Spotlight for Recruiting Professionals
In recent years, A.T. Kearney has been shifting its college recruiting to a more virtual approach. In fact, 43 percent of its college recruiting was conducted virtually in 2019, with plans to increase it to more than half in 2020.
This shift addresses several challenges for the firm, including attracting and engaging top student talent in a competitive labor market with limited resources. The result: A.T. Kearney reports that its conversion rates of candidates from schools where it recruits traditionally versus those where it recruits virtually are similar.
The virtual program relies on strong partnerships with career centers at its target schools. A.T. Kearney shares compelling content with candidates through electronic newsletters and virtual information sessions and webinars. While first-round interviews are conducted via video, final-round interviewees are brought on site.
A.T. Kearney works to ensure that candidates feel as though they are getting a personalized experience throughout the predominantly digital process.
“We gather [candidates’] office, industry, and diversity network interest, and send curated newsletters to those candidates,” says Lauren Santimauro, A.T. Kearney’s campus recruitment manager.
“We also host virtual coffee chats so that candidates have the chance to interact with one of our consultants.”
Santimauro says the shift to digital campus recruitment has given her insight into how students want to be engaged throughout the process and what they value.
“Students still want a personalized experience and to interact with our consultants, so that hasn’t changed,” she notes.
“In fact, that was the biggest internal push back we received when we shifted to a more virtual model. We’ve done our best to evolve our content over the last couple of years to be more story driven, allowing the candidates to feel like they really know the firm and our people.”
Lauren Santimauro, campus recruitment manager at A.T. Kearney, and Aaron Adams, customer success manager at Yello, will present “Digital Campus Recruitment: How to Build an Engaging On-Campus Presence—Without Being Present” during the NACE 2019 Conference & Expo.