EARLY CAREERS
someone can drive their career, for instance, an individual can become professionally qualified sooner on this programme than someone who chooses to go to university and subsequently join our graduate programme. “With the new name, came new attraction materials, and the focus here was to reposition the programme as an alternative to university as opposed to the graduate programme’s ‘poor relation’. The materials now used in schools describe every early career opportunity with the firm and in doing so help pupils make an informed decision as to which route is right for them. “This piece of work extended to our internal stakeholders, alongside the key influencers of pupils ie parents, teachers and school careers advisors. We’ve worked hard to ensure these stakeholders understand that it is a programme designed for those who choose not to go to university, for whatever reason, as opposed to those who don’t think they can get in to university, and to help the former recognise the value that this population brings to the workplace in terms of their diversity of thought and perspective.” Rachel Hill, Trainee Recruitment Senior Manager, Grant Thornton
“National Grid established its School Leaver Programme approximately eight years ago known as the Engineer Training Programme. This was established to grow our own engineering talent and the programme
was developed with Aston University to provide a foundation degree in Electrical Power Engineering and Gas Transmission Engineering. To date we have recruited in excess of 300 and now have 13 different streams ranging from Substation to Power System Design Engineer. Retention levels remain high averaging 86% to 100% across streams after three years. The main advice I would provide to organisations setting up for the first time is to establish your entry level qualifications with any equivalents accepted clearly at the start. Equivalents are a minefield in this arena. Expect a wider age profile of applicants and make sure your assessment processes don’t discriminate against those individuals straight out of college with little or no work experience.” Sharon Goymer, Resourcing Manager - Development Programmes, National Grid
Bringing such raw talent into our business is really exciting and the
scheme has proven to be very successful over the years with some of our key players in the organisation having come up through the ranks.
“At Amey, we offer three Apprenticeship Frameworks focussed on operational delivery, trade, and technical apprentices; and two Graduate Programmes dedicated to developing professional excellence and
management capability. Our pledge is to maintain 2% of our workforce on a recognised apprentice programme, and 1% on a recognised graduate programme. I believe it’s essential that Talent Managers work collaboratively with HR Business Partners and Business Leaders to ensure school leaver schemes are closely aligned to achieving the strategic goals of the business.” Simon Fletcher, HR Talent Manager, Amey
“At M&S we have run a successful School Leavers Programme in conjunction to our Graduate offer for over 15 years. Bringing such raw talent into our business is really exciting and the scheme has proven to be very successful over the years with some of our key players in the organisation having come up through the ranks.
“Our School leaver Programme offers the opportunity for students to start to develop their career straight from A-levels (or equivalent) – the programme works along the same principles as our Graduate schemes; combining on the job training with real accountability from day one with classroom based learning and development activities to support the Trainee on every step of their journey. “My advice to any organisation considering implementing a School Leaver programme would be:
“Accenture’s Horizons school leavers programme is a fundamental part of our overall early engagement strategy. We target a wide range of schools to identify suitable students who want to undertake an eight month placement after completing their A-Levels. We have found that by providing them with mentoring and training and development opportunities, they excel whilst working on a live client project and we then invite them back to complete a Summer Vacation internship with us before joining the Analyst Consulting Group after graduation.” Tim Nevill, Head of Graduate Recruitment & UKI HR Service Management Lead, Accenture UK
• Do it! – School Leavers offer a raw potential that you just cannot get anywhere else
• Make it a credible alternative to University
• It’s a much more complex arena than Universities not least because of the volume of schools and colleges – so really plan what your requirements are and your attraction strategy because you cannot get everywhere.”
Helen Alkin, Recruitment Manager, Graduates & Customer Assistants, Marks and Spencer PLC
GRADUATE RECRUITER 11
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