I’m a strong proponent of the idea of “collective engagement” as a means to enhancing a company’s employment brand and talent attraction capability. If you’ve heard me present on talent strategies, read anything about crowdsourcing or explored the platform that’s been in place at InnoCentive you get the idea.  InnoCentive is an excellent example of the potential inherent in collective engagement.  It began as a consortium of pharma companies that were willing to pay out big dollars to solve big problems – like finding an ALS biomarker.  It has since evolved into a very diverse platform from every perspective.  My corporate experience has consistently demonstrated the power of unlocking ideas to solve big problems by bringing together a diverse mix of people to work on a project.  The outcome is far better than if a homogenous group took on the same challenge – I use diversity in the broadest sense of the word – gender, ethnicity, geography, experience, etc…..  

Collective engagement to enhance a company’s employment brand and recruitment strategy gets directly to the heart of where business and talent intersect.  It offers companies new ways of thinking about talent attraction by engaging them at a granular level in their business.  Prospective talent can learn first-hand about the company’s business – its industry, products, markets and even its culture. Companies benefit from the direct talent connections and expand their knowledge base through the project experience – new ideas that generate innovative practices to advantage their products, market positioning, processes and customer engagement.  Ideally, social networking can accomplish this as companies invest in building an interactive community culture.  The key is listening and exercising a commitment to continuous learning.  Much of what we see happening today on social networks is still at the transactional level and companies are missing out on the deeper benefits of collaborative learning.  

This week the U.K. Times Online introduced ‘Business Wisdom’.  Beginning on Monday, March 2nd, leaders from four industries will present business challenges they foresee on the horizon.  The CEOs from each company will then share something about their specific opportunity each week through a video message.   People wishing to participate will be able to join a collective conversation and contribute ideas to help solve the challenge.  Through a “peer review” process the Times will present possible solutions back to the CEOs.  Its encouraging to see the Times leading this initiative and business leaders taking part in the process.  Collective engagement has the potential to further momentum as companies find themselves with greater challenges around global competition and resource constraints.  

Any company can weave collective engagement into their talent and business strategy by taking advantage of social networking platforms, committing to community building, listening to people interested in their company, and engaging in conversations.   Over time there’s the potential for this type of collaboration to redefine how companies define an “employee” and where business contributions comes from.  Ideally I’d like to see an Innocentive approach where contributors are rewarded for their contribution.  As social networking evolves and companies recognize the value of collective engagement the opportunity is not only with recruitment strategies but also in how companies invite their workforce into the conversation to advance collaborative learning, a topic for another post.  I’ll be following the ‘Business Wisdom’ initiative and may even participate.  Maybe I’ll see you there!

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What was the job market like when you graduated college? An October employer survey by NACE (National Association of College and Employers) found that 52% of employers planned to reduce hiring and 34% planned to increase hiring for the 08 – 09 academic year, over the 07 – 08 academic year.  Given the impact to top hiring industries, think financial services and retail, the economic forecast certainly doesn’t indicate we can anticipate improvements.  For the 1.5 million college students graduating between December 08 and June 09 the market will be challenging, to say the least.  About 18 – 20% of students go directly on to pursue graduate studies so that still leaves over a million graduates launching into the job market.  Plus, its unclear whether or not loans and financial aid will be available to support the interests of students pursuing graduate studies.  Needless to say, the potential for even more students to pursue grad school as an option until the job market improves will increase competition for loans and ultimately place more pressure on the financial aid system.  Students pursuing internships (mostly juniors, but sophomores and even some seniors as well) will also be affected, and in the end both students and businesses will lose out.

For many students and businesses the impact will be felt for some time.  For students, the personal toll will be having to rethink career direction and choices.  For businesses, the cost can be significantly higher.  College recruitment is not only a cost effective recruitment strategy but feeds the long-term succession planning pipeline, yes – even with higher turnover rates among college hires.  In many instances even short gaps have impact on a company’s future talent bench.  While an argument could be made that there will be plenty of talent on the market to absorb over time, there is an advantage to companies grooming emerging talent through their own development programs.  Engaging emerging talent in the company’s business also yields valuable insight into new ways to think about products, technologies and markets.  And, although many companies may believe they can easily bring back experienced “industry” talent down the road there are implications to this assumption.  Industries that have experienced significant contraction force talent to pursue other options and talent becomes fragmented and harder to find – unless companies are doing a very good job building alumni networks and/or applying CRM technology to stay connected.  When an industry experiences a wide-spread hit all companies are affected.  So when the company goes looking for mid-level talent in a few years the competition will be quite fierce since everyone reduced hiring at the same time, resulting in higher costs of hiring.

The slightly bright side of the story for students is that there are growth areas and opportunities with small employers, most of which, however, don’t actively recruit on campus.  I had a chance to sit down with Phil Gardner, Director of the Collegiate Employment Research Institute at Michigan State University,  this past December.  Phil and his team have been providing some of the best research available on trends in college hiring for a number of years. Phil’s latest research revealed that seven percent of employers were not planning to hire any 08 – 09 graduates. That number is three times higher than any they have ever seen in their research.  Listen to this short interview with Phil to hear his observations and outlook and visit him online HERE where you can find the Institute’s complete research report.

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