Recruitment of Talented People

Over 30 companies are competing every year to attract talented young people via management trainee programs. But because the opportunities offered are similar, success is granted to the company having the most powerful brand and immediate access to the bigger pool of talented young people.

If you want to externalize the entire process of talent recruitment or just the part involving the attraction of high potential people, we provide instruments we have specially developed for management trainee programs.

• immediate access to a database consisted of 5,000 talented young people;
• access to 20,000 young people with a background in Economics and 20,000 in the technical field;
• better understanding of young people’s values and expectations with the help of the annual survey : “What do young professionals want?”;
• fast selection process;
• an enhanced quality of applicants.

• The project covered all the stages in the recruitment process – establishing the target group and the channels to use in screening, promotion, interviews and assessment centers.
• A secondary focus was to position IKEA Supply AG as a talent-oriented employer and explain the difference between IKEA Supply AG and IKEA Retail
• Project duration: 4 weeks.

1. The Promotion Campaign
   Taking into account the 4 weeks we had at our disposal to achieve efficiency, the advertising campaign was developed exclusively online and it mostly involved the promotion of opportunities thorough the Catalyst database.
   
   We launched a campaign of customized messages sent to 2,000 “top talent” candidates and, collaterally, we have identified two innovative channels which enabled us to reach the young people who studied abroad and who obtained remarkable results during their education years.
   
   At the same time, the message was sent towards the entire Catalyst database (consisted of 50,000 young professionals) in order to increase the visibility of IKEA Supply as a talent-oriented employer and to identify new resourceful young people.
   
   IKEA Young Talent Program has also been promoted on www.hipo.ro at the Management Trainee Program section. We also used a banner visualized by more than 300,000 people during this period.
2. Attracting Applicants
   After ten days of promotion, we received over 300 valid applications. Valid applications were considered those including a resume and an application form, both written in English.
3. Interviews and Screening
   As a result of screening, 50 applicants obtained over 15 points (on a scale of 1 to 20) and, subsequently, they were called for an interview. The criteria we followed during the whole process of screening and interviews were international experience, foreign language competence (English), higher education in Economics and the Technical field, relevant extracurricular activities, motivation, a range of soft competence. 20 people were invited to the final stage of selection - the Assessment Center.
4. Design and facility –The Assessment Center
   In order to outline an accurate profile for each candidate involved in the selection process, we organized two assessment centers, each focusing on 10 candidates. The participants made presentations and solved case studies in group. In every center they were observed by 6 Catalyst consultants who assessed their work.