A DAY IN THE LIFE...
MICHELLE PALIN
Graduate & Apprentice Recruitment Manager, Network Rail…
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Apprentices seem to need a lot more hand holding than graduate candidates, and we
attempt to get back to all enquiries within 24
hours of them coming in.
A
typical day would start with arriving at my desk at about 8:45 (when I say ‘typical’ this is probably only two days a week, as the other days I’m out and about at events). First port of call is the kitchen to get my cornflakes (other brands are available) before I take a look at the number of emails in our ‘apprentice’ inbox to see if our superstar resourcing assistant Tamarra is going to need any help today. (Apprentices seem to need a lot more hand holding than graduate candidates, and we attempt to get back to all enquiries within 24 hours of them coming in). Then it’s a quick flick through my own inbox and then on to a review of our numbers, in terms of applications/ offers and any areas of concern. At this time of year this is mainly apprentice related, but between September and March I’d be looking at graduate numbers as well. Sometimes this can be analysis paralysis, but it’s important to take the time to make sure we fill all of our roles (currently around 100 graduates, 25 industrial placements and 230 apprentices per year). My biggest challenge this year in terms of numbers is that I have more requests for apprentices than we can accommodate, and yet I know we will still struggle to fill all of them as we have certain areas of the country where we just don’t seem to be able to attract candidates. At some point during the day, I’ll need to engage with one of more of our programme stakeholders. I have 11 key stakeholders in terms of graduate recruitment, and three for apprentices. This may take place on the phone or face to face. Each has different requirements in terms of the type of individual they are looking for and the campuses where they want to attract candidates, and I need to balance these individual requirements against the requirements of the organisation as a whole to avoid using 11 different recruitment processes for each graduate
30 GRADUATE RECRUITER
scheme and having 11 different target university lists. We’re currently reviewing our graduate attraction strategy for 2014, and as we’ve just started working with a new agency a lot of my time is being spent helping them get fully up to speed with our offerings, and reviewing feedback on the campaign we’ve used for the last two years to ensure that our 2014 campaign is even better. Part of the real challenge here is that we are a publicly funded company so our budgets are very tight, and every penny needs to be accounted for. It means much of what we would like to do is simply out of our reach.
At some point, at least once a week, I’ll be working on something AGR related. These past few months have seen me become far more involved than previously, and I’m currently on the Advisory Council, Conference Planning Team, Awards judging panel and speaking at the Early Careers Workshops.
Other days of the week, you may find me out on campus talking to students, running skills sessions, taking part in our assessment centres, attending schools careers events (we’re doing far more of these now than we have ever done in the past), reviewing candidates qualifications and meeting with our selection experts over changes to the process for next year. Last week you would have even found me having lunch with Sir Trevor McDonald (what a nice bloke!) at the Undergraduate of the Year Awards – if only every Friday afternoon was like that! Finally, if it’s at all possible, I try and make it home for 6pm (especially in the summer months, as my allotment needs looking after). That doesn’t mean I’ve finished for the day, it’s just my preference to get home at a reasonable hour, have a nice dinner with my husband, and then finish off any outstanding work before I do it all again tomorrow…
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