AGR PAGES COMM TOGETHER
Avid AGR e-News readers might remember that back in September we put out a call for volunteers to join our first ever ‘Communications Project Team’. After two meetings, the project team has now fulfilled its brief, and made a significant contribution to comms at AGR. Communications Manager, Emma Godden reports on the work done by the team, and reflects on the upcoming things we have planned for the future. Project Teams are a relatively new invention at AGR. First mentioned in the previous AGR constitution, PTs were conceived by the AGR board as a replacement for ‘Task Groups’ which were in place previously. The purpose of Project Teams is to undertake specific projects or tasks relating to the operation of AGR. With a mandate to work within a specific timeframe, Project Teams give all members the opportunity to be involved with the AGR on a uniquely operational level, without the ongoing time commitment associated with the old Task Groups.
Our Communications team was AGR’s flagship Project Team. Created in response to the growing number of communications channels on offer, we required a member- led strategy to ensure that all of our communications were being used to best effect. With a selection of seven volunteers from across the AGR membership, including three employers, two suppliers and one university, the diverse range of experience on hand allowed us to come up with a comprehensive action list for all of our channels. Some of our key achievements from this team are listed below: Joined up thinking: The most important lesson we took from this project was the need for an overarching communications strategy, which takes into account the fact that all members use our different channels in different ways. Since our meetings, we’ve focussed on making each of our channels more user-friendly. A few examples of how we’ve achieved this are:
Graduate Recruiter now has themes: We appreciate that you won’t always find time to read GR cover to cover, so we’ve organised our magazine content by subject,
30 GRADUATE RECRUITER
to help you find the most relevant articles to suit your interests. We tweet more: We pride ourselves on being a key source for all the latest Graduate Recruitment and HE news. In order to ensure that as many members are possible are kept informed, we do our best to tweet at least twice a day. We’ve also increased our Twitter activity at relevant events and meetings. As a result, our Klout. com score of social media influence has increased by 10 points to 51, and our following has grown by 61%. We got personal: We recognised that at times, AGR communications lack a bit of the personal touch. Our relationships manager Claire Adams spends a lot of time working closely with AGR members, and has started sharing her personal insights from these meetings on a blog:
http://claireadamsagr.wordpress.com Claire has also joined Twitter. You can follow her @ClaireAdamsAGR While we are proud of the changes we have made so far, we hope that this is just the beginning. We have plans in the pipeline for more Twitter hashtags, a new-look Graduate Recruiter, and a re-styled Briefing Papers library. We will keep you posted about these developments as they happen.
Although this was the first of our Project
Teams, it certainly won’t be the last. As time goes on, these teams will become more and more valuable to the future of the Association. For more information about how you can get involved, or you have any feedback about our communications, please email
emma@agr.org.uk
The AGR Communication Project Team was made up of:
Adrian Thomas - Network Rail Charlotte Burke - Milkround Alexandra Sinton - Logica Rob Smith - Dawson Walker Ben Hutchins - GradWeb John Watkins - University of Surrey Rowena James - Sky
HAVE YOU ATTENDED AN AGR TRAINING EVENT YET?
Aasha Mahadoo, Graduate Recruitment Advisor for Clifford Chance recently attended her first AGR training event, on the subject of Social Media. She tells us about the experience: “I recently attended an AGR course on the subject of social media which I found extremely useful and interesting. I was introduced to recruiters from a variety of different commercial backgrounds all encountering similar issues with their social media campaign. We were encouraged to work together to brainstorm and share ideas in order to achieve our course objectives. I found the course leader very warm and approachable and by the end of the session I felt that most of my concerns had been touched upon. As a result of the course I have formulated lots more ideas around how to make the most out of our social media presence and overall and I have become more confident managing the parts of the campaign I am responsible for.”
To find out how you can attend an AGR training event, visit
www.agr.org.uk/AGR-Events
AGR TRAINING DAYS
APRIL Overview of Graduate Recruitment 23rd April Developing an early careers strategy workshop 25th April (London)
MAY Developing an early careers strategy workshop 2nd May (London)
JULY AGR ANNUAL CONFERENCE 7th-9th July
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