SME SME Recruitment


Sustainable Recruitment


How can small firms with limited resources source and grow their own talent? By taking long-term relationships seriously and going beyond the obvious marketing channels, says Dan Hawes, co-founder and Marketing Director at Graduate Recruitment Bureau. Here he shares his 18-year journey with the University of Brighton’s Careers Service to recruit trainee recruitment consultants.


O A basic job advert through


ur vision for our own internal recruitment policy has been to stay true to our founder beliefs:


the Careers Service was not enough for us to raise awareness with the best candidates – we wanted to get in front of students as much as possible.


Graduate Recruitment Bureau (GRB) is a specialist recruitment consultancy with a purpose based on strong foundations of graduates helping other graduates launch their careers with a wide range of firms. We wanted to grow our own and promote from within, so we began locally by meeting with the Careers Services at Brighton and Sussex universities. A basic job advert through the Careers Service was not enough for us to raise awareness with the best candidates – we wanted to get in front of students as much as possible. We successfully achieved our recruitment objectives through a variety of channels.


First, we were invited through Brighton Alumni Association to make presentations to


Business students on our story as


local entrepreneurs. We used the social media opportunities provided by the Association to contact recent graduates and BeePurple (the university’s enterprise network) to reach entrepreneurial students. We provided sponsorship for events such as the Santander University of Brighton Enterprise Awards and continue to judge at a Dragons Den style event twice a year. We also provide an annual cash prize for the top Business graduate, working closely with the Business Course leaders and tutors.


In conjunction with the university’s Knowledge Transfer Partnership, we embarked on an innovative two year technical project involving the assistance of an MSc. graduate from Brighton. This


22 00 Graduate Recruiter | www.agr.org.uk


partly government-funded scheme has proven to be a great exercise to forge yet another link with a local university and provide expertise for a specific initiative. We were keen to work with students on a one-to-one basis and also engaged with their Mentoring Programme in 2014.


We have worked with the University of Brighton’s Careers Service for 18 years, having regular meetings with the Heads of Service. We run workshops and attend both the Fresher’s Fair and the annual Careers Fair at Brighton and Sussex, which have scaled up to 25 other universities. We also joined professional associations to reach newly graduated candidates and have been active with the AGR, Chartered Institute of Marketing and CIPD at a local and national level.


In 2011, we decided to recruit a student for a year’s sandwich placement and have successfully hired four students from Portsmouth, Birmingham, Plymouth and Sussex universities. This year, we launched an Internship programme to give seven students from Sussex, Oxford, Manchester, Bristol, Warwick, Durham and Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg a flavour of recruitment and begin long- term relationships. We aim for them to act as ambassadors for GRB and enable us to reach new pools of talent at their Universities.


From two members of staff in 1997, we now have 60 who are all graduates across two locations. They were all recruited using the above model. It has


enabled GRB to grow steadily, remain profitable, be flexible and come through a double dip recession. Our reputation built over 18 years has made attracting new hires easier, especially with the opening of our London office in 2013. Looking to the future, we plan to expand globally and have begun researching the graduate market abroad.


Key learning points


Don’t rely on one method. A blend of offline and online works better. Partnerships with your local university is key and helps you scale up from there to others as your company grows. Of course, other SMEs will need to adapt their strategy and technique to factor in industry, location, resources and target market.


Don’t let budget get in your way. We took the long view that graduate recruitment was an investment in our future, and whilst careful with our finances, we also looked at other resources we could provide, especially our time, getting involved with students on the ground.


Maximise your investment. Whilst retention of key staff is important, the reality is that some will leave. Training, development and reducing churn through succession planning and a strong talent pipeline are then vital to maintain momentum within your business and extract maximum value from your graduate hires. n


@DanHawes


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