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Tips and trends for modern recruiting

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Change is a constant in today’s economy. Technology is reshaping every industry, and the skills employees and companies need to succeed are evolving faster than ever. By some estimates, well over half of today’s first graders will end up working in fields that don’t exist yet.

How can companies plan for such an uncertain future? What does a winning recruiting strategy look like in the face of so much disruption? And how can higher education better prepare students to adapt and thrive in this new reality?

To tackle those questions, we invited Laura Fuentes, Executive Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer of Hilton, and Dr. Michael Sorrell, President of Paul Quinn College, to take the stage at Handshake Access with our CEO, Garrett Lord.

Laura and Dr. Sorrell are both pioneers who’ve successfully navigated major changes in their respective fields. Laura began her career as an entry-level engineer at Hilton before moving into HR and rising to lead people and talent for one of the world’s largest hospitality brands. Under her leadership, Hilton has become a top career destination for Gen Z talent. Dr. Sorrell took the helm of Paul Quinn College, one of the country’s oldest HBCUs, when it was on the verge of bankruptcy. He raised graduation rates by more than 30%, slashed student loan debt, and built strong partnerships with companies across the country to prepare students for on-the-job success.

Here are just a few of our top takeaways from Garrett’s conversation with Laura and Dr. Sorrell:

1. To democratize opportunity, we need to help all students build their “relationship capital.”

This is a top priority for Dr. Sorrell at Paul Quinn, where a majority of students come from low-income backgrounds. “Their families don’t possess the relationships” to help them access opportunities, he explains. “You need an institution to stand in the gap, but you also don’t want to be made to feel as if you’re less than for not having those relationships.”

In particular, Dr. Sorrell says, underserved students need support to secure paid part-time jobs and internships so they can balance supporting themselves with launching their careers. Paul Quinn helps match students with local jobs, often in corporate offices where they gain the skills, experience, and connections they’ll need to succeed in a professional career.

Hear more from Dr. Sorrell about how Paul Quinn supports students from low-income backgrounds:

2. Employers can expand their talent pools by moving away from rigid job requirements.

“When I look to hire someone, what I really want to know is, do you have a history of success,” Dr. Sorrell explains. “My life has taught me that winners find ways to continue to win.” At Paul Quinn, he’s built a core curriculum that focuses on the aptitudes employers say are critical for success across industries and roles—such as communication, teamwork, and digital literacy.

Laura agrees that students who’ve invested in these strengths can learn specific skills on the job and be successful in almost any field. “We hire for attitude and values, mostly, and then we’ll teach the core skills,” she says. “Whatever you know at age 22 or 24 will become obsolete anyway, especially in tech. So we want people who are agile learners, who work hard, who are great teammates.” This approach has allowed Hilton to widen its talent pool to include populations that are often overlooked, such as veterans, refugees, formerly incarcerated individuals, people returning from extended career breaks, and more.

Hear more from Garrett, Laura, and Dr. Sorrell about the importance of on-the-job learning and how higher education can prepare students to succeed in a fast-changing economy:

3. Everyone wins when early talent can “come for a job and stay for a career.”

It’s no secret that seeing a path to advancement within a company is important to early-career hires. And many young employees are also looking for a place where they can shift into new areas or fields as they gain experience and their interests evolve. When companies support and celebrate employees who want to make upward or lateral moves, rather than boxing them in, they’re better able to attract and retain top talent and adapt to changing economic conditions.

Providing that support is a core part of Hilton’s successful early talent recruiting strategy. In all of her outreach to students and new graduates, Laura emphasizes that Hilton is “a culture focused on movement and growth,” with many different career paths available.

Hear more from Laura about how she positions Hilton as a top employer for Gen Z:

We’re beyond inspired by what Laura and Dr. Sorrell have accomplished, and we’re deeply grateful to both of them for sharing their insights with our community. To watch the full recording of their conversation, or to explore more content from Access 2023, head to the event page.

Visit more Access recaps:

Access 2023 recap: The changing talent landscape with Laura Fuentes and Dr. Michael Sorrell

Save up to 50% by hiring early talent instead of candidates with 3-5 years of experience.

Virtual strategies have changed the recruiting game—and what your company might be missing out on.

Get a better ROI by investing in and upskilling recent graduates.

Conventional hiring wisdom suggests that if you want maximum productivity from new hires, you should require previous work experience. Right?

Not so fast. This strategy may be costing your business and hurting your bottom line. In a recent Access 2023 chat, David Jordan, CFO of Americas, TD SYNNEX, and Chris DeLisa, Vice President, Global Talent Acquisition, TD SYNNEX, explore the financial benefits of investing in recent graduates, proving the ROI, and building bridges between TA leadership and CFOs to create a powerful alliance that will help you advocate for—and prove the value of—your early talent program. Read on for their 7 tips for maximizing early talent ROI.

1. Invest in early talent, full stop.

When asked why he cares about campus recruiting, David says, “It’s very simple: we’ll win or lose strategically as a business based on the talent we hire. If you hire people at the right baseline, you can develop them into whoever you want them to become. It’s a competitive advantage, so we spend the time and money to get people there. The byproduct of this is good returns for shareholders.”

