CACEE Quebec City, 2012

Notes from CACEE, Quebec City, June 2012

Greetings from Le Concorde just outside the Old City, adjacent to the Plains of Abraham.  There are 219 on the attendance list, comprising employers/recruiters, career services practitioners, and service vendors.

At a reception for new CACEE members, there were several very interesting people.  Catherine Stace from McGill offered that she has a program developed to bring business-career guidance to non-business students.  She observed that 70% of her students wind up in business and she's preparing them to find and succeed in these sorts of careers.  Isn't that an example of a well-served student population?  Target (TM) was well represented also, as they are fully into staffing for their head office and already are preparing store staffing.  Of interest is that the Guelph store (formerly the Zellers on Stone Road) will be one of the early training sites.  Consider following the instant messages on Twitter #caceeconf.  You'll see that Carrie Steele, U of G's Employer Development Coordinator was an award winner last night at the President's Dinner for her contributions to the Ontario Region of CACEE.  Carrie won the Ontario Regional Recognition Award.  I happened to be sitting beside Devon from Orbis, when it was announced that they were the Excellence in Innovation Award winners.

Monday Morning's Keynote

Maximizing Social Media in a Recruiting Context (Didier Dubois and Emilie Pelletier, HRM Groupe)

(in an informal poll at the outset, nearly the whole CACEE audience indicated that they have LinkedIn and Facebook accounts...about 1/2 have Twitter accounts)

Job Market dynamics are becoming more passive and relational, as opposed to active and transactional. Moreover, the recruiter strategies are shifting from simply hiring to more positioning of the company, in the marketplace.  There are five media currently actively used:  

• general and specialized billboards (of postings), but also 
• schools' sites, 
• networking events, and 
• social media.  

HR organizations can claim the following tools as ways to reach out to candidates: 

• Public Relations, 
• Advertising and direct marketing, 
• the Internet and social media, and finally 
• sponsorships.  

Breaking down the internet tools, it covers a gamut of different approaches:  

• QR codes, 
• LinkedIn, 
• Twitter (microblogging), 
• SEO, 
• Facebook, 
• Internal Social networks, 
• YouTube, 
• SMS, 
• Blogs, 
• Location-based services, 
• VirtualEnvironments (like Second Life), 
• Widgets/Gadgets/Apps, and 
• Augmented ContentReality sites.  

Interestingly, social media works best like Dale Carnegie and less like Don Draper...listen first, sell second.  the greatest trust comes through peers and less through "corporate" messaging.

Students need to know that FB is SOOOOO public.  They can confirm their presence and appearance by using tools like 123people, GoogleAlerts, etc.  FB needs to be a passive tool for recruiters since most users will not want direct communication from them...rather, they prefer to be influenced by their friends, through the presence of the organization within the FB platform.  If what is posted on FB is the same as the HR pages...fugitaboutit.  

Think about including video, PowerPoints, etc. in any job posting on social media.  Run webinars about your company!  Consider new platforms like Pinterest.  If you're going to be "viral"...don't be boring!  Some companies are using online gaming as a venue to reach out to candidates through product-placement advertising.  

Newer stuff:  Twitjobsearch.com...to make sure you're reaching the younger generation...reach them on their Smartphone (iPhone, BB, Android, etc.) and consider having a mobile website to suit.  This is where QR codes may come into play.  The geo-locationing devices will enable one to point a phone at a building and see what jobs there are inside.

Content is King (Kathryn Young and Kirill Kornilov, gordongroup)

These folks put out CareerOptions magazine...and discussed qualities of dynamic content and eight steps to developing content.

Speak to the audience, write in appropriate language, impart useful info, entertain and engage...know your objective and achieve it.

1.  What is the raw story idea?
2.  Who is the audience?  Know their demographics.
3.  How are you going to reach them?  Which medium is best.
4.  What is your objective?
5.  What is the story angle?  Narrow the focus...less is more.  Focus on interesting people, objects, etc.
6.  Who will write the piece?  Staff?  Faculty?  Recruiter?
7.  What will be the tone and point of view?  We?  They?  Humourous?  Formal?
8.  How can you humanize the story?  Storytelling?  Quotations?

Orbis Users Group (Jan Basso, WLU and Christine Sjolander, Beedie, UBC)

1/2 of room is yet to implement...WLU and UBC use the full suite of modules.  There are 8 topics proposed...dynamic modules, appt modules, event mgt., mentoring modules, data clean up, marketing/site content, launching the system, and career & co-op modules.

New topics:  CRM.

Launching:  issue of separate or together, relative to diff colleges/departments.  Because different departments have different business processes, you may need to adjust by separating.  Separating means more licenses.  If Co-op and Career are together...probably can get along with one.  There is a strong recommendation to have a separate and dedicated technical person (for launch).   Often the greatest challenges, technically, is the internal IT support.  There is a LinkedIn Users Group.

