Student Ambassador Program: interview with Alessandra Zucca on the new frontiers of Employee Branding

What is a Student Ambassador Program? We asked the Human Resources expert and #RecruitingGuru, Alessandra Zucca, in a pleasant chat about corporate recruiting and Employer Branding and their possible future evolutions.

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1. Introduce yourself to readers of the In-recruiting blog (Recruiting Italy). Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Alessandra, I have worked for a number of years in staff selection and today I’m an independent consultant in the field of human resources. In particular, I focus on the relationship that unites businesses and universities (University Relations) to facilitate the entry of new graduates into the world of work.

Today I am focused on some projects related to graduate entrance courses into the world of work. The most recent and most important of all my projects is Aptas – Ambassador Program to Attract Students, a Student Ambassador Program (or Student Brand Ambassador) dedicated to creating a network of ambassadors in Italian universities that actively creates a union between the worlds of business and academia.

2. Talk to us about Employer Branding and why it is so important?

Employer Branding, as I understand it, is a fantastic tool that shows future employees the environment and values of the company and how they will help them to grow as a person and a professional. We talk about how choosing the right people can be crucial to the growth of a business. I try to see Employer Branding on the side of the potential employee: if you find the place that really is for you, you will be more satisfied and want to do better.
Employer Branding gives the potential employee the chance to imagine how they will actually integrate and benefit from the business.

3. How will Employer Branding evolve in 2017?

For some time, “advertising” logic has taken over in the field of Employer Branding. You think a lot about how to make a job attractive through captivating messages, while much less attention is given to the ability to really know the company through visiting, meeting and having direct dialogue with the company.

I don’t know what the evolution will be exactly, especially now that social networks and Social Recruiting communicate so much about the business, but I hope that the positive response of the “market” – or potential employees – is increasingly oriented towards those activities that promote the transfer of real and concrete information from the workplace to the future employee.

4. Is it only a question of budget? Is it only large companies that can do Employer Branding?

This, in my opinion, is one of the most important issues. If we were concerned only with the availability of budget, many companies wouldn’t even be able to think about Employer Branding. As I see it, Employer Branding isn’t about an expensive communication strategy but about having the real intention to communicate well with potential employees. That is why I believe so much in all those actions that are based on direct relationship, contact and dialogue between potential employees and companies who, with more information, can consciously choose their role and bring more value.

Many companies have realised how little they have been in direct contact and have begun to work to maximise meeting opportunities, but in my opinion there is still much to be done in this direction.

5. Are University Career Days still useful?

Career days certainly serve as a showcase for businesses who want to get acquainted with universities and be more accessible. There are ever bigger and well-structured events and they do give students the chance for first contact, but they are not – in my opinion – very effective to give a concrete idea about the world of work.

If I were a student I would certainly go to a career day to get an idea of which companies are active with my university or to present myself to a company that I’m already interested in. But if I were to look for a better way to really understand a business or a specific professional area, I would look for other ways, because the information at a career day is very general.

From a business point of view also, career days highlight one of the biggest “defects” of young people: little awareness in relation to companies. I have attended dozens of these events and the number of students who come to a stand fully prepared and briefed on what they want is far exceeded by the number who choose the company stand based on the brand without knowing what role they are presenting themselves for.

6. The Student Ambassador Program: what are the Student Brand Ambassadors and why are they important?

More than the Brand Ambassadors, the Student Brand Ambassadors are the big news, that is, the students who choose to represent a company within their university network while they’re studying. Word of mouth is a truly effective tool and the information transmitted between people who have the same interests is more trusted and focused.

Companies that choose to have ambassadors among students are benefiting from the fact that the students can tell what they have experienced in dealing with the world of work and can in turn provide great information and suggestions on how to improve dialogue between the university and the company.

In my opinion Student Brand Ambassadors are an important part of the overall communication framework and can be of great benefit both for recruiting graduates and for improving employability of the students and graduates that participate. Ambassadors, in fact, learn a great deal from this experience and arrive at the end of their course, already knowing a lot about the dynamics of the world of work. A precious wealth of knowledge.
And on this basis I worked on creating Aptas, the first Student Ambassador Program in Italy.

7. Do companies really speak the language of the candidates?

In recent years there has been significant effort by companies – at least in the field of corporate recruitment – to adjust the tone of communication to the needs of candidates. However, especially speaking about graduates, I do not think they’ve completely managed to modify the channels and messages properly. Not long ago, an Aptas ambassador involved me in a small focus group organised to understand how a company could improve their dialogue with potential candidates. It was a great surprise: it confirmed that many of the channels that recruiters focus on (from career days to company presentations, from webinars to targeted mailings) have no appeal or effectiveness and that they are missing out on using Social recruiting, which is so important but not central for the recruiters.

In short, candidates change and grow much faster than we think and only by working closely with them can we hope to speak the same language.

8. How is technology transforming the Recruitment and Employer Branding sectors?

Technology has radically changed the world of recruiting and will continue to be a very important tool in the work of any recruiter. It’s not only online ads and bulletin boards that can reach a large number of candidates, but Applicant Tracking Systems have become a real means of dialogue. Through the applications, candidates can give a lot of useful information to optimise the match between position and profile; this has greatly reduced the time for identifying attractive candidates.

9. Is there a book or resource that you would recommend to the readers of Recruiting Italia for their professional development?

If I have to point to a writer that I think is important for recruiters of all ages and experience I would rely on Daniel Goleman. Through his studies on Social Intelligence, Goleman has highlighted fundamental aspects in every activity that includes a direct relationship between people and hence – for the most part – for every activity related to the field of Human Resources and recruiting.