New grads at TD SYNNEX spend the first few years increasing their technical domain knowledge. David explains, “Once their acumen is robust, we ask: ‘How do we teach them leadership skills?’ If we start with them from the beginning, they learn every aspect of how to succeed in our company’s way. This is hugely valuable because all the institutional knowledge they're gaining—solving real-world problems in our business every single day—is something we can’t buy.”

Early talent engagement also happens year-round at TD SYNNEX. Where most conventional companies have an internship program that brings students in, provides a great experience, and converts them to full-time employees, Chris says his company goes further. “We also have a tech scholar program focused in the technology space and a Discovery Representation Program in sales and marketing. We always talk about ‘hire to retire.’ If we can get students engaged early in their careers and offer them progression, it allows us to retain those coworkers and help them become the future leaders of our organization.”

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2. Yes, ROI matters in this macroeconomic climate, but consider your metrics when tying early talent into macro business goals.

At TD SYNNEX, David gives recruiting teams a total budget, and the team then demonstrates what they’re planning to accomplish with that money. The overall metric becomes: What is the cost of hiring?

“I couldn’t care less about how much they spend because we’re aligned on driving down the cost of hiring good talent,” David shares. “So, we ultimately measure 3 things: quality of our talent, conversation rates, and the actual cost per hire. Then it’s just a matter of figuring out how to work the variables in that model to maximize all three of those things.”

Using platforms like Handshake is cheaper than campus recruiting, but when comparing the two methods, it gets down to demonstrating which is more effective in the context of the cost.

“And you also have to consider the cost of turnover,” Chris explains. “If you can retain people for longer periods, your turnover and costs go down. The more people stay longer, the less I need to spend on advertising. Knowing that retention becomes a very big piece. If you hire someone with three years of experience and they leave right away, that’s no good. Now imagine hiring someone with no experience, and they stay three years or even longer. It pays off in the long run. By keeping early talent engaged, learning, and growing, you’ll get more opportunities to grow their careers, which is a long-term benefit for the company.”

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3. Have senior leadership work with recruiting teams to lower the cost of hiring

“When I first joined TD SYNNEX, I always felt we were underutilizing campus recruiting,” David says. When Chris joined TD SYNNEX to lead talent acquisition, David immediately broke the ice with him by asking Chris to coach him on how best to help the recruiting team. This resulted in a relationship where they don’t butt heads because they have the same goal.

“Chris runs the machine, and I help move obstacles,” David says. “We check in about once a year on numbers. I want to see the cost of team travel, payroll, and campus recruiting because that is what we spend to acquire. We put discovery reps and interns in a separate bucket because that comes after we've acquired the talent. Either way, early talent acquisition should be part of any business budget, and you should proactively create capacity. The last thing we will ever cut is early talent hiring because that could kill us two years from now. And I'm not willing to take that move.”

Chris agrees. “When I joined a year and a half ago, part of my onboarding was to meet different executives throughout the organization. When I saw David’s name on the agenda—he was the executive sponsor for our internship/early career programs—I had to take a second look. But it was a breath of fresh air to sit down with him. Within five minutes, we were able to talk about why it’s so important to have a structured program to bring in early career talent, given that it proves twofold or threefold on the ROI as you develop these individuals and help them grow in the company. Knowing executive leadership is on the same page makes it very easy for our teams to work together.”

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4. Save 50% in costs by hiring new talent vs. candidates with 3-5 years of experience

“When you think about campus recruiting, your biggest competitor is an agency,” David says. “They'll recruit off of a college campus, and they’ll recruit people with experience. Two dynamics then play out. One is that they want to charge 20%. Some try to get to 30%. If they’re really good at negotiating, they can maybe get 12%. But let's be honest: it's a markup. Then they negotiate you up on the salary.”

When David realized that he could save TD SYNNEX $0.50 - $0.70 on the dollar by moving away from agencies and into campus recruiting, it naturally put a tailwind—from a budget perspective—into talent acquisition.

“When you think about hiring somebody with no experience versus hiring somebody with 3-5 years of experience, they're half price, full stop,” he explains. “The salary expectations I’m seeing from people with experience are blowing my mind. It’s probably greater than 50% more than you’d pay by hiring off a college campus. Conceptually, the 3-5 year candidate has learned something beyond their academic career but still needs to learn my strategy. They still need to learn my processes. And not all of them work out. We know that people who jump every 2-3 years tend to jump again, so we end up with a higher cost per head, with a higher likely attrition rate.”

To combat attrition, TD SYNNEX has developed their Discovery Representation Program and Tech Scholar Program, which allow early talent to rotate between functions part-time while they’re still in school. Not only has this resulted in full-time hires, but it has also lowered the likelihood of attrition.

“It's not like your standard summer internship—it’s really about learning multiple sides of the business while still in school.” Chris says. “It all pays off in conversion, where you get someone who has zero years of experience out of college, but they might have 12 months of part-time experience with us. It elevates their career from Day 1.”

