What can employers do better on campus? We asked university experts at WU Vienna, NYU Stern & EM Lyon who tell us about bad videos, over-estimated brands and good listening skills. As usual, they also share their personal lessons learned from this year.

Enjoy some insightful reflection about “favorite mistakes”, and a preview at what HR experts all over the world have up their sleeves for 2016!

-Julian & the APOLLO blog team in Berlin and Stockholm

Door 19: Ursula about fuddy-duddy videos and CEO statements

Who: Ursula Axmann

Role: Managing Director of the Career Center of Vienna University of Economics and Business

Where: Vienna, Austria

Question 1: What was your favorite mistake this year? The one you learned the most from.

We decided to produce an official company video for our website. We developed a detailled script, hired a professional film team, make-up artists, … much time and energy was spent, every  detail planned in order to deliver a perfect result. The outcome was a fuddy-duddy and inauthentic video clip.

We now do spontaneous videos, recorded on our mobile phones, with staff or students as speakers, which our audiences love! The quick and easy way is sometimes the best!

Question 2: When it comes to engaging students on campus: what is the one thing that companies still have to learn the most?

Companies should communicate with students on a level playing field. Students would prefer to learn about an employer through the eyes of an alumni rather than through a presentation by a CEO.

Get in touch with Ursula on LinkedIn.

Door 20: A lesson in reflection and listening with Roxanne

Who: Roxanne Hori

Role: Associate Dean at NYU Stern School of Business

Where: New York City, USA

Question 1: What was your favorite mistake this year? The one you learned the most from.

What I learned this year is that listening, digesting and making sure you’ve got the big picture is key. Don’t rush in with your “great” ideas until you know for certain that idea isn’t already being done or that it recently resulted in something not working. I’ve learned to ask more questions and to take a pause before pushing forward. Hopefully, I can continue to do this in 2016.

Question 2: When it comes to engaging students on campus: what is the one thing that companies still have to learn the most?

Respond to students. Students are future employees and customers of any recruiting organization.  Often we hear from students that they haven’t heard the final disposition of an interview. It seems so simple, yet within some organizations, this lack of response happens.  Clearly communicate your processes to students via your web site as well as when you are campus.

It seems with all the tools we have available to us, that the biggest frustrations students experience is around communication during the job search process.

Get in touch with Roxanne on LinkedIn.

Door 21: Marc’s advice to forget your brand for a moment

Who: Marc Pérennès

Role: Head of Employer Engagement & Career services | Graduate Programmes at EMLYON Business School

Where: Lyon, France

Question 1: What was your favorite mistake this year? The one you learned the most from.

My favorite mistake this year: on a very specific and challenging project, having thought that –to optimize success- I should handle it very methodically in a very logical, rational and “project management” way.

Doing this, I was –with my team mates- building my/our own constraints and justifying that –if step 2 is not on schedule- the expected result was impossible to reach.

I learned to act a new way, and give up just thinking. “Forget, erase from your brain that this challenging project or goal may be impossible: just go ahead and forget constraints you have built yourself, make the possibly impossible possible – and just check at the end what happened.

It did not work? You made your best and you are still alive. It worked: you and your team are heros and did things that you never even thought were possible. At the same time, you learned a lot and created new opportunities because you were on “new territories”. And this can even apply for a challenging internship or job search!

Question 2: When it comes to engaging students on campus: what is the one thing that companies still have to learn the most?

Humility and empathy maybe? Just as a (good) salesman/woman visiting a possible customer: forget your brand is famous or well known. Try in your posture to start from scratch and to listen and learn what your targeted audience think of you/your employer brand.

As acting so, you may appear different and more attractive and even learn from your listening. This may also create new approaches/innovation  in employer branding “operations”  and improve your results.

So, I started my answer with “humility + empathy” which has transformed into “posture + innovation”. Interesting! “Inventing new ways” is the way I see my job and the job of my team on a daily basis and we are always happy to enter such discussions with employers from all over the world. That is also why I appreciate so much our cooperation with Entrypark/Potentialpark and their “fresh” thinking way! 🙂

Get in touch with Marc on LinkedIn.

The final 3 doors: Coming up on Dec 22th…

…so if you like to hear more stories, join us here, on the APOLLO blog. Our motto is Applying Online & Loving It, and that’s why we like to share data, best practices and opinions on employer branding and the candidate experience!

Read doors 1 to 3

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Read doors 22 to 24