Article: Winning on talent with the right campus partners leading the way

A Brand Reachout InitiativeRecruitment

Winning on talent with the right campus partners leading the way

Industry leaders come together at this session to deliberate on the hiring challenges that need to be addressed and offer fundamental insights to engage in campus hiring to build a robust talent pipeline.
Winning on talent with the right campus partners leading the way

As the talent hunt becomes even more competitive, organisations must strategise their recruitment plans to leverage the opportunities and benefits of campus hiring. Investing in the right industry-institute partnerships can open up access to a highly qualified talent pool, empowering companies to address the skilling gaps that remain.

 

To guide organisations in building the right partnerships and leverage the potential of the campus hiring, People Matters and Sunstone Eduversity recently hosted a webcast that sought to envision the campus hiring landscape in strategic and innovative ways. This session was joined by key industry leaders Manu Saigal, Director-General Staffing, The Adecco India; Pratima Pinto Thomas, Head HR- Fino Payments Bank; Tejaswini Adhikari, Chief Insights Officer, Future Group and Abhishek Banerjee, Vice President - Student outcomes (Training and placements), Sunstone Eduversity

When asked about the challenges that companies continue to face when hiring freshers, Tejaswini Adhikari highlights a gap in the translation of skills to the job at hand comes up first. Simultaneously, Pratima Pinto Thomas emphasises how skills also must match the expected cost per hire and the organisational mission and values. 

Abhishek Banerjee pointed out that as Gen Z enters a volatile yet dynamic job market, soft skills and cognitive skills become essential. In addition, organisations demand talent that is determined, resilient, and delivers on their expectations while being ready to learn and unlearn in the face of evolving skill demands.

Strengthening industry-academia collaboration: 

Given that Tier-1 colleges provide experiential learning while those in Tier-2 and Tier-3 continue to focus on theory, freshers from these institutes tend to take time to become job-ready. ‘What can help in such a context is industry-related apprenticeships to ensure skill training for custom job profiles,’ said Manu Saigal. An increase in corporate collaboration with institutes in Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities will benefit both employers and freshers. 

With Gen Z actively seeking passion in their jobs, institutes need to align student aspirations with employment for more significant results. Moreover, these campuses must create curricula with the foresight to meet the talent needs of particular sectors and industries. At the same time, once organisations zero in on their campus partner of choice, relationships with students and faculty need to be built much before the placement stage to create a ready talent pipeline aware of your organisation’s culture, values, and ambitions. Such relationships need to be made for the long term to ensure that the institutes understand your talent expectations while you have insights into the talent pool they can bring to you. 

Here are five steps to find the right campus partner for your talent hunt:

Our leaders had several insights to share about the importance of leveraging campus partnerships, but equally important are the strategies they have implemented to get this done:

  • Identify campuses by looking into the colleges your current workforce is an alumnus of
  • Look into institutes that specialise in the niche skills of your industry
  • Partner with colleges that have a multi-geographic presence to get access to dispersed talent
  • Campus culture and value alignment to your organisation are also critical to factor in
  • Search for institutes that have a reasonable run rate of placements and can offer hiring opportunities in large numbers

Campus partners that can seamlessly deliver highly skilled freshers at scale by quickly matching your organisation’s talent needs can genuinely make a difference. Such institutes must also integrate the latest pedagogy in their curriculum backed by industry-aligned topics and emphasise measuring learning outcomes. 

Learner readiness is a fundamental ask at the workplace today, and this attribute has to be accompanied by core skills already gained at the campus. In today’s talent market, the attitude, mindset, creativity, and ambition combined with experience make a fresher stand apart. And while organisations are setting their expectations when it comes to hiring, finding such talent will require them to collaborate with the central source, which is educational institutes and organisations that offer the in-demand skills. 

To build a talent pipeline driven to deliver a business impact, such partnerships have to be strategic, innovative, and long-term. Only then can you gain a competitive advantage in the talent market and bridge that skill gap. 

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Topics: Recruitment, Talent Acquisition, #Hiring, #HRCommunity

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