Acquiring the best talent can pose a serious concern, every year, for businesses worldwide. Even after sourcing and hiring fresh talent, the question of how to effectively approach graduate training is always looming.
With the cost of degrees soaring, more universities are now looking to form partnerships with external brands and companies to provide their graduates with clear career paths, following graduation.
Businesses must meet the expectations of graduates to attract the right kind of recruits, matching people to their company by identifying cultural and personality matches. So how can forming a partnership with a university benefit your recruitment and graduate training strategies?
Forming a brand partnership with a university
It’s often put upon student unions to arrange and negotiate commercial relationships with brands, however, if companies are prepared to take a more proactive approach, they will be able to source the most relevant and highly skilled talent.
Removing the process of waiting for a university to potentially get in contact with you, can ensure that your brand is at the forefront of their decision making alongside utilising the relationship to plan the most effective methods and content to deliver graduate training.
The relationship is beneficial to both the university and the brand, offering a USP to the university, providing them with links to industry and the eas of which they can arrange placement opportunities.
Brands benefit from this whereby they can utilise the university's resources, form relationships with existing students to encourage future employment opportunities and ensure that they are never falling short of incoming graduate talent.
A skills match strategy, allows brands to work with the university counterparts on specially designed projects, which will aim to define shared agendas as well as build experience for graduates. Simulation projects can help a company determine the skills gaps within the current undergraduates, this can then be applied to ensure that graduate training programmes aim to close these gaps. These are also great opportunities for a student to understand the types of work they can expect from working with your business, which can drive enthusiasm and a desire to work with your brand.
How can university partnerships help shape your graduate training?
University partnerships can offer valuable insights into the current undergraduates within a particular university. By picking a university which specialises in your industry, you open your business up to receiving the first choice of the new graduate talent, at the end of the final semester.
Not only are university partnerships ideal for sourcing and obtaining excellent graduate talent, but they can also build opportunities to identify areas that are not covered in the curriculum that is essential to succeeding in your industry or business. Your graduate training programme can then detail ways in which to bridge these gaps.
Furthermore, your graduate training scheme can be rolled out and tested on prospective employees before their graduation. This was you can obtain feedback and advice on how to best implement your activities and obtain the desired objectives.
Finally, graduate training schemes can be tailored to particular types of people, with their considerations taken into account. Securing candidates before their graduation will allow them to visit and become assimilated with their new workplace before starting, It will also offer your business the opportunity to assess their independent needs and requirements and decipher if your graduate training programmes need adapting to ensure optimum effectiveness and accessibility.