On Friday, December 2nd, Applied Innovation hosted the UCI Career Center at the Cove for their event, Diversity and Recruiting in the 21st Century. The programming for the day centered on providing recruiters a chance to learn how to reach students with employment opportunities in light of the quickly changing recruitment landscape on college campuses.
The event started with networking and followed with the first workshop, a discussion on best practices for recruiting talent by the UCI Career Center’s Employer Relations team. They discussed the competitive university recruiting environment in addition to tips on how to map a recruitment strategy and best practices for reaching students at UCI.
Next, Stephen Barker, Dean of the Claire Trevor School of Arts, discussed the importance of diversity in recruitment. In his session, he covered the new technologies cultivated and diverse skill sets promoted at Claire Trevor and throughout the other schools on campus. Given this, Dean Barker shared the benefits for recruiters who choose to tap into this talent pool to fill the roles for rapidly expanding markets.
Following a short break and tour of the Cove, Jade Agua, Director of the Cross Cultural Center at UCI, talked about the power of promoting diversity and inclusion in the workplace in her session. Providing a vantage point on diversity and inclusion from a student affairs perspective, she highlighted the crucial role these topics play within an organization. Agua also shared ways to engage employees through initiatives such as skill building workshops and mentoring programs.
Concluding the event was a panel consisting of six student leaders on campus for a Q&A session. The Q&A provided recruiters a chance to engage with a focused population of millennials to learn about what they seek from potential employers. Diversity came up often as a core value that impacted their decision to join an organization.