Building an Innovative and Multi-Faceted Approach to University Recruiting

Finding a rainbow in the grey skies of COVID, Ford has made a strong effort to reach out to schools outside of its traditional Midwest roots with the move to virtual recruitment. They have participated in job fairs for schools across the country and hosted events for students from any school. Ford has also participated in several organization-based recruitment events to attract students no matter where their physical school is located.

Crafting a Standout Candidate Experience

Ford has recently made a pivot to an always-on college recruiting strategy, standing up a team of 10 full-time professional recruiters for internship and early career hires. This gives candidates a contact who is interested in their success, no matter what school they go to, or what department they want to intern in. The team is strongly utilizing Handshake to streamline job fairs, corporate events, and communication into one platform. Ford has identified a team of 100 internal Talent Ambassadors who are full-time employees available to talk with students about their career at Ford and how they can be a successful candidate.

Moving the Needle on Diversity & Inclusion

Ford’s University Relations team has three members devoted to DE&I in college hiring. These team members are coordinating with Ford’s Employee Resource Groups to have a large presence at many identity-based organization job fairs. They’ve also organized training for internal talent-ambassadors to teach them how to overlook unconscious bias in hiring decisions. The Real Talk Tuesday series had employees from diverse backgrounds talk about their experiences at Ford. The events were marketed to students and are available on YouTube to be reviewed by anyone at any time.