Question- Evaluate the role that employer brand might play in attracting the best candidates to meet HiTechs developing needs? 2 Question- �Critically assess how the company might improve its graduate recruitment programme?

Project description
Hello I have exam, which is based on case study and I will need to answer the two questions in a essay structure:
1) Evaluate the role that employer brand might play in attracting the best candidates to meet HiTechs developing needs? (50 marks)

2) Critically assess how the company might improve its graduate recruitment programme? (50 marks)

For the first question you will need to write about:
What is employer brand?
How does it help organisations position themselves in the market place
How can HiTech’s use employer branding to improve their employee value proposition, to attract the best talent

For the second question you will need to write about:
Defining recruitment
What is recruitment about
What is graduate recruitment about, what is happening in the graduate recruitment market
Also what recommendations you can give to HiTech to improve their graduate recruitment programme.
Also think about how they could work with universities, can they work work with universities to develop programmes, offer internships, work experience, offer specific modules
How they use assessment centres and all the things that they could use in the assessment centres to get the best candidates, examples: simulations, certain tasks, psychometric testing (which ones).
How much do you deliver it for, 6 months, 1 year …. how long do you think the programme should last.

You can take information from the books:
Armstrong, M. and Armstrong, M., 1928- (2009) Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice – 11th ed. London ; Philadelphia; London:

Armstrong, M., 1928- (2012) Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice. 12th ed.. London; London ; Philadelphia: London : Kogan Page.

And anything on recruitment and Talent management
Also examples on graduate schemes and what might work best for HiTech

THANK YOU , AND THIS IS THE CASE STUDY –

Recruitment strategy at HiTech International

HiTech International is one of the fastest-growing companies in the world. Founded in
the mid-1980s in California, it has doubled in size every year of its existence. It
currently employs over 30,000 people in 60 countries and boasts an annual turnover in
excess of $25 billion.

HiTechs European headquarters is located on a greenfield site 30 miles west of London. 2,500 people work at the site, of whom 90% are employees of the company and 10% are employed on a subcontracted basis.

The company specialises in the provision of computer hardware and software solutions for their corporate clients to maximise their use of the Internet. The company supplies a range of standard equipment, but also furnishes customers with bespoke packages designed to meet their specific needs. Teams employed by HiTech also work with clients providing a complete after-sales service which goes beyond straightforward software maintenance. The company is recognised as the global market leader in several of its principal lines of business, some of which it can be said to dominate.

HiTech stands or falls by its ability to innovate. It operates in highly specialised, but also highly competitive, markets which are continually evolving in new directions as
technological developments come on stream. HiTechs own research and development
departments employ some of the leading international names in Internet technologies.
Rapid and effective exploitation of their breakthrough ideas is central to the companys future success.

HiTech is a desirable company to work for. It pays top-rate salaries, runs a generous
annual bonus scheme, and allows all staff to buy stock at discounted rates. A full range of benefits is provided for staff too, including pension, health insurance and life assurance. Its premises provide a very attractive working environment on a well-landscaped site. Staff cafeterias are excellent and inexpensive, fitness facilities are provided, as are car washing and dry-cleaning services.

As a result, staff retention is not a problem: turnover levels are currently 5%, of which
half is accounted for by dismissals and non-renewal of fixed-term contracts.
The one major HR issue facing the company is its inability despite the excellent
working conditions to find sufficient numbers of employees with the required skills to meet its expansion needs. Although many would like to work at HiTech, few meet the specialised criteria that the company requires. The problem is compounded by the fast-moving nature of the industry, which makes it difficult to usefully employ graduates with limited experience and train them. By the time they have learned a set of skills, technology has moved on, rendering their newly gained skills redundant. Some succeed in developing careers within the company, but most struggle. As a result, new graduates are perceived as being a substitute for experienced IT professionals who are ready to hit the ground running when first employed.

The main source of new recruits is the staff employed by competitor companies or those working in closely related fields. It is they whom HiTech is most interested in targeting and attracting. Doing so, however, is easier said than done. There are always unfilled vacancies, while development of new business is increasingly being held up as a result of a lack of key personnel.

Suitable people are employed in companies with whom HiTech has a customer
relationship, and in partner companies, such as those who are licensed to sell and train
buyers in the use of HiTech products; however, HiTech has a long-standing policy not to recruit from such sources for fear of unsettling crucial business relationships. This no-poaching arrangement also works the other way around, meaning that HiTech staff are not recruited into jobs in partner organisations. At present, the company uses three principal methods of recruitment in addition to its small-scale graduate training programme:
advertisements in national newspapers
a generalist online recruitment database
head-hunters

None of these method is perceived by the companys HR department as being wholly
satisfactory. The advertisements and online databases bring in thousands of applications that take a great deal of time to sift through. The number of properly qualified applicants is few, because most of the target group (i.e. staff working for competitors) are not actively seeking a new job and are thus unlikely to see the advertisements. There have been some successes through agencies, but the charges are high and there is a risk of individuals being appointed only to be lured away again some months later by the same agent. Moreover, because the target labour market is so small, head-hunters are unable to identify talented individuals working for other companies who are not already known to people working at HiTech.

Questions

1.Evaluate the role that employer brand might play in attracting the best candidates to meet HiTechs developing needs? (50 marks)

2.Critically assess how the company might improve its graduate recruitment programme? (50 marks)