idealpeople blog

We’re not normally that interested in the various ways in which the Recruitment industry dishes out awards to itself. That’s why, frankly, we couldn’t be bothered even mentioning the Recruiter Awards for Excellence this year. We can tell you that lots of awards were won by some companies. Great.

However, there’s an award ceremony happening tonight which has captured our interest. The TARGETjobs awards are given to graduate employers, across a broad range of categories, and are more aimed at both the quality of the work experience given to graduate hires and (arguably more interestingly) the way in which employers market themselves to potential graduate hires.

There’s something of a battle royale going on in the award given to best ICT (we hate that terms by the way - what’s wrong with “technology”) graduate employer, between the serious big guns of the tech industry: Google, Microsoft, Intel, Accenture, IBM and BT have all been nominated - which makes for a tasty outcome. Especially given that’s it’s a student-vote category.

We thought we’d try and make a couple of predictions ahead of the decision. We’ve got six well-known employers here - so what do we make of them?

Google are an obvious nomination. Everyone knows what Google do. Google are “cool”. Google are taking on Microsoft. Google are successful, but they’ve done it in a very stylish way. Google - surely - will appeal to the hearts and minds of the undergraduate community, right? Even their recruitment mission statement - “we hire great people and encourage them to make their dreams a reality” - is geared at this audience.

In terms of the way they hire people, Google rely quite heavily on the fact that “we’re Google”. This is a sound enough strategy - if you’ve got it, flaunt it, right? Their recruitment brand is well established inside the minds of the people applying for roles, so they don’t need to do too much work to really attract people. Their recruitment website is relatively unspectacular - we found a short, one-paragraph overview of why you’d want to work for Google and three (somewhat random) pictures. Their site is more geared towards letting you apply for jobs quickly and easily than it is on really selling Google to applicants. Their application form is relatively simple. There aren’t many steps to go through. It’s clean, it’s quick, it’s easy. It’s Google.

Microsoft are another obvious nominee. Again, everyone knows who Microsoft are and what they do. How they differ to Google in terms of recruitment though is that whilst everyone loves Google, not everyone loves Microsoft. Their reputation (which has softened significantly of late) is more one of “the evil corporation” - compared to Google - and as such they’ve taken a much more sales-orientated approach to their recruitment brand. Their on-line careers centre is jam-packed with testimonials, and the scale of their “why work for us” section is impressive.

Where Microsoft really impress though is in their alternative strategies: their recruitment blogs (see this example) allow interested parties to interact with the people working on the front-line. Interested parties can ask questions on pretty much everything. This “open door” communication strategy really makes a difference (in fact, encouraging staff to blog has really helped Microsoft move away from their perceived reputation). Their fearsome six-stage interview process might lose them marks with the jobseeker community though.

IBM’s approach appears to be more traditional. IBM are associated with excellence, and as the reigning champions, they’ll be tough to beat. Their key message is one of inclusion: diversity, encouraging ideas and innovation. They even give a nod to their (watchword alert) Corporate Social Responsibility Policy openly on their recruitment pages.

If we’re going to be critical, it’s of their job listings, which is hard to search, although their graduate-specific site is not affected by this.

These three (Google, Microsoft, IBM) probably start as favourites. So what of the outsiders?

Accenture are very active at University fairs, and we know from our own experiences at University that lots of people are interested in applying off the back of this.

We could argue that they appeal less to those hardcore technology graduates - as a Consultancy, the picture is largely one of the focus being on clients and making money rather than hardcore technological development. In a Microsoft-esque way, they go down the route of blogs as well. Their on-line application form is a serious mission though - no way as simple as Google’s - and this blogger distinctly remembers getting bored halfway through when he thought about applying some four years ago.

Intel were a surprise to us in the list. They’re not particularly active on the University Fairs circuit (check the event listing on their website), and whilst their branding on their site is good, we’d be surprised to see them win. Sorry, Intel.

Which leaves BT. Now, we know that BT have worked exceptionally hard on their recruitment brand recently - and their recruitment website demonstrates this. It’s absolutely chock-full of information, testimonials and lays-out their training scheme and careers path beautifully. Given the problems they’ve had over the past ten years, they deserve the recognition they’ve got so far. But, they’re still an outsider, surely?

If we had some money to blow, it would go on IBM. But only because they won last year.

If we were deciding on the winners though, it would be Microsoft.

Why?

Because their recruitment branding is brilliant. They don’t let their standard drop and - despite the fact that they’re Microsoft - they still make a brilliant case for working for them. They don’t rely on reputation: their blogging angle is exceptional, and their wider use of blogs (despite a lot of initial negativity) is something we’d like to see encouraged by other companies.

Having said that, we’re more than likely to be wrong. We’ll let you know the results.