My 3rd recession in student recruitment: Lessons learnt?

To give you a sense of how long I have been recruiting students and graduates I need to take you back to 9/11. Where were you? I was in the Sheffield HR Offices of Aon, making my way through a stack of hard copy application forms for students and graduates. We gathered around the office TV (no, we couldn't watch it on our phones or screens back then) and watched those world-changing events unfold.

And that was my first year in HR/Student recruitment, starting in February of 2001, in the midst of the dot.com 00's recession. At the time applications were handwritten on paper forms, adverts had to be hard copy signed by business leaders then faxed to the local paper and we were feeling pretty innovative as we were advertising on the local radio! It's fair to say a huge amount has changed in that time across the student recruitment landscape, but I have continued to be heavily involved in the sector over those last two decades - going on to recruit students in the banking crisis recession of the early teens and the most recent COVID recession. So what are my lessons learnt about student recruitment during times of recession? I've pulled together my top three key themes here:

1.There are still plenty of opportunities!

During both of the last two recessions (and I suspect this one) ISE employer members still had unfilled vacancies. Unbelievable as it is, even during periods of recession/reduced graduate vacancies, employers were still unable to fill all of their roles. One of the main reasons for this is student and graduate market confidence, often fuelled by negative stories in the press. When students are continually barraged with bad news stories about the state of the graduate labour market they tend to defer entering the labour market by pursuing post-graduate courses, in the hopes things will improve, or simply give up applying for roles in the belief there are no opportunities. So a big lesson here for me is for everyone in the sector to champion the message 'The sector may be down but it is not out!'. There are still plenty of opportunities out there for students and graduates, they may just look different to what they expected. Which leads nicely on to my next point....

2.SMEs will drive economic recovery and graduate job creation

Having started my career recruiting students and graduates in large employers like Asda, Heinz, Aon and the Co-operative Group, by the early teens recession I had stepped into regional economic development graduate schemes - working with SMEs to help them attract, compete for and recruit the best graduate talent. And what I discovered was fascinating - SMEs are routinely the most agile, more risk tolerant, the most quick to recover and create jobs coming out of a recession. Rather than having long-term budgets, business plans, annual campaigns and targets to stick to, SMEs were able to quickly respond to the green shoots of recovery and create graduate jobs sooner than the larger employers. So a second lesson here is that student, government and careers services have a critical role to play in economic recovery and graduate job creation - by championing SME opportunities and raising their visibility amongst graduates and investing in schemes (like the hugely successful RISE scheme established in 2012) that connect these smaller businesses with graduate talent. As an aside all of the labour market data for the U.K. would suggest we are entering this period now and business confidence is rapidly converting into an increase in vacancies (and even skills shortages) so this year and next really is the time to act!

3.The employers that continue to invest will win

Some employers in previous recessions have withdrawn/delayed offers, slashed hiring numbers, cancelled placements or internships. Indeed this has happened in some instances with the current COVID recession with internships and placements particularly effected. But students, graduates, careers teams and the collective campus memory is long. The reputational and employer brand impact of these decisions can be far reaching for years to come with current 1st years acutely aware often of final year student experiences. And then there are the talent pipeline implications too - significant reductions in graduate hiring for 2 years or more can often lead to skills shortages and higher hiring costs for businesses in the future. So a third lesson here is that those employers that honour their commitments, step up, continue to be present and offer opportunities (case studies, guest lectures or projects if you can't currently offer roles) will feel a legacy brand and talent benefit for an equally long time.

Given that many student recruiters and early careers professionals tend to move on into other areas in their career, there aren't too many of us out there who have witnessed and been actively involved in recruiting students over the last three recessions. I would warmly welcome other insights and advice from those sage people in my network! What would you add in terms of your lessons learnt?

As always if you're an employer or careers service considering some of these themes at the moment and would like some advice, or just a chat over a cuppa - feel free to get in touch.