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5. Leverage technology to measure and maintain healthy workforce pipeline

Technology now plays a big role in the recruiting process, and investing in the right platforms is critical to measuring success. Data always tells a story, and if you can lean into it, it can help inform your business choices.

“With Handshake, we’ve reached many, many universities that we wouldn't otherwise be able to reach based on our team size and the cost of flying from place to place,” Chris says. “So, that’s key—looking through the platform along with our ATS, clicks, applications, and interview-to-hire ratio. Those things are really important to us, because they tell us how our pipeline is looking.”

And gone are the days of “hiring seasons” for TD SYNNEX. These days, Chris believes in recruiting year round. As he puts it, “There's talent looking all the time—it's not just a seasonal hiring event. Our approach is different because we know the value of finding good talent. You never know where you're going to bump into somebody.”

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6. Leverage virtual strategies vs. spending more on-campus travel

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the virtual world has become the norm. As such, TD SYNNEX takes a hybrid approach.

“We definitely like to spend time on campus if we can, but considering 100% reach is impossible to get to, virtual platforms are key, as is engagement,” Chris explains. “We try to interact with students through different platforms on a daily basis while also partnering with universities to understand what virtual events they have. At the end of the day, the more you're out there, the more brand awareness you have. It's about creating a positive experience—whether in-person or virtual—that students can relate to and think, ‘Wow, I want to work for that organization based on what I've heard!’”

As David adds, “It’s very similar to the future of work, where there's a physical component and a virtual component. When we're together, we go deep! We have target schools where our business partners are, but digitally, we can aim wide in a very targeted fashion.”

Both Chris and David agree that building out a digital brand presence—and its effectiveness—is critical. “If you’re just starting out on digital platforms like Handshake, know that it takes time,” David says. “But if you engage with your platform reps, ask a lot of questions, and follow the provided roadmap, it will work. For example, our goal right now is diverse recruiting. With Handshake, we can touch a very targeted set of schools and a targeted set of students within those schools. You can't do that physically. So, going digital has been game-changing in that aspect.”

7. Evaluate which schools you recruit from physically vs. virtually

“We typically start recruiting where we have a major office—looking in your own backyard is important!” Christ says. “Then there are the schools you want to build partnerships with because students there will know who you are, and you’ll have some brand awareness.”

For TD SYNNEX, finding the right culture fit with students and universities is important, as is seeing how students respond when recruiters talk about their company culture. Both Chris and David agree that if a student doesn't have the same cultural values, it can dictate how long they’re going to stay with a company. Furthermore, in the virtual realm, it’s easy to look at schools with strong programs that align with your business.

“The benefit of virtual platforms is that the data shows you where to hunt,” David says. “I can't tell you what our number-one virtually targeted school is, but I can tell you how many candidates we’re going after, what affinity groups we’re focusing on, and when we want to hire those people. Where we end up focusing is where we’ll have the best chance of success—that’s the benefit of going virtual. You can go everywhere at the exact same time if you get it right!

Get more Access

The ROI on hiring early talent can be huge, and companies like Handshake can give you a leg up by providing the data you need to make the most informed recruiting decisions. To watch the full recording of our conversation with David and Chris—or to explore more content from Access 2023—check out the event page.

Visit more Access recaps:

Access recap: 7 tips to maximize ROI on your early talent strategy

All of us, no matter how busy we are, can use micro-steps to make positive changes for better wellness. One brief, simple action can be the beginning of transformative change

Treating our whole selves with respect and care encourages joy, presence, and purpose at work

Leaders must model self-care behaviors to set a cultural example for employees

Ariana Huffington, media mogul and self-made woman, was drinking tomato soup from a coffee cup. It was just past 1 pm, and family obligations had left her with very little time to eat before her conversation with Handshake Chief Legal Officer Valerie Capers Workman during the Handshake Access event. Ariana innovated— serenely sipping from a steaming coffee mug without a hint that she was actually having lunch. Indeed, if she hadn’t explained it to the viewers, we never would have been the wiser.

But being honest about self-care, personal obligations, and family is what Ariana Huffington had joined us to speak about that day. So it was fitting that she led by example in that moment, just as she called fellow leaders and employees of every stripe to do.

In this article, we’ll wrap up some of the key takeaways from our conversation with Ariana Huffington, as well as share some practical tips for incorporating these ideas into your own work life.

Self-care is not a luxury item

"Self-care for employees is not optional," Ariana said. She called the idea that self-care is a luxury “a collective self-delusion” born of our obsession with work, productivity, and performance. The irony is that self-care (which could be defined as a commitment to making time for personal necessities like sleep, hygiene, family, exercise, relaxation, and eating healthy foods) is actually the foundation of any sustainable productivity habit.

Self-care is personal for Ariana. After experiencing an injury and being forced to cut back on work temporarily, she began to reconsider the role of work in her life and how she organized her priorities. Her interest in and research on well-being led her to prioritize communicating with individuals and corporations about the importance of self-care for personal and business success.