Dynamic Modules:  Resume Books...are searchable...not necessarily by key words, but rather by primary characteristics.  There was a question about integration with Campus Labs surveys, relative to the embedded survey abilities.  Niagara College will be using PlayBooks for Site Visit monitoring.

Data clean-up:  import as little as possible.  UVic cleaned theirs first and it wasn't perfectly aligned and presented problems, ultimately.  Most employers were very willing to start from scratch and recreate their profiles.

WLU not using CRM.  UBC are using an extensive tagging system.  Some are using a "prospect" database.  It doesn't synchronize with the foundational database.  By creating the appropriate tags, you can track conversions.

Career Integrated Learning:   Curricular Reform in PSE, Rob Shea, AVP Provost, MUN

Retention and persistence are the evaluative factors for student success.  This is what was behind the initial project.  The question is:  what aspects of career development are to be integrated into the classroom.  What this does is address the bunching up of students seeking career advice and guidance at the end of their academic career.  The NESSE survey is one of the inputs.  ePortfolios can be one of the outcomes of this.  The stakeholders are:  students, University, Industry, and Government.

Campus Recruiting Survey, Graham Donald and Paul Smith, Brainstorm 

(this is not the Learning to Work report)

The analogy to the evolution of the Heinz ketchup bottle, from glass to upside-down squeezable plastic...anticipation and not waiting.  Most new grads expect to be promoted within 15 months.  They expect to only stay 3 years with their first employer.  81% of students would like  to be connected with an experienced mentor.  They want secure employment in a healthy, rewarding workplace.  It's all about rapid success for them.

Nuggets:  

• 20% of Co-op students express that working for a company decreases their desire to work for them full-time.  45% increased their desire.  
• The campus career centre job posting site is far and away the most used site for searches.  
• Cost for hiring is approx. $4000/hire.  
• We should be selling banner ads.

The most important skills, according to employers, are communications, analytic abilities, demonstration of work ethic, teamworking, and problem solving.    Followed by:  initiative and interpersonal skills before hard skills show up on the list.

(Tuesday morning keynote)

From 1984 to Brave New World:  Gen Y, Digital Natives, and the new world of graduate work;  Paul Redmond, Univ. of Liverpool (paul.redmond@liverpool.ac.uk)

 

The consulting gig that led to this stemmed from perceived attitudinal differences between recent GenY grads and the banks.  Gucci cufflinks seemed to be correlated to bad attendance at key investment  banks in Canary Wharf.  But sadly we'll never know why since the research was to have been done on Lehman Brothers bank.  And Dr. Redmond is reluctant to claim that he was a consultant to Lehman Bros.

Cue the movie:  Crunchonomics...70 candidates for every grad job;  even Oxbridge grads are at 1:8 chance.  Qualifications X Experience X Skills = your chances.

Why do Career Fairs resemble malls?  There are give-a-ways, and stuffies, and toys.  Parents are co-attending.  

China will graduate 35 Millions grads every year very shortly.  Job fairs resemble soccer crowds.  There are 137 Million university students now.  They have 1/4 of these.  Their wages are 1/2 of ours in the same "brands" so somebody is going to get a change out of this.

GenX are the last ones to talk about "mobile" phones and "digital" cameras...for GenY, they're just phones and cameras.  Images for the generations:  Boomers...moon walk;  GenX...Berlin Wall;  GenY...Twin Towers.

Parental types:  White Knight, Agent, Banker, Bodyguard, Black Hawk

Sharing is the story...not what you're sharing.  Don't do powerpoint...tell stories.

GenY want:

1. Leaders, not managers.  (Alex Ferguson, recognizing the generation's needs, phoned the ManU player's moms to get them to join the team).
2. New learning styles.  Prefer experiential and face-to-face.  E-learning is not desired!
3. Working/Learning/Playing/Giving...what size are the overlapping circles?  WPLG model for illustrating how people want to live.

4.  

Nail your goals to the wall.  (Mary Smith, '64 and '72 Olympics gold.  Mary missed gold in '64 and '68 because she didn't bring a nail to bang in the night before the race!!  In '72, despite being 33 years old, she brought a nail.  She banged it in the wall of the Athlete's Village.  She won gold.   Be prepared!).

During one afternoon session, we came together to brainstorm how to  best feed the grad recruiting survey at UBC.  The inputs from the 25 or so attendees were gathered on flipcharts and will be shared after the conference.

Connecting with the Community:  Events that Engage and Excite;  Gisela Oliveira and Jacquie Hampshire, DeGroote/McMaster

Funding came from a one-time, Student Life Enhancement Fund:  the intention is to come up with a brilliant idea and access funds to support this.  

In this case, the conference was to enable attendees to understand social media for job search.  The space was all geared for sharing/re-tweeting/Facebooking/etc.  The agenda was meant to help people/students understand and build their social media presence.

