Q1 Roundtable Highlights: Inspire

Our January Roundtable

In our engaging schools roundtable, participants discussed strategies and challenges focused around school engagement and the best ways to measure success. Employers also tackled reasons behind their decision to engage with schools, with an emphasis on creating apprenticeship and graduate pipelines, increasing industry awareness, and fostering social mobility.

Engaging Schools.
We asked the Roundtable community: Why do you want to engage schools?

Poll Results: 

“Brand awareness, limited knowledge of who we are with young people in particular and social mobility is a key focus.”

The Importance of diversity in applications.
The roundtable also focused around the discussion of the importance of diversity and the number of applications in school engagement programmes. Members highlighted the need to focus on social mobility and the challenge of tracking diversity in the application process and placing emphasis on student feedback.

Key Takeaways:

• A major focus for the 2024 year will be not only on the quantity of applicants but quality.
• Tackling diversity starts with working at a local level in order to address diversity challenges in their region.
• With an aging workforce, it’s important to diversify ways to engage with candidates.

Keeping School Relationships.
Participants discussed the challenges and strategies for building relationships with schools. They shared their experiences, emphasising the effectiveness of meeting people at career fairs and directly calling schools. Finding innovative ways to continue relationships with schools amongst change of staff, constant communication, and using alumni networks were points of focus.

In regards to college and schools outreach, we asked the Roundtable community: Which approach are you more likely to consider?

Poll Results: 

Strategies For School Outreach.
During the roundtable participants discussed ways they’re looking to utilise school outreach programs. Work Experience, Workshops, and Careers Fairs continue to dominate as the most effective and used way to target students in schools and teach them about possible opportunities. A major focus is to target under-represented schools that don’t usually have access to these type of opportunities as it removes the barrier, focusing on local areas. Another key strategy that emerged was a work experience pipeline that helps fast track students into their areas or careers of interest.

We asked the Roundtable community: How are you planning to deliver outreach to schools?

Poll results:

Our February Roundtable: Campus Engagement.
At our campus engagement roundtable, attendees came together to discuss challenges & opportunities for meaningful engagement with university campuses. From the shift to virtual and careers fairs, participants tackled ways they were able to create effective impact towards their early careers pipeline and recruitment goals.

Campus Engagement.
We asked the Roundtable community: Why do you want to engage University campuses?

Poll Results:

“Engaging with campuses to shift ideas about the types oof roles we offer and demonstrating tech and data is integral to our operations is and essential.”

Shifting Perceptions Is Key.
A major focus that emerged from the discussion was using university campuses in order to shift perceptions about different industries and get potential candidates interested in areas & organisations that are not typically thought of.

Key Takeaways:

• In order to tackle stereotypes and any preconceived notions about sectors, it’s important to engage with candidates in as many avenues as possible–campuses can be a key way to execute this.
• Engaging with campuses allows organisations to create a more diverse candidate pool, attracting candidates that typically don’t apply through traditional means.
• Engaging with universities of choice aids with a more targeted pipeline, shifting focus to quality.

Methods To Engagement:
Another major discussion point for the roundtable was the best strategies to use for delivering messaging, such as on-campus events and social media. The majority of employers concluded that the best way to increase campus presence was through careers fairs. In terms of benefits, employers saw brand awareness as the biggest ROI they received from careers fairs.

In regards to outreach on campuses, we asked the Roundtable community: How are you planning to deliver engagement initiatives?

Pool Results:

Our March Roundtable: Work Experience.
This roundtable revolved around the topic of work experience and why it’s necessary, with attendees discussing their current programs and future plans as WEX was highly demanded from prospective applicants and partners. Participants highlighted the importance of work experience in promoting social mobility, talent pipeline development, and community engagement.

In regards to outreach on campuses, we asked the Roundtable community: Why do you offer work experience?

Pool Results:

“Work experience is a key way to tackle barriers and address areas line social mobility.”

Social Mobility & Work Experience.
Accessibility to work experience opportunities remains a major factor for most organisations. Beyond working with what’s local (schools and colleges) there is a desire to do more and look beyond for a more diverse applicant range.

Key Takeaways:

• Being able to keep up with current employee requests for work experience while also keeping diversity in mind emerged as a key challenge for most employers.
• When asked about what their main goal was for work experience, almost all participants stated ED&I was their main focus when developing any new work experience programming.