💡 Other executives agree with Arianna! Lynsey Wherry, VP of HR, Corporate Functions at General Mills, joined Valerie during a recent Handshake InnovationXchange executive roundtable event. Read a recap of their session.

The importance of sleep

Sleep is just one of the many physical and emotional needs we all balance, but it may just be the most important one. Getting enough high-quality sleep on a regular basis is necessary for good health. Sleep deprivation compromises our immunity, raises our risk for a variety of chronic illnesses, decreases insulin sensitivity, and causes cognitive problems (including memory problems). Struggles with sleep can cause us to miss work or perform poorly during the workday because we’re tired. Ariana suggested that the reason so many workers struggle with sleep is that increasing demands on us lead us to seek control in our lives. This desire for control conflicts with sleep because, as Ariana said, “our daily lives are about control, but sleep is about surrender.”

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Modeling self-care behaviors at work

Good leaders know the importance of modeling self-care behaviors at work. Showing employees that you value and respect their whole selves—not just their ability to produce results—establishes a culture that respects boundaries and fosters sustainable growth. “Employees understand the importance of well-being at work,” Ariana told us. “It’s CEOs and leaders who don’t understand. Attrition, retention, performance— everything is connected to well-being.”

Ariana also emphasized how self-care is not something we can afford to reserve for ‘once in a while’. What you do daily is what shapes your mindset.

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Moving beyond the crisis of burnout

The chaos, stress, and breakneck pace of the last several years have driven many of us toward burnout. One might think that the pandemic would have instigated a culture shift on just how much of our lives we’re willing to sacrifice for work; in many cases, individuals did change their minds about work, pursue new careers, go back to school, and retire early.

But institutionally, corporations and small businesses lag behind on these new attitudes about work and meaning. “[Our culture] made some progress during the pandemic, but then came harder economic conditions,” Ariana said. “We need to start viewing health and well-being as a third metric for success.”

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Well-being is the foundation of good leadership

Not only should businesses begin to consider employee well-being as a metric for success—they should also use it in their hiring process. “As a leader, you are looking for resilience. Can you learn from difficult times and include them in who you are, or do you tune out or ignore problems? We need to stop calling these things soft skills. They are hardcore skills!” Ariana also points out that leaders who run on burnout and stress make poor decisions, further characterizing self-care as a critical skill for leaders.

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From surviving to thriving

“We need time to restore ourselves in order to work and survive,” Ariana told us. “Downtime is a feature, not a bug, of the human operating system.” To move forward, leaders must give employees permission to bring their whole selves to work. People often know what they need— they just need the support and space to seek it.

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Thank you to Ariana Huffington for joining us in conversation about the value of self-care at work. You can learn more about her work to promote well-being at work on the Thrive Global website.

Get more Access

Building your brand with Gen Z and ensuring they know you value mental health requires connecting with talent first! Handshake can give you a leg up by providing you access to 13M+ students across 1,400+ schools. To watch the full recording of our conversation with Arianna and Valerie—or to explore more content from Access 2023—check out the event page.

Visit more Access recaps:

Access recap: Creating a future where we can Thrive with Arianna Huffington

There’s been a shift in who is hiring tech talent and Big Tech no longer has a stronghold on tech talent pipeline.

Learn how embracing early talent programs, diversity, brand transparency, and skills-based hiring can build your tech talent pool.

Get tips on how to avoid the purple unicorn problem and build job descriptions that actually reflect your needs.

It seems like everyone from the grocery store to the local paper boy is a "tech company" now. So how do you find, engage, and hire tech talent with the essential skills your company needs to get the job done?

During our recent Handshake Access 2023 event, Paul Fain, Journalist for The Job led Teisha Anthony, NSA’s Chief of Human Resources, Alexander DiLeonardo, Activision Blizzard’s Chief Talent Officer, and Priya Ramanathan, General Assembly’s Vice President, Government & Workforce Partnerships through an eye-opening deep dive into what it takes to hire tech talent.

Below we’ve pulled out 10 actionable ways you can embrace tools, methods, and mindsets to cut through the noise and find candidates who truly are the right fit for the roles that need to be filled.

1. Embrace diversity in all of its forms

Great employees can come from all different types of backgrounds—including people who never had the traditional university experience.

“At General Assembly, we’re tapping into pools of talent who may not have a four-year degree,” Pryia says. “It ultimately gets down to a combination of 1) educating folks on what the tech careers they’re interested in are about and 2) identifying what transferable skills might help them transition into a 12-week bootcamp. That includes professional skills—we’re not only hard coding the technical skills needed for a software engineer role, but we're also applying professional development skills that allow folks to speak to real-life projects they're learning in the classroom.”

