Early Career Expert Series: Key Takeaways for Attraction Strategy

Over the past few weeks, we’ve hosted our Early Careers Insights Series – a dedicated look at the ever-evolving work of Early Careers Attraction. From the importance of data-led decision making to innovative social media strategies, each session bought together industry experts and fresh perspectives to tackle the big challenges and opportunities in Attraction early talent today.

In this blog, we’re sharing the key takeaways from each session, giving you a clear and practical summary of the insights that really stood out. Whether you joined us live or are just catching up now, these highlights will help shape stronger, more strategic Attraction campaigns for your organisation.

Laying the Foundations for an Effective Early Careers Attraction Campaign

Our first Early Careers Expert Series session explored what it takes to build a strong, impactful Attraction campaign. These are the key takeaways that can help you lay the the best foundation for your next Attraction campaign.

1. Follow the Four Key Stages – Every great campaign starts with Discovery, Research, Implementation and Review. An Attraction Audit is the ideal first step – giving you a clear understanding of what’s working, what’s not, and where to focus.
2. Understand the Power of an Audit – Audits offer real value. They uncover trends, highlight improvements, and add credibility to planning. While they do require transparency and time, the insights they deliver can shape a much more effective campaign.
3. Define Your Starting Point – Clarify where you are now and what you want to achieve. Align your goals with market context and student behaviour – and set timelines that work for both your business and your audience.
4. Review Everything – Look beyond just job ads. Evaluate your ads, university activity, social media, website, and creative assets to find simple, effective changes that can deliver strong ROI.
5. Involve Gen Z – Use diverse Gen Z ambassadors to review your messaging and creative. They can spot social bias and help you stay authentic and relevant to your audience.
6. Let Data Drive Decisions – Gather and use campaign data to make informed, evidence-based decisions. Audits help you build strategies that are not just creative and innovative – but also effective and measurable.

Leveraging Labour Market Analytics to Build Effective Early Careers Attraction Campaigns

In our second session, we explored how labour market analytics can transform your attraction strategy – helping you make smarter, evidence-based decisions.

1. Make Data-Led Decisions – Use real-time analytics to understand the Early Careers landscape. Data can uncover patterns, shift perceptions, and help define a strategy that’s grounded in evidence, not assumptions.
2. Understand Your Audience – Find out where your target talent is, what skills they offer, their salary expectations, and what motivates them. This insight helps you craft campaigns that genuinely resonate.
3. Spot Future Shortages – Low levels of new entrants in certain roles can signal potential talent gaps. Use this insight to build a business case for early intervention or pipeline development.
4. Benchmark the Competition – See who else is hiring for similar roles, what they’re offering, and how they’re attracting talent. These insights help you differentiate your brand and refine your approach.
5. Open More Pathways – Analytics can reveal typical career journeys – giving you the opportunity to target earlier and offer upskilling opportunities. It’s a smart way to stand out in a competitive market.
6. Drive Meaningful DE&I – Understand the key demographics of your talent pool. Use this to benchmark and evolve your DE&I strategy over time – aiming for continuous, sustainable progress.

Driving DE&I Recruitment Objectives Through Early Careers Attraction Strategies

DE&I isn’t just a tick-box – it’s a core driver of innovation, performance, and purpose-led recruitment. In our third webinar, we explored how Early Careers Attraction strategies can be powerful tools to level the playing field and drive real, measurable progress. Here are the key takeaways:

1. Ask the right questions – When working with media partners, challenge them. Who’s really seeing your content? How can targeting reach underrepresented groups without excluding others? Use their insight to strengthen your strategy.
2. Know the business case – Diverse teams are more collaborative, creative and commercially successful. Organisations that embrace DE&I experience lower attrition, better decision-making and stronger business outcomes.
3. Students care – a lot – Only 16% of students don’t consider DE&I when choosing an employer. The majority of students either research it or actively prioritise it. Your strategy must reflect that – from your messaging to your outreach.
4. Talent is everywhere – opportunity isn’t – It’s essential to remove barriers, whether real or perceived. The way you structure campaigns, language, locations, and channels can all influence who feels your opportunity is for them.
5. Be honest, not perfect – Gen Z wants truth, not tokenism. Be transparent about where you are and where you want to go. Authenticity builds trust – particularly when paired with a clear plan for progress.
6. Lead with stories, not just stats – Data is crucial, but it’s stories that connect. Real voices, role models and relatable insights make your campaign human and help diverse candidates see a future with you.

Aligning Your Media Choices to Meet Your Early Careers Attraction Strategy

Choosing the right media is about more than picking the biggest names – it’s about building a strategy rooted in insights, collaboration and flexibility. This session explored how to make smarter, more inclusive and more effective media decisions to support your early careers goals.

