As one of the world’s largest food companies with more than 30,000 employees, General Mills seeks top talent to support its purpose of making food the world loves.
Recruiting at college campus events has been a successful way for General Mills to achieve its talent acquisition strategic goals, from exposure to hire. And when in-person opportunities aren’t available, hosting virtual events has been a great extension to their traditional recruitment. In fact, about one-third of their early talent hiring is a result of having a strong virtual events strategy.
A key component of General Mills' hiring strategy is leveraging early talent recruitment and their excellent internship program, which often serves as a primary conduit for their talent pipeline.
General Mills’ Campus Talent Acquisition and Talent Brand Leader, Elizabeth Diley, sat down with Handshake to chat about best practices for campus recruiting events, and the impact of brand building with early talent during the most formative period of career discovery.
“In campus recruiting, we have a responsibility to demystify the hiring experience and help students navigate the ins and outs of landing their first corporate job. We’re here helping and illustrating: this is how it can look.”
Elizabeth Diley, Campus Talent Acquisition and Talent Brand Leader, General Mills
Advice for planning campus recruiting events that convert
What
General Mills has developed a dynamic events strategy to educate students about career opportunities within the company. This comes to life through sharing practical advice, storytelling, and authentic interaction with current employees throughout the business. For example, through General Mills events, students can practice their networking skills, hear about the company’s sustainability efforts and impact, or get interviewing tips.
Advice: Host events that are true to your brand. If students don’t RSVP or show up to your events, take a look at your messaging content, and even your culture. What attracts a student to an event is informed by more than just an email invite.
Who
General Mills partners with Handshake to reach students at schools across the US. General Mills is represented at events by employees across the business, including members of Employee Resource Groups (ERGs), former interns, and C-level executives.
Advice: Highlight your people as much as your product. Part of bringing your story to life is about who is telling your company’s stories.
Where
While General Mills has a strong in-person presence at their set of core schools, they maximize resources and reach through virtual events—ensuring they tap into top talent nationwide. Virtual events make it easier to scale their search and identify qualified top talent at the most schools possible. For example, one of their recent virtual recruitment events attracted more than 1,500 registrants.
Advice: Are there regions, groups, or schools where you need to do some more education on opportunities that your company offers to early career talent?
In 2023, General Mills’ events strategy engaged 700 schools nationwide.
When
Their events strategy is tied to their recruiting cycle, which includes an event in the spring when summer internships open up. This timing offers students early access to apply, which ensures events are converting into pipeline for the talent team. Even though events are hosted during peak campus recruiting season, General Mills adapts their virtual strategy throughout the year based on business needs and hiring requirements.
Advice: Events should result in inbound applications during peak recruiting seasons and should be utilized for awareness and exposure during off-peak seasons. Every year, your events can look different depending on where you want to hone in.
Why
General Mills’ strategy is driven by the desire to cultivate talent and foster a deeper connection with students who are both potential employees and consumers of their products. By presenting their company culture in an authentic and engaging manner, General Mills aims to attract top talent who resonate with their values.
Advice: Poll students for feedback after events and look to those results for where you can improve—or to show your leadership.
A virtual events strategy that translates to ROI
General Mills can attribute a lot of their candidate conversion to their events strategy. Of course, for a company whose brands are in a majority of people’s homes, their name recognition is admittedly a door opener. But that doesn’t mean students know what to expect from the application process, the employee experience, or know how a brand comes to life through its workforce.
General Mills has built a college recruiting event strategy that offers students ways to navigate their career paths with confidence and clarity. That translates to ROI for students, and ROI for General Mills.