The NSA also looks at diversity in every work role and at all levels. “We've had a really big focus on women in STEM over the last year, because we saw lagging numbers of applicants during the Covid-19 pandemic,” Teisha says. “We're really excited about the fact that we’ve had one of our biggest hiring years ever this year. We are over 40% minority and 40% female in our hiring, and roughly 40% of our hiring is STEM.” She also adds that it’s important to remember that there are many different personality types, and not everyone thrives in the same type of workspace. “Soft skills are important, but they’re not always critical—we have brilliant folks who prefer not to interact with people all the time, and they contribute greatly to our different missions.”

Targeting diverse candidates is easy when using a platform like Handshake, and it can help diverse candidates see people like themselves represented across a potential employer’s workforce.

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2. Be clear about what “tech” really means for your company

General Assembly is seeing no abatement in the requirements for these types of roles. In fact, 91% of HR professionals interviewed by General Assembly don’t feel secure in being able to find the talent they need for tech roles moving forward. In a world where almost every prominent company needs to invest in tech to keep up, what does it actually mean to hire for tech roles?

For example, at Activision Blizzard, technology, engineering, and development talent continue to be critical to the company’s growth plans. “We've grown this category of talent by about 25% over the last few years, and we have plans to continue doing so,” Alexander DiLeonardo says. “I think given that we play at the intersection of technology and media in the creative space, there are so many nuances within our tech job families that each function can look different depending on what franchise they're embedded within.”

3. Build—and take advantage of—training programs for new tech talent

Entry talent is integral to building a solid tech workforce. As such, early training and development programs are key.

General Assembly specializes in training new tech talent—particularly non-traditional candidates looking to break into these types of roles—and the answer is fairly cut and dry. “We really play in the space of software engineering, data analytics, data science, and UX design,” Priya Ramanathan says. “In taking a look at labor market data, including CompTIA’s most recent tech talent jobs reports, we’ve found that demand is still increasing for these functions despite recent layoffs, and it’s ubiquitous across industries. So, we’re really centering our immersive bootcamp training around that.”

“At the NSA, we have both a foreign intelligence mission and a cybersecurity mission, both of which rely heavily on top talent,” Teisha Anthony adds. “Because some of our unique missions have required us to further develop new talent once we bring them aboard, we actually have 20 entry-level development programs where we hire directly out of college. These include data science, cybersecurity, computer science, math, crypto analysis, and regular business operations. As proof that these programs work, I actually started in one of these development programs 33 years ago.”

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4. Consider taking advantage of “recruit, train, and deploy” models

“We're finding that a lot of employers are unable to meet their tech demand and are often unsure about taking on the risk of hiring someone full time, especially while considering retention and long-term hiring needs,” Priya continues. “So, General Assembly is partnering with our sister company LHH to create a ‘recruit, train, and deploy’ functionality.”

This strategy allows employers to articulate what particular skills candidates need in their junior-level roles. General Assembly and LHH then tap into their consumer graduate pool to place graduates in those companies for 12- to 18-month deployments. Companies then get the talent they need, and graduates get the experience they need to land full-time roles.

5. Increase organic awareness of your brand with transparency

“We've always been very interested in early talent, developing folks, and hopefully keeping them through a career,” Teisha says about the NSA. “But for the intelligence community over the past ten years, there's been more public awareness about what we do and the important role we play in national security, particularly when it comes to cyber security.”

This has helped the NSA recruit candidates who have an enhanced sense of purpose, particularly when it comes to protecting their country from bad actors. They’re excited not just about the fact that people are seeking out and resonating with them but also that they can find these people by using platforms like Handshake.

6. Use early training programs to fill university education gaps

Like it or not, a four-year university degree doesn’t always guarantee that new talent will have all the skills necessary to hit the ground running from day one. As such, the early training programs mentioned above can fill in the gaps.

“The one thing that I regularly reflect on is that educational institutions are doing a good job of building skills, but some of the more nascent skills aren’t really there immediately after graduation, particularly in advanced analytics and artificial intelligence. We see fellowship programs stepping in to fill that void. ” Alexander says of Activision Blizzard. “We also think employers now have an obligation to be learning and development institutions to an extent as well. For example, in our early careers program, we take tech talent and expose them to rotations throughout the organization so they have the opportunity to work with different managers and pick up different teaming styles.”

Take this a step further by developing in-house apprenticeships or longer-term onboarding programs. It all depends on how specialized you want to get in employee training, but the consensus is: the more targeted the training, the better.

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7. Consider skills-based hiring vs. degree-based hiring

In a world where technology is often moving faster than education, skills-based hiring is on the rise. In fact, the average age of General Assembly’s learners is 30.

“What we’re screening for is persistence, grit, interest, and aptitude to move into our roles, especially when it comes to software engineering and data analytics,” Priya explains. “That means we’re not looking for prerequisites in the tech space—just a desire to learn… It’s all about understanding what skills companies really need. Often, we’re having deeper conversations with hiring managers to see if their roles truly do require a four-year degree or if they only require technical skills.”

Activision Blizzard is also very public about the types of skills people need to land a job in a development or engineering role. They’ve gone as far as to publish detailed information on how these skills can be learned without a 4-year degree, whether it’s via YouTube tutorials, books, bootcamps, or other means.

