Jobs @ Career Consulting Limited

Return to career-consulting-limited.com
Managing
People
Managing Your Career
CV Examples
Coaching
Cover Letter Examples
Pre-Employment Tests


Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: Career Opportunities for New Graduates


Tales from the Corporate Frontlines: Career Opportunities for New Graduates

This article relates to the Career Opportunities competency and explores issues such as internal growth opportunities, potential for advancement, career development importance, and the relationship between job performance and career advancement. Evaluating the Career Opportunities competency in your organization will determine whether your employees believe they have a chance to grow within the organization. Studies show that lack of career opportunity is one of the top reasons why employees leave an organization. Also, continually hiring open positions from outside the organization can be detrimental to morale when a qualified candidate is available internally. Topics covered in this competency are: perceived opportunity for advancement, existence of a career development plan, and organizational commitment to staff development.

This article, Career Opportunities for New Graduates, is part of AlphaMeasure's compilation, Tales From the Corporate Frontlines. It tells how a group of HR employees tried a new twist on an annual event and discovered ways to improve their company's strategy for career development.

Anonymous Submission

I have spent the past 25 years working in the HR department of a large financial services company. Every spring, our department gets buried in a barrage of resumes and cover letters from fresh, talented graduates eager to begin their careers with our company. Every year, our hiring execs choose those that fit the company's needs best at that particular moment in time.

Obviously, businesses are eager to hire new, young, fresh workers. They are enthusiastic, intelligent, and eager to work hard and establish their careers. They are also relatively cheap, as any honest hiring exec will admit.

But once these grads are hired, and begin their careers---then what? After noticing that after five years or so, very few of these graduation season new hires were still working with our company, we set out to find out why. We decided to try something different during this year's interview process. As a little experiment, we added questions about what these new grads expected in terms of career development and advancement, and got some surprising answers. Following are a few of their biggest concerns---

* Availability of career development programs. They consider training and mentoring to be a top priority. Realizing that college is only the beginning of their learning process, our interviewees want to know that the resources they need for professional growth are readily available.

* Internal promotion vs. external hiring. Candidates are eager to follow a career path inside the company, and concerned that their path may be blocked by external hiring for desirable positions. They are willing to work their way up-as long as it's possible.

* A reasonable chance for upward mobility. As long as they feel that the opportunity for career advancement is possible, they will remain. But a huge fear is to be pigeonholed in a dead end situation. Once that happens, they would rather move on. These kids have invested time and money in their educations, and they are serious about getting the most from that investment.

We performed this little experiment in conjunction with data obtained from a recent employee satisfaction survey showing how our current employees perceive opportunities for growth and advancement within the company. We took that data and compared it with what these young career candidates expected from a potential employer. We were able to zero in on problem areas and develop effective solutions.

They weren't aware of it at the time, but this year's new recruits helped to shape the future of the company where they hope to build their careers. We hope they stay around to do just that.

© 2005 AlphaMeasure, Inc. - All Rights Reserved

This article may be reprinted, provided it is published in its entirety, includes the author bio information, and all links remain active.

Measure. Report. Improve your organization with an AlphaMeasure employee satisfaction survey.

Josh Greenberg is President of AlphaMeasure, Inc.

AlphaMeasure provides organizations of all sizes a powerful web based method for measuring employee satisfaction, determining employee engagement, and increasing employee retention.

Launch your employee surveys with AlphaMeasure.


MORE RESOURCES:


Careers at FEMA  FEMA.gov

Jobs and careers | Veterans Affairs  VA.gov Home | Veterans Affairs




Careers  University of Northern Colorado



Careers | Career Opportunities  West Virginia University


Careers  City of Phoenix (.gov)

Careers  City of Ontario, California (.gov)


Employment at WKU  Western Kentucky University


Careers at J&J  Johnson & Johnson Careers

Career Paths  FEMA.gov

Careers | Home  USDA (.gov)


Careers and Jobs at CRS  Catholic Relief Services

Employment Opportunities  Alabama Department of Public Health (.gov)

Careers  UC Santa Cruz

Work at Fairfield  Fairfield University

Careers - MDOT  Maryland.gov

Careers  Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

Working for ICE  ice.gov


Careers at USCIS  USCIS (.gov)

Employment Opportunities | Game Commission  Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (.gov)

Careers  Johnson & Johnson

Store Hourly Job Areas  Target Corporation

Careers at TWU  Texas Woman's University

Work for Us (U.S. National Park Service)  National Park Service (.gov)

Work at Butler  Butler University


Explore Store Careers  Target Corporation

Domestic/Civil Service  careers.state.gov


Employment | Department of Corrections  Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (.gov)

Work With Us  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (.gov)


Careers at Simon & Schuster  SimonandSchuster.biz

Water Services Careers  City of Phoenix (.gov)

Career Opportunities  Gilead Sciences

Jobs  City of Rochester (.gov)


How to Apply  FEMA.gov

Careers at Willamette  Willamette University

Full-time jobs for students  Johnson & Johnson Careers

Careers  BASF

Jobs at Liberty University  Liberty University

Careers  Washington State University

Careers at the IOC  Olympics.com

Employment Services for PhD Mathematicians  American Mathematical Society




Careers and Employment  Willamette University

NASA Careers: Pathways  NASA (.gov)

Student internships at J&J  Johnson & Johnson Careers


Our Hiring Process  Target Corporation

Careers  The Ocean Cleanup






KPMG Careers  KPMG

UF Health Careers  UF Health Careers

Store Leadership Job Areas  Target Corporation





Careers  West Virginia Department of Education

Job search  KPMG


Careers at Union  Union College


The Gen X Career Meltdown  The New York Times



Work for the City of St. Louis  City of St. Louis, MO (.gov)

Current opportunities  Turner & Townsend

Interview Guide and Tips  Target Corporation

Job Opportunities  Bellevue School District




Job Seekers  Illinois Human Resources






Explore BCG locations around the world  Boston Consulting Group

Postdoctoral Research  Los Alamos National Laboratory (.gov)

Need More Information?
Site Home | Site Map | Links | Contact Us | Privacy Policy
© Career Consulting Limited.com 2011

tumblr visit counter