How We’re Bridging Equity Gaps in the College-to-Career Journey

Did you know that companies typically spend more than six thousand dollars to hire an early-career candidate? It then takes 11 weeks to source and hire them. This hard-won talent is also difficult to retain, with more than a third leaving after three years. It’s a vicious cycle, one that likely isn’t going to change as Gen Z continues to enter the workforce. Gen Z, the most diverse generation in US history, is set to make up one-third of the workforce within seven years, and according to data from LinkedIn, 72 percent of Gen Zers are considering a career change in the next year.

Early-talent recruiters typically source applicants from the same dozen schools they’ve always visited, yet there are qualified students from thousands of colleges and universities all around the country. By limiting their recruitment tactics and locations, recruiters are also limiting their access to students from underserved groups. Time, resources, and budget to recruit students are tight. Talent acquisition teams need a new approach to effectively filter high volumes of applications to identify right-fit candidates without sacrificing equity along the way.

Why the Status Quo Isn’t Serving Student Job Seekers Well

Before turning to the career center on campus or attending job fairs, many college students lean on personal relationships or school affiliation to land their first internship or post-grad job. However, students from historically excluded groups are less likely to have the built-in networks or relationship capital needed to get their resumes in front of the right people. Often, they are first-generation students (the first in their family to attend university) or from lower-income families, and these networking challenges follow them into the workplace. It’s no wonder that nearly three-quarters of recent graduates took a job that didn’t align with their career goals.

Student job seekers want to be more intentional about finding the right fit, but they have limited time to spend searching for jobs while balancing graduation requirements. While company websites and job boards provide some relevant information, early-career candidates struggle to find a single source of truth that tells them what an organization is really like. They want to understand a company’s corporate values and employee experience (or their Employer Value Proposition) to better assess their “fit” for a particular role or organization.

At Seramount, we wondered, “What else could be done to decrease inequities in early-career recruiting and increase access for a new crop of talent?”

Embracing Our Unique Position: Connecting College Students and Employers

We realized we were in a unique position to answer an often-asked question from both our higher ed and corporate partners: When would we give students access to roles that employers are struggling to fill and give employers access to the highly diverse and engaged student network embedded in EAB’s student success management platform?

Anticipating sweeping demographic changes in college enrollment and the downstream impact of Affirmative Action being overturned, we launched a pilot program with six companies and seven colleges to build a bridge that will narrow the career equity gap. Notably, 91 percent of the nearly 700 students who completed the application were from one or more historically excluded groups, and employers offered interviews to 75 percent of the students they matched with.

How Forage Works

Forage job simulations can help your company target the best-fit talent and streamline your recruiting cycles. Visit our Forage Solutions webpage to see how job simulations can help connect your organization to a wider network of next-generation talent.