“And it's not just about skill-based hiring,” Alexander explains. “You actually need to work internally to reinvent the entire talent lifecycle through a skill-based lens. When you're meeting with business and finance partners to do your strategic workforce plan or your annual operating plan, you're actually having conversations about skills, not just roles. It’s no longer about headcount and budget allocation because you’re examining what the future of a software developer at your organization looks like.”

Skills-based hiring can be complemented with assessments per skill level that are objectively tested during the interview process. If companies use skills to define a career path, people won’t be as reliant on their boss leaving or some other adjacent role opening up to be advanced. This can lead to more organic, personalized growth.

8. Look for candidates who have conceptual, contextual, and project-based learning experience

“When we think about learning and development programs—particularly for engineering talent—we think about three different types of learning: conceptual learning, contextual learning, and project-based learning,” Alex says. “The conceptual learning is: ‘I’m learning these skills.’ Contextual learning is: ‘Here’s how I put these skills to use in the business when navigating problems.’ The project-based learning is: “I’m working with people to do the work, solve the problems, present my work, and get feedback on it.’”

According to Alexander, project-based learning offers the most advancement for students and job candidates. If a university program isn’t offering the necessary project-based learning opportunities, students can go out and find them through extracurricular activities, including (but not limited to) internships.

“We see a lot of folks who have pursued self-learning,” Priya adds. “What's great is that they're showing aptitude for self-guided training. They're following videos; they're practicing code using no-cost or low cost-cost resources. This can make for a great transition into a bootcamp or some other type of low-cost training, which in turn provides key project-based training.”

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9. List only relevant skills on job descriptions

Activision Blizzard recently ran analytics on its own engineering talent and built a model that asked: “What are the features of engineering hires over the last few years that predict success for the company?” Perhaps not surprisingly, they busted some of their own myths.

“We found requirements on our job descriptions that actually weren't relevant to the performance of engineers in our organization,” Alexander says. “We took them out, because they were constraining the pool both from a quantity perspective and a diversity perspective.”

One skill they used to list was gaming experience, which is indeed helpful when entering their organization. Yet because the gaming industry is small, that single requirement cut their candidate pool by 100-fold. By opening up the aperture at the top of the funnel, the company gained a competitive advantage by accessing engineers that its peers weren’t necessarily able to tap into.

“By offering ‘Level Up U,’ we were able to do skill-based hiring for engineers who know how to build software and had a computer science background but lacked the gaming experience,” Alexander says. “We then provided the gaming experience through a 12-week bootcamp. When we did it this way, we did not intentionally target women, but we ended up hiring 45% women. Given that only 22% of the US engineering labor market talent is female, it became a huge differential just by rethinking the way we were solving the problem.”

And it’s important to remember: the #1 value proposition for tech talent is not compensation; it's opportunities for career advancement and development. When companies invest in development, they also have a built-in retention mechanism.

10. Embrace a scaffolding learning approach to avoid the purple unicorn problem

“I think many of us are combating the purple unicorn problem, trying to find unrealistically perfect candidates,” Priya says. “Given this, I think a scaffolding learning approach is more likely to attract diverse talent, including those who are unsure about making the commitment to a junior tech role. With a scaffolding approach, people can come into jobs with skills they're learning from training and then apply them to the workplace, and employers can then help shape them further and build their own custom talent in-house.”

Companies may also benefit from being forthcoming about how they develop and support their employees—particularly in a time when development is a top value proposition for candidates.

How Handshake can help you target and attract tech talent

Handshake is here to help companies broaden their reach and adjust to the changing landscape of talent acquisition. And in tech, it’s all about recruiting for skills, offering development opportunities, and finding candidates who can get the job done.

To watch the full recording of our conversation with David and Chris—or to explore more content from Access 2023—check out the event page.

Visit more Access recaps:

Access recap: 10 tips to attract and develop in-demand tech talent

Learn how to think like a scientist by viewing your strategies as theories that need to be tested.

Get tips on building a “challenge network” to help vet your ideas through constructive criticism from those who have your best interests at heart.

Avoid the blinders that come with strong convictions and beliefs by questioning your own biases and conclusions.

With constant change roiling early talent recruitment and development, it can be hard for teams to stop and think. But as too many leaders know, once you think you know what is trending with talent—it’s time to think again.

During our recent Handshake Access 2023 event, we spoke with Adam Grant, the New York Times bestselling author of Think Again. As an organizational psychologist at Wharton, popular TED speaker, and host of the WorkLife and ReThinking podcasts, Adam examines the patterns of thinking that can cause us to miss out on opportunities that are right in front of us (as we also fail to rise to meet the challenges that threaten us).

We spoke with Adam to dig deeper into these topics and get tips for how employers can put these ideas into practice when recruiting, managing, and developing early talent. Check out what he had to say below!

Think like a scientist by viewing your strategies as theories that need to be tested

In his research, Adam has seen that people tend to slip into what he calls “preacher, prosecutor, or politician modes.”

Preachers proselytize ideas or points of view without digging into the research or firsthand experience (they’ve drunk the Kool-Aid).

