To Woo M.B.A.s,Companies Personalize Their Recruiting Pitch
With the job market rebounding strongly, Procter & Gamble knew it needed a fresh pitch for recruiting summer interns last fall at Indiana University's Kelley School of Business. Instead of formal presentations and similar mass-marketing approaches, the consumer-products giant experimented with more targeted tactics modeled after its successful promotion of well-known brands.
Recruiters kept in close touch with their best M.B.A. prospects through a steady stream of friendly email messages, calls and holiday cards reminding them how to apply online for a marketing internship. Marketing majors from IU's Bloomington campus also visited P&G headquarters in Cincinnati to get a feel for its corporate culture and observe a day in the life of a brand manager. The highly personalized strategy paid off: P&G hired three of its top intern choices. Now the company is considering expanding the campaign to full-time hires and other campuses.
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Although many M.B.A.s consider P&G a plum place to work, company executives believe they face stiffer competition for the best B-school talent -- especially from management-consulting companies and investment banks. "Before we tried this approach, we hadn't done as good a job of developing relationships and closing deals," says Scott Mautz, associate marketing director for health care at P&G and a Kelley alumnus. "It stung a little not to get the rock stars we had worked so hard to hire."
Both recruiters and B-school officials describe this generation of M.B.A.s as cynical and media savvy, with a short attention span for canned corporate spiels. Attendance has been dwindling at traditional campus-recruiting events. Busy students figure they can skip the speeches and simply research companies on the Internet.
Other recruiters agree with P&G about the need for a more personal courtship of M.B.A.s. "There's a cacophony of noise out there as M.B.A.s are inundated with information from more recruiters," says David Sanderson, global recruiting chief at Bain, a major management consultancy. Beyond the usual presentations to a mass audience, Bain also connects its consultants and partners with specific M.B.A. prospects and stages events and dinners for smaller, targeted groups of students.
Maury Hanigan, a college-recruiting consultant in New York, is forming a new venture called M.B.A. Scouting Report that's like a matchmaking service. A national network of talent scouts who formerly worked in corporate recruiting will help companies quickly pinpoint their best matches at specific business schools. "Recruiters don't really want to put on a cocktail party for 100 students," explains Ms. Hanigan, who is talking with companies such as McGraw-Hill and Goldman Sachs Group about the service. "They're tired of interviewing 10 students for every one they end up hiring."
At the Kelley School, Goldman Sachs already takes a targeted approach. Its recruiting team focuses on private wealth-management candidates, mailing personalized invitations to select students for an intimate, upscale dinner. "Successful recruiters understand and are responding to the preferences of this new keep-it-brief, high-tech group of students who expect more personal attention," says Dick McCracken, Kelley's director of graduate career services.
Working closely with career-services staffers, P&G recruiters treated their task at Indiana much like a brand-management project. They used the slogan, "P&G marketing: career rocket fuel," in every student communication. They reinforced their message through "influencer marketing" -- calling on Kelley School professors and administrators to urge students to consider a P&G career.
The recruiting team attempted to portray P&G as a creative, cutting-edge marketer. Recruiters dispelled any perceptions of stodginess by keeping things light. In a brochure for students, one recruiter listed meeting Barney the purple dinosaur on a Luvs diaper assignment as one of the two highlights of his P&G career. An email attachment P&G sent to students was labeled "shamelessplug.doc."
As P&G does with product advertising, the big manufacturer had to deliver recruiting messages when targets were the most receptive, Mr. Mautz says. That meant times like Christmas vacation when M.B.A.s lacked academic pressures but were starting to think about the height of intern-recruiting season in January. "We communicated between test periods," Mr. Mautz adds, "and were careful not to dump a lot of junk emails on them." He borrowed heavily from the strategies he used as brand manager for the launch of the heartburn medicine Prilosec OTC.
Rebecca Godlove, an Indiana marketing major, especially liked P&G recruiters' sense of humor and helpful tips during her preparation for interviews with the company. "They were really interested in me as a person, not just as a recruit, and they gave me a very good understanding of what life would be like as a brand manager," recalls Ms. Godlove. She finished her summer internship on Friday, working on P&G's Mr. Clean brand in Cincinnati. P&G's recruiting campaign "was such a different experience from the usual corporate receptions and presentations that all started to sound alike," she says.
