Helping the Civil Service to attract the best talent

Civil Service

The challenge

The Civil Service is a unique organisation providing a huge range of career opportunities for talented graduates. Their work impacts every aspect of society with more than 420,000 staff working in diverse areas across the UK.

The Civil Service Fast Stream offers an award-winning graduate leadership development programme.

To meet the needs of an increasingly diverse society, they need to attract, develop and retain talented people from all backgrounds to become their future senior leaders.

They contacted our Careers and Employability Service to help them to develop a strategic approach to recruitment and to make the most of their budget.

Working with the University of Nottingham on promoting the Civil Service Fast Stream to students has been an overwhelmingly positive experience. From the outset the University have been proactive in suggesting events and imaginative ways to engage students. The diverse outreach opportunities we’ve engaged in with the University have always been thoughtfully planned and efficiently run. I really appreciate the help they’ve given us in engaging with intelligent, talented and driven students and would highly recommend working with the University of Nottingham.
Lottie Free, Fast Streamer, Civil Service Fast Stream

What we did

The University’s Careers and Employability Service provided a dedicated account manager as a single point of contact for Civil Service Fast Stream. 

The Civil Service recruits from all disciplines and wanted to talk to students from a range of subject areas. We worked in partnership to develop a strategic programme of events to get them in front of and engaged with our students. These included:

  • Attending careers fairs in sectors including management, consulting and finance, public sector and charities
  • Opportunities to deliver presentations to students
  • Delivering an assessment centre skills workshop
  • Appearing on expert panel events
  • Attendance at speed networking events

Impact

Civil Service Fast Steam attended nine careers events over the course of 2018/19, leading to a significant increase in applications from our students. There was also a big increase in applications from BAME students.

The University and Civil Service Fast Stream meet regularly to review progress and to help target the most appropriate upcoming events. We’ve now been working together closely for more than five years.

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Find out how our Careers and Employability Service could help your business.
Visit our Recruit our students and graduates web page for more information or contact recruiterservices@nottingham.ac.uk

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