Our friends at Onetest recently asked me if I’d be interested in putting a blog together on the importance of innovation in the graduate industry. Similar to Onetest, DBL prides itself on being an innovative company, so like most of us in the industry we’re very much looking forward to Onetest presenting the results of their 2012 Graduate Outcomes Survey. Understanding the real outcomes of 10 years of graduate assessment I think will be very interesting for anyone who has anything to do with hiring and developing graduates.
With the 2012 AAGE Graduate Recruitment and Development Conference fast approaching, DBL recently found itself in the privileged position of being asked by more than one of our fantastic clients to help with their respective submissions for the award of “Best Graduate Development Program”. We were obviously blown away by this, but for us it reinforced the fact that innovation in the graduate industry is one of those things that not only can set you apart from the competition, but by having an innovative product or service means a real contribution to the employer, and more importantly the graduates themselves. Which is important to keep in mind, because when you think about it, the reason why ‘Training & Development’ consistently rates as the top factor that graduates look at when deciding which employer to join , it aids and enhances the long-term employability of the graduates (the ‘what’s in it for me’ factor).
Firstly I think it’s important to clarify what I mean by innovation, as opposed to creativity, as I often see the two words freely interchanged or used in the wrong context. A quick Google search and you’ll very quickly discern that creativity is the act of ‘thinking’ up new things, whereas innovation is ‘doing’ new things; which I think in the context of graduate development, is the more appropriate term. It’s all well and good to come up with a great idea, or product or service; but actually putting it into action with a tangible benefit or outcome is what has the greater impact. We’re in a competitive industry where graduate employers have plenty of choice; so designing ‘innovative’ products and services with real benefits and tangible outcomes is where it’s at.
Outcomes is often the ‘thing’ that an organisation’s graduate team get measured on, so having an effective and innovative graduate development program does more than just serve as an attraction tool, it can mean the difference between a cohort of graduates that just make up the numbers, to a cohort that delivers serious impact and benefits to their respective business units. So when partnering with our many happy clients to help design their graduate development programs, innovation is consistently the element which not only sets us apart, it showcases the effort that each organisation goes to in order to ensure their graduates complete a development program that will benefit them for many years to come, hopefully still with the organisation they’re working for right now. Which as mentioned earlier,
is the real outcome we’re all looking for.
Innovation has become more than an essential component of the design of development programs; at DBL we view it as a mainstay of our approach to training and development. Depending on client requirements, best practice is to employ a mix of delivery styles (technical, technology, workshops and so on) to ensure graduates are engaged and motivated to learn. This blended approach to content delivery ensures that you’re not only satisfying the expectations of the graduates, but this heightened level of motivation results in a far more effective development program.
If I can discuss innovation at DBL specifically for a quick moment now, I think one of DBL’s most important innovations came when we released our first book “The Graduate Edge”. Not only was this book an industry-first, it provided graduates with an enormous amount of practical tips and suggestions to help them in that transition from university to their professional career. We position it as a resource that sits on a graduate’s desk at work, so that when they have their performance review with their manager for instance, they can easily find the section on performance reviews and learn the basics on what to expect and how to get the most out of it. This obviously benefits the graduate as they’re better prepared, their manager also gets more out the review, and this in turn benefits the organisation. This is why our team ‘do what they do’; we’re extremely passionate about graduate development and it’s always fantastic to hear and see the impact our content has on an individual and their career. Which is why we’re extremely keen to hear what the team at Onetest have to say when they present the results of their Graduate Outcomes Survey!
