Still sending your recruiters to in-person job fairs? If your efforts begin and end there, you're likely missing out on building connections with top talent.
Like every other part of work, recruiting and hiring has been turned on its head in the wake of the pandemic. Today, nine out of 10 employers prefer virtual interviews, according to InCruiter, though data from software company TechDoQuest shows that 51% of Gen Z job seekers would rather have in-person communication and form relationships with their recruiters. To further complicate the recipe of
"Employers and students essentially want a tech-enabled, in-person experience," says Christine Cruzvergara, chief education strategy officer at Handshake, noting that many employers are taking a hybrid or all-virtual approach to the interview process. "They want the ease and convenience of virtual, but they don't want to lose out on the person-to-person connection. How do we make that better? How do we have a tech-enabled in-person experience that really leverages the strengths of all those components?"
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Seeing that 82% of Handshake's Fortune 100 members are engaging in a hybrid recruiting strategy, the company recently added an Events app to their platform, designed to help employers and students get the most out of whichever method they use, says Cruzvergara. For employers with multiple applicants across many
Statistical software company SAS has been using the Handshake platform for over five years. This has empowered the company to reach students outside of its immediate area and build a pipeline of qualified and diverse talent, says SAS recruitment and outreach specialist Christie Eades. Using Handshake aligns with the company's mission to hire across the population — SAS's united STEM internship program is specifically focused on women, people of color, the LGBTQ community, veterans and military spouses and neurodivergent talent — and over 30% of the program's hires found SAS through Handshake, she says.
"We can't be everywhere at once," says Eades. "[With Handshake,] we're reaching students and building brand awareness where we've never been able to before. We're able to quickly tell our story and reach students via their messaging and campaign functions, and invite them to events where we're able to have conversations [which] gets them excited about working for us."
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With the new capabilities, Eades and her team have been able to include records from interactions with potential hires at events in a student's profile, leading to more educated choices in hiring. The ability to view student profiles, interests and all the ways they've engaged with the company
"We know that if [students] have a positive candidate experience and multiple touch points where they're learning about us, they're more likely to accept an offer," says Eades. "When the student [thinks], "I got a message through Handshake, then I attended the career fair and got to meet with an actual company employee, then I attended your info session online, then I applied for the job, then I got an offer — with all those steps combined we see anecdotally and also in the data that students are more likely to accept an offer, and once they do, our goal is to keep them long-term."
