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The Pillars of an Award-Winning Program
Principal Financial Group was selected as a 2024 Campus Forward Award Winner for their unwavering commitment to seeking out and hiring early career talent and investments in nurturing and retaining the next generation of diverse talent. Please see below for the highlights of their approach to early career recruitment.
Multi-Faceted and Thoughtful Approach to University Recruitment
The Principal team leverages a blended approach of large, traditional recruiting fairs and smaller, more intimate touchpoints with campus and student organizations during the spring and fall semesters. However, most Principal representatives hitting campus this year were individuals aligned with disciplines they were actively recruiting for. The talent acquisition programming team aims to equip these talent liaisons with leading market analyses on trends and student sentiments to empower their direct activities on campus. This not only alleviates any capacity constraints placed on the small 2-person programming team, it activates relevant internal stakeholders to be champions of the recruiting message and early career talent programs while bridging connections between students and professionals within desired career tracks. Liaisons leverage market insights, bias mitigation workshops, and employee value proposition to be effective recruiting champions.
Impactful Internship Program
Principal empowers interns to develop both personally and professionally along desired and future-leaning skillsets. Interns are equipped with a LinkedIn learning license, dedicated leaders and mentors, and enterprise programming that holistically touches on career readiness competencies provided by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) and is informed by former intern sentiments. Interns work with their leaders to better understand team and individual outcomes they're assisting with during their internship and how these roll up to our department-level and enterprise strategic initiatives. Throughout their experience they’re encouraged to broaden their professional networks and career exposure through 1:1 job shadows, engagement with our employee resource groups (ERGs), and connection opportunities encompassing peer through executive levels.
Growth and Development of the Next Generation of Talent
The Principal early career talent program strategy is multi-pronged and focused on supporting two key early identification opportunity types: collegiate internship programs and entry-level rotational programs (leadership and discipline-specific). Principal builds off existing infrastructure and frameworks to empower the personal and professional development of students and entry-level hires in these programs. This foundation starts with Principal's core values, ensuring early identification programs expose students to purpose-driven culture and work style. From here, they authentically integrate employee value propositions so young professionals receive a deep understanding of the employer’s commitment to their success. Finally, Principal integrates tenets of the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ (NACE) career readiness competencies to ensure they're helping to develop and empower the workforce of the future.