公司启用个性化招聘策略吸引人才
随著就业市场强劲反弹，去年秋天，宝洁公司(Procter & Gamble Co., 又名：宝硷公司)在从印第安纳大学凯利商学院(Indiana University's Kelley School)招募夏季实习生的时候就知道必须采用新方法了。宝洁抛弃了以往的正式陈述和类似的大众营销方式，根据自己成功推广著名品牌的基础尝试了一项目标性更强的策略。
招聘人员向他们最中意的MBA候选人定期发送友好的电子邮件讯息、电话和节日贺卡，与他们保持密切联系，提醒他们如何在线申请营销实习职位。印第安纳大学Bloomington校园主修营销专业的MBA学生还参观了宝洁位于辛辛那提的总部，亲身感受宝洁的公司文化，并观察了一位品牌经理一天的生活。这种高度个性化的策略非常奏效：宝洁聘用了自己最中意的3位MBA学生。现在，公司正考虑将这种招聘方式扩大到全职雇员职位和其他校园招聘活动中。
虽然许多MBA学生认为在宝洁工作是一份美差，但公司管理人士认为他们面临的争夺商学院优秀学生的竞争日趋激烈－－尤其是来自管理咨询公司和投资银行的竞争。宝洁保健产品的营销主管莫茨(Scott Mautz)表示，“在我们尝试这种办法之前，还从来没有在发展关系和达成协议方面做得这么好。”莫茨也毕业于凯利商学院。“没有聘用到我们努力争取的优秀人才有些令人不快。”
公司招聘人员和商学院管理人士将这一代MBA学生形容为愤世嫉俗的媒体行家，他们并不怎么关注招聘公司千篇一律的夸夸其谈。传统的校园招募活动的出席率一直在不断下降。整天忙碌的学生认为他们可以略过这些演讲，在互联网上研究以下各个公司的情况就可以了。
其他公司的招聘人员对宝洁的做法表示赞同，他们也认为有必要采取一种更加个性化的招募方式来吸引MBA学生。大型管理咨询公司贝恩顾问公司(Bain)的全球招募工作负责人桑德森(David Sanderson)称，MBA学生被越来越多的招聘信息淹没，他们听到的其实是满耳噪音。除了面向学生大众提供通常的陈述之外，Bain也让顾问和合伙人与具体的MBA候选人直接联系，并为少数目标学生群体组织各种活动和晚宴。
哈尼根(Maury Hanigan)是纽约的一位大学招聘顾问，他正在组建一家名为M.B.A. Scouting Report的新企业，有点像婚介服务机构。一些曾经从事企业招聘工作的行家里手将组成一个全国性的人才搜索网络，帮助用人公司迅速确认特定商学院中符合标准的最佳人选。哈尼根解释说，招聘人员实际上并不想为上百个学生组织一场鸡尾酒会。他们厌倦了面试十名学生，最后只聘用到一人的经历。哈尼根目前正在与麦格劳-希尔公司(McGraw-Hill)和高盛集团(Goldman Sachs Group)等公司就此项服务展开磋商。
在凯利商学院，高盛已经采取了一种目标式的方法。公司的招聘团队把注意力集中在私人理财业务的候选人身上，向部分学生寄送个性化的邀请函，邀请他们参加非正式的高级晚宴。凯利商学院毕业职业服务主管麦克拉肯(Dick McCracken)表示，成功的招聘人员了解并积极回应这一批简单化、高科技学生群体的偏好，知道他们期待更多的个人关注。
宝洁的招聘人员与商学院的职业服务工作人员密切合作，把他们在印第安纳大学的招聘任务看作一个品牌管理项目。他们在与每个学生沟通时都使用这样的口号：“宝洁营销：事业推进器”。他们通过“有影响力之人的营销”加强了自己所要传达的讯息－－动员凯利商学院的教授和管理人士敦促学生考虑在宝洁开始自己的职业生涯。
招聘队伍试图将宝洁描绘成一家具有创新精神、占据前沿地位的营销商。招聘人员驱散了学生们对宝洁呆板枯燥的看法，让每件事都显得轻松无比。在一份为学生们准备的手册中，一位招聘人员将他在一次Luvs纸尿布任务途中遇到紫色恐龙Barney的经历列为他在宝洁的职业生涯中的两大亮点之一。宝洁发给学生的一份电子邮件附件被命名为“shamelessplug.doc”。
莫茨说，和宝洁应对产品广告的方式一样，这家大型制造商必须在目标学生最容易接受的时候传达出招聘讯息。这意味著要在MBA课程压力不大、开始考虑1月份实习生招聘季节高峰的圣诞节假期出手。莫茨补充称， “我们在假期里与学生沟通，而且很小心，确保不会扔给他们许多垃圾邮件。”他借鉴了自己时任品牌经理期间推出Prilosec胃灼伤药物非处方药制剂时采用的许多战略。
印第安纳大学营销专业学生戈德拉夫(Rebecca Godlove)尤其喜欢宝洁招聘人员的幽默感和她准备面试期间提供的有益提示。戈德拉夫回忆道，“他们真是对我这个人感兴趣，并没有把我当作新员工对待。而且他们让我很好地了解到作为品牌经理的生活是怎样的。”她于上周五完成了在辛辛那提推广宝洁Mr. Clean品牌的夏季实习工作。她说，宝洁的招聘活动与通常公司千篇一律的接待和陈述截然不同。
