, as well as analysis of exclusive interviews with university recruiting leaders at nine selected best practices corporations. This report is designed to give Human Resources executives and directors a tool to assess recruiting performance and begin building a strategic path for program improvement in the future.
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REPORT STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION

Project findings are organized into an executive summary, topical chapters and an appendix.

1) Executive Summary – The executive summary contains a discussion of the background factors that led to the study, a description of the Best Practices, LLC research methodology, a summary of the key project findings and recommendations for identifying and closing performance gaps.

2) Topical Chapters – These chapters provide, by subject, a graphical depiction of survey
responses, discussion of key trends identified from an analysis of the data and write-ups of best practices harvested from in-depth interviews:

• Program Management & Organization –Includes sections on Budget, Staffing, Structure, Activities & Events, Hiring Top Talent (including interns and co-ops) and Program Effectiveness.
• Hiring Top Talent – Discusses best practices for building the talent pool, screening and selecting candidates and managing intern and co-op programs
• Building Strong Stakeholder Relationships – Covers effective partnership with line staff, practices for sharing candidates across lines of business, developing alumni as recruiting talent, training line recruiters and maintaining long-term relationships with university hires.
• School Selection & Ranking - Illustrates best practices for choosing core recruiting schools.
• Technology: Impact & Innovation - Highlights innovative uses of technology in the recruiting process.

Industries Profiled:
Financial Services; Insurance; Pharmaceutical; Biotech; Health Care; Consumer Products; Telecommunications; High Tech; Defense; Medical Device; Manufacturing; Computer Hardware; Computers; Banking; Chemical; Automobile; Aerospace


Companies Profiled:
American Express; New York Life; Pfizer; Goldman; Sachs; Nestle; Merck; Lucent Technologies; Lockheed Martin; Johnson & Johnson; Honeywell; Hewlett-Packard; Georgia-Pacific; Fidelity Investments; ExxonMobil; Ernst & Young; Dow Chemical; DuPont; DaimlerChrysler; Capital One; Boeing; Bank of America

Key Findings

SAMPLE KEY FINDINGS

1. Although school-sponsored career fairs account for 40 percent of events attended by benchmark companies, companies increasingly are moving away from fairs to focus on higher value activities such as a educational programs and Company Days on campus. These activities provide better branding opportunities and attract a more focused target audience. High volume hiring companies spend an average of only 34 percent of their time on career fairs.

2. Leading companies facilitate streamlined, multi-divisional campus recruiting by leveraging a triage approach – key representatives perform on-campus interviews to screen for company fit rather than to fill specific jobs. This enables recruiting to send one multifunctional team instead of a separate team for each division or job function. Screening for company fit (based on behavioral interviews) builds a large talent pool that can be leveraged by all hiring managers across divisions to identify potential talent for second round interviews for specific jobs. Companies find multifunctional recruiting drives efficient and effective. Coordinated efforts also present a unified company face on campus, which improves company brand.

• Project Overview............ Page 1
• Methodology & Project Focus ............. Page 1
• Benchmark Class ..............Page 3
• Key Findings and Boeing Recommendations ............. Page 5
• Report Structure & Organization ............. Page10
• Benchmark Definitions .............Page10

• Overview .............. Page 12
• Structure ............. Page 12
• Staffing & Program Scope ............. Page 16
• Budget .............Page 20
• Activities & Events ..............Page 23
• Effectiveness .............Page 30
• Recruiting Initiatives & Strategy ..............Page 35

• Overview .............Page 37
• Building the Talent Pool ............. Page 37
• Candidate Screening & Selection .............Page 39
• Intern & Co-op Programs ............. Page 42

• Overview ............. Page 49
• Campus Relationships ............. Page 49
• Internal Company Relationships ............. Page 53
• Student Relationships .............. Page 57

• Overview ............. Page 59
• School Ranking .............. Page 59
• Limit Focus Schools ............. Page 64
• Alumni Pressure ..............Page 66

• Overview ............. Page 68
• Pros & Cons .............Page 69
• Best Technology .............Page 73

• Website Comparison Matrix ............. Page 80
• Best Practices/ Lessons Learned Matrix .............Page 88