In addition, they worked on an Employment Crawl...surveying students attitudes beforehand and then working with employers to organize.  Run with Senior students and schedule for late in the year when they would be needing the work.  You need to create champions between both the student body and the  employer community.  The usual suspects were used...Twitter, FB, etc.  ($15k in sponsorship/funding)  "What the HEC?"....Hamilton Employment Crawl...HEC.

Only 15 people originally signed up, so they pulled out all the stops...made a video, acted by people <39 y.o. and shared around...then 120 students signed up.  On the tour, they visited key sectors (Mfg or Healthcare) and exposed to up and coming neighbourhoods, while being driven around in a bus...and offered lunches.  The Mayor and the Chamber of Commerce were aided by the Dean of Students and a closing networking event was offered.  They spoke to cost-of-living, why live here, etc.

It's important to engage Alumni in this, also.  Student feedback was very positive.  There was a lot of interest in growing this and repeating it every year.  

Learning Outcomes:  provide students with business cards, send profiles of the students to the employers beforhand, invite faculty and community to the closing, networking event.  Make sure the "standbys" have paid their deposit and signed the waivers.  The city wants this to be repeated next year!  From 120 students, 64 students indicated that they would make Hamilton a place to live.  And the institution's people want to get involved to promote this now (President and Communications...).  The local TV people came along too.

(Wednesday morning)

Professional Skills Development Program (PDSP) for International Students, Lynn Walsh, MUN

This program won the 2011 Atlantic Association of College and University Student Services Award for Excellence.  Some details:  offered every semester, with a concentration on moving the students to be active off of the campus.  There are about 1600 from 90 countries, with about a 60:40 ration of undergrads to grads.  A Career Advisor role was created in 2008.

Most notably, the common experiences for the students relate to cultural differences in job search, combined with language barriers.  Some of the topics addressed for these students include:  communications, culture and career preparation, and the importance of volunteering and networking.   Some of the interactive approaches included organized volunteer opportunities, networking events, and PSDP networking.  There have been 2 time slots offered per week, which has seen 189 students receive certificates since Spring 2010.  Intentionally, the 2 Coordinators focused on making sure that the students were out in the community.

Week 2 focuses on Skill Identification.  How do you know what employers need?  How do you describe what you have to offer?  This seems to be a key step forward.  It's very important and gets referenced to a large degree in the latter sessions.  Then, the focus shifts to cover letters, resume, interview skills, etc.  All candidates are required to complete a 20 minute mock interview.  The penultimate session focuses on e-portfolios (hosted on D2L), social media, and co-curricular records (hosted on Orbis).  Finally, intercultural communications in the workplace are key in the last sessions, including workplace etiquette.

Two networking events were arranged.  The first, on-campus, was for various topics of interest.  Each student was encouraged to find something of interest in their professional area.  It was an occasion where they could meet other professionals.  The second event was constructed of employers and community organizations invited to meet with the students.  This event was held after the conclusion of the final session.  Some of the topics of interest:  dining etiquette, YMCA leadership, SAAS training, Hospitality NFLD Trade Show.  Some of the volunteer opportunities includeded:  Farmer's Market, Food Bank, various job fairs, and liaison activities.

It all gets celebrated over cake at the end of classes.  They share statistics and have a ceremony to hand out the certificates.

Connecting with the Community:  Events that Engage and Excite;  Gisela Oliveira and Jacquie Hampshire, DeGroote/McMaster

Student Life Enhancement Fund;  come up with a brilliant idea and access funds to support this.  This is one-time funding.

In this case, the conference was to enable attendees to understand social media for job search.  The space was all geared for sharing/re-tweeting/Facebooking/etc.  The agenda was meant to help people/students understand and build their social media presence.

In addition, they worked on an Employment Crawl...surveying students attitudes beforehand and then working with employers to organize.  Run with Senior students and schedule for late in the year when they would be needing the work.  You need to create champions between both the student body and the  employer community.  The usual suspects were used...Twitter, FB, etc.  ($15k in sponsorship/funding)  "What the HEC?"....Hamilton Employment Crawl...HEC.

Only 15 people originally signed up, so they pulled out all the stops...made a video, acted by people <39 y.o. and shared around...then 120 students signed up.  On the tour, they visited key sectors (Mfg or Healthcare) and exposed to up and coming neighbourhoods, while being driven around in a bus...and offered lunches.  The Mayor and the Chamber of Commerce were aided by the Dean of Students and a closing networking event was offered.  They spoke to cost-of-living, why live here, etc.

It's important to engage Alumni in this, also.  Student feedback was very positive.  

Learning Outcomes:  provide students with business cards, send profiles of the students to the employers beforhand, invite faculty and community to the closing, networking event.  Make sure the "standbys" have paid their deposit and signed the waivers.  The city wants this to be repeated next year!  From 120 students, 64 students indicated that they would make Hamilton a place to live.  And the institution's people want to get involved to promote this now (President and Communications...).  The local TV people came along too.

AGM TIME!!