1. Ask smart questions – Start by digging into what your media partners really know about their audiences. Ask how they support targeting without excluding key groups, and what gets the best candidate engagement. Don’t just ask – listen to their advice.
2. Think like a strategist – The more informative your brief, the better the return. Include as much detail as possible: schemes, disciplines, locations, salary ranges, specific criteria, challenges, and budget flexibility. The right brief sets everyone up for success.
3. Model your numbers – Work backwards from your hiring goals. Understand how many candidates you need at each stage – from awareness to application – to create accurate performance benchmarks.
4. Set realistic DE&I goals – Base your DE&I targets on what’s truly available in the talent market. Set a benchmark for where you are now and focus on continuous, meaningful progress.
5. Balance push and pull – Design a media mix that combines high-visibility (push) activities with targeted (pull) tactics. Build in flexibility so you can respond to what’s working – and what’s not – as the campaign evolves.
6. Collaborate with your partners – Media works best as a partnership. Share campaign results as they come in, talk about challenges, and work together to find solutions. Strong relationships lead to stronger outcomes.

Targeting the Right Universities for Effective Early Careers Attraction

University engagement plays a crucial role in Early Careers Attraction, but too often it’s driven by instinct rather than insight. This session focused on how to build a more strategic, impactful approach to university partnerships. Here’s what we took away:

1. Focus on the facts – Avoid anecdotal decisions and base your university targeting on meaningful data points. This ensures your Attraction strategy is evidence-led and aligned to the talent you actually need.
2. Prepare with purpose – Understand what’s possible at each university and tailor your involvement to fit your timelines, resource capacity, and hiring goals. Preparation ensures you get the most from every opportunity.
3. Vary your approach – Don’t rely on one format to engage students. Career fairs, workshops, presentations, site visits and even parade stands can all play a role – choose what best suits your objectives.
4. Build strong partnerships – Establish genuine relationships with Careers Services. Be clear, consistent and open in your communications so both parties understand expectations and potential.
5. Level up your presence – Create a toolkit for employees and ambassadors involved in student engagement. This keeps messaging and delivery consistent while improving the overall quality of your outreach.
6. Track, measure, repeat – Capture data at every event – from sign-ups to attendance and beyond. This helps you assess ROI and stay in touch with potential candidates before and after events.

Using data to analyse your Early Careers Attraction Campaign to improve and evolve your Attraction Strategies

Great Attraction campaigns don’t stand still – they evolve. In our sixth session, we explored how to effectively use data to analyse campaign performance and continuously improve strategy. Here’s what we discussed:

1. Start with benchmarks – Use early research and previous campaign data to set realistic KPIs and expectation. This creates a clear foundation for measuring success and return on investment.
2. Learn from the past – Look at prior campaign performance to inform your starting point. Comparing year-on-year helps track progress and refine your strategy with each new campaign.
3. Model the funnel – Calculate how many candidates you need at each recruitment stage. These numbers will vary by scheme, so don’t expect one-size-fits-all targets for graduates, interns and apprentices.
4. Stay agile – Build in regular review points to check in on performance. Use real-time insights to make informed tweaks and keep your campaign on track.
5. Drill into the right data – Collect data that really matters – sources, conversion rates, demographics, NPS scores – and use it to analyse what’s working and what’s not.
6. Use insight to evolve – Let evidence, not instinct, shape your next campaign. Replace anecdotal decisions with data-led recommendations that support ongoing optimisation.

Revolutionise Paid Social Media for Better Targeting in Early Careers Recruitment

Paid social media is one of the most powerful tools in the early careers’ attraction toolkit – but it’s often underused or misunderstood. This final session explored how to harness its full potential to target and engage the right candidates more effectively. Here’s what we learned:

1. Balance paid with organic – Paid social boosts visibility and reach, while organic content builds trust and longer-term engagement. Together, they create a stronger, more consistent brand presence.
2. Think long-term – Don’t just switch on ads when applications open. Pre-application campaigns, always-on content, and short bursts of activity all play a part in nurturing future campaigns.
3. Use the right platforms – Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram continue to deliver excellent ROI. Combine them with emerging channels like TikTok to keep your strategy relevant and broaden your search.
4. Keep it simple – Creatives work best when they’re clear, authentic, and direct. Use real people, short messages, and clear call-to-actions to connect quickly with early careers audiences.
5. Get smarter over time – Programmatic campaigns improve as they gather data. Use insights to continually refine your targeting, increase efficiency, and reach the right candidates more consistently.
6. Don’t lose warm leads – Stay in touch with candidates who engaged by didn’t apply. Remarketing helps you keep your pipeline warm and creates more touchpoints to convert interest into action.

The Early Careers landscape is shifting fast – and it’s clear standing still simply isn’t an option. From rethinking your media mix to deepening your understanding of candidate behaviours, the insights from this series all point to one truth: the most successful attraction strategies are the ones that are intentional, inclusive and informed by data.

Whether you’re just starting to refresh your approach or looking to refine a mature strategy, we hope these takeaways leave you inspired, informed, and ready to take action.

If you’d like to dig deeper into any of the topics we’ve covered, or explore how your current Attraction strategy stacks up, get in touch – we’d love to support you in shaping what’s next.