Prosecutors try to debunk preachers and prove them wrong (to win an argument).

Politicians try to appease people in positions of authority while lobbying or campaigning for approval (not even bothering to listen to other people unless they’re already in agreement.)

“What scares me about all three of these mindsets is that, whether you are preaching, prosecuting, or politicking, you've already concluded that you're right and other people are wrong,” Adam says.

According to his research, the fix is to think like a scientist. Whether you're in HR, higher ed, or any type of leadership role, have the humility to know what you don't know and the curiosity to constantly seek new knowledge. That means running AB tests (or even ABCDE tests) and designing your experiments to account for as many possibilities as you can. Treat strategy as theory, and be open to testing it constantly. Then pivot when the need arises.

Be adaptable by embracing the changing world, questioning your assumptions, and building a “challenge network”

“I would say that the job of running an organization is to adapt as the world changes,” Adam says. “If you resist experimentation, you’re closing the door to learning.”

Never was this more apparent than in 2018, when Adam approached multiple Fortune 500 leaders about running an experiment that would allow employees to work remotely one day per week. Every leader balked at the idea, jumping to conclusions that people would be unproductive, and their company culture would fall apart.

Adam already had a meta-analysis showing that, as long as people were in the office together for half the week, there was no cost to letting them work remotely for the other half. Even so, the leaders he questioned met him with resistance.

And then the pandemic happened, forcing remote work. All those leaders had to think again—but under pressure that they could have avoided.

Avoid confirmation bias with work samples, skills-based hiring, and screening for qualities that will make bad leaders

Furthermore, Adam believes that if leadership skills are screened for during interviews vs. being taught on the job, it’s best to search for qualities that will prevent someone from being a good leader down the line.

“A good example of that would be the narcissistic personality,” Adam says. “Narcissists are more likely to rise to leadership roles. They project confidence, and we mistake it for competence. This is even true in elementary schools, where kids with larger personalities are more likely to be nominated as leaders by their peers.”

A workaround Adam suggests is to ask candidates to predict other people’s behavior, because data shows that, when requested to do so, people first ask themselves: How would I react in this situation?” They then project that onto their assessment of how others will act.

By isolating taking vs. giving behaviors, it can help you see into candidates’ value systems—and assess what types of leaders they might someday become.

Reframe the way you assess a candidate’s qualities

When doing reference checks and assessing a candidate’s qualities—say, their personality traits or potential level of loyalty to your company—it can be helpful to use strategies that don’t let a reference gloss over their true feelings about the person.

“When you're doing reference checks, you can frame your questions to give the reference a forced choice between two negatives,” Adam says. “So, when I'm trying to gauge whether somebody is a giver or a taker, I've asked, ‘What's more likely for this candidate—that they're too much of a pushover and become too soft-hearted and compassionate, or that they're occasionally a little bit manipulative?”

This forces a reference to think through their answers, which can result in a more honest assessment. If you set up your questions right, you may have an easier time identifying qualities you want—or don’t want—on your team. It can also help you determine what skills you’ll be able to teach a candidate once they’re a full-time employee.

With that same experience can also come baggage and blinders. “One of the things we see in the data is that the more experience you have, the more likely you are to fall victim to cognitive entrenchment,” Adam explains. “This is where you start to take for granted assumptions that need to be questioned.”

Be cautious of strong convictions and points of view

“My job as a social scientist is to look at the empirical evidence,” Adam says. “And what you see is that—consistently—the best decision makers in organizations are often indecisive. They're uncertain because they know important decisions are complex, and they want to get all the information on the table before they make up their minds.”

Adam’s best insight into this question came from Jeff Bezos when he was speaking at the executive’s spaceflight company, Blue Origin.

“What Jeff told me is that there are two sets of questions he asks himself when he's making a decision,” Adam explains. “The first questions are: How consequential is this decision? How high are the stakes? Next, are: How reversible is this decision? Am I about to walk through a door that's going to lock behind me, or is it more of a revolving door?”

This offers a chance to stop and think before making decisions—particularly big, irreversible ones. Adam references two companies who did stick to their strong convictions and points of view and suffered for it: Kodak and Polaroid. Both companies pioneered digital imaging in the 1980s, but they decided not to pursue it as a line of business, because it would kill their margins and destroy their profits from film. By using their identity to dictate their strategy, they closed themselves off from alternative ways of doing business.

To help ensure leaders don’t miss opportunities he suggests a “challenge network—a group of thoughtful critics that you trust to hold up a mirror so you can see your own blind spots more clearly.”

Realize that learning never stops

If you’re somebody who looks out at people around you and thinks, “You know what? I don't think that I need to change. I just need other people to change!” Adam suggests you rethink your views.

“I think we all want to be lifelong learners,” he says. “I also think the best way to do that is to wake up every morning and be excited to discover that you were wrong about something because then you're going to move closer to getting it right.”

When this mindset is applied to any situation in life or in business, it can only open new doors, whether it’s by encouraging a new solution to a troubling problem or a new lens through which to view your strategies.


