How do you produce a student resource that encourages excellence in researching potential graduate employer without spoon-feeding those students? You hire a team of crack researchers and editors and brief them to produce an informational one-stop-shop for job candidates. You also secure the involvement of recruiters and give useful, strategic pointers to being a good candidate as opposed to handing things over to the applicant on a plate.
That’s the premise behind Employer Insights – company-specific, in-depth reports which have been put together by an independent team of editors at GTI for its website targetjobs.co.uk. Each Employer Insight contains information that a student cannot easily find: what the jobs are like, company culture, core competences, selection procedures, current news – and they are regularly updated. Students can choose to ‘follow’ an employer and they will receive updates when new information or vacancies are added and also they can take part in a discussion forum with the employer.
The reaction of Oxford University student Anna Stevens is typical of those who have used the Employer Insights. “They are really useful for getting a better, more realistic idea of what a lot of companies are really like without the usual clichés and promotion. It’s also great to be able to ask questions and get feedback as a lot of the questions we all want to ask aren’t addressed in the company ‘blurbs’. The interview tips and applications insight are a really great resource when you’re preparing your application and that’s the part of the job-hunting process that most of us are looking for more information about.”
Chris Phillips, publishing director for targetjobs comments:
“University students are under greater pressure than ever to compete for graduate schemes. More than ever, one of the keys to getting a job is through carefully researching employers, understanding how they tick and through candidates matching their own skills to employers’ needs. Employer Insights is a fantastic new resource on targetjobs.co.uk and will really help students in this task without ever being simplistic. Too often, when publishers try and help students to research employers they simply encourage their audience not to think. We take the opposite approach.”