Handshake is thrilled to bring new, cutting-edge ideas like Adam Grant’s into the world of early talent recruiting. Whether you’re in the market for new talent or want to learn how best to approach the recruiting process, we’re here to help. For more content from Access 2023—check out the event page.

Visit more Access recaps:

Access recap: 'Think again' about early talent with Adam Grant

Handshake Access is the leading conference on the future of early talent. At Handshake Access 2024, nearly 10,000 recruiters, career services professionals, and industry thought leaders came together live for conversation, data-driven insights, and future-focused strategies for early talent recruiting.


In case you missed it this year, check out these top 10 insights from employers, higher ed, and students on Handshake. Plus, save your spot for Handshake Access 2025 to stay updated on announcements!

Handshake Access 2024: 10 key takeaways on the state of early talent



1. Ensure authenticity and consistency in employer branding and communications. 

Gen Z gravitates toward genuine behind-the-scenes content and employee stories shared on the platforms they frequent most. Meet students on channels where they are: digital, mobile, and video.


2. Engage talent early and often. 

Christian Garcia, Associate Dean and Executive Director, Toppel Career Center, University of Miami, summed it up: “Early career recruiting is proactive recruiting!” Building touchpoints with students as early as freshman year fills your talent pipeline and boosts brand recognition—not to mention can build consumer loyalty. Early talent programming that is transformational for students and for your hiring funnel include, for example, campus events, proactive outreach, and internships.

3. Leverage AI responsibly to streamline recruiting. 

Implement AI strategically to accelerate sourcing and screening, but maintain the human touch in candidate engagement. Katy George, Chief People Officer and Senior Partner, McKinsey & Co., shared: "GenAI has something for everyone. More and more people have access, no matter their background and their skills to use this technology."

4. Partner across your organization to expand reach into talent pools. 

Wanda Hope, Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer at Johnson & Johnson, shared how her company has mobilized members of Employee Resource Groups as talent scouts and recruiting advocates to authentically connect with talent.

5. Prioritize accessibility and inclusivity to attract the best talent regardless of background and identity. 

“If you can’t see it, you can’t be it,” said Dr. Xavier Clark, Senior Accessibility Officer, Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Design an equitable recruiting process by engaging diverse talent early, ensuring events are accessible for students with disabilities—such as by providing translation, interpretation, and alternate spaces for neurodiverse students. Keep in mind that virtual recruiting is an important touchpoint for students who may not be able to meet on campus. 

6. Highlight opportunity for impact in the role and at your organization. 

Show Gen Z the potential to do meaningful work that aligns with their values, and paint a picture of career paths within your organization. Vasavi Rao, Director of Employment Brand and Recruitment Marketing at Enterprise Mobility, shared how they’ve shifted the narrative from being a rental car company to a global mobility pioneer that offers roles with immense room for growth.

7. Create content that adds value for students. 

Share guidance relevant to students' needs and interests, like interview tips, "day in the life" features, resume best practices, tips on how to transition from the classroom to the workplace, and so on. Don’t be afraid to fail as you experiment with new types and formats of content, such as video—you’ll learn from mistakes!

8. Invest in experiential learning. 

Internships, co-ops, apprenticeships and other hands-on programs set students up for post-grad success and feed your talent pipeline. Dr. Michael Rao, President of Virginia Commonwealth University, emphasized the importance of mentorship opportunities to prepare students for success in the workplace. Early talent needs to be able to visualize the career ladder; Ciara Salg, Senior Manager, Recruitment Marketing & Diversity Recruiting from Hilton and Amna Hasnain, Talent Acquisition Leader,Texas Instruments shared how their rotational programs get early talent in the door and foster internal mobility. 

9. Make skills central to hiring. 

Clearly communicate the competencies you're looking for in your job descriptions to help students translate their academic and extracurricular experiences, and articulate how they can grow at your organization. Mary Faye Cicero, Talent Acquisition Manager at Sherwin Williams, shared how a great candidate can mean a great set of skills. Major-agnostic and school-agnostic recruiting are two ways to progress skills-based hiring; audience members traded tips about searching by coursework for specialized roles.


10. Communicate clearly and transparently with candidates. 

Employers can stand out by sharing with students exactly where they are in the hiring process. Share timelines, manage expectations, communicate outcomes promptly, and make applying as seamless as possible.

Catch up on the Handshake Access Hub

Couldn't make it to Handshake Access live? Check out session recordings on the Handshake Access Hub.

A huge thank you to the Handshake community who made Handshake Access 2024 unforgettable. Let's keep the conversation going as we work together to create more opportunities for all.




Handshake Access

Access 2023 recap: The changing talent landscape with Laura Fuentes and Dr. Michael Sorrell

Access recap: 7 tips to maximize ROI on your early talent strategy

Access recap: Creating a future where we can Thrive with Arianna Huffington

Access recap: 10 tips to attract and develop in-demand tech talent

Access recap: 'Think again' about early talent with Adam Grant

What we learned at Handshake Access 2024