In the last few months, college recruiting and internship programs have been refocused, scaled back and in many cases cancelled. Internships have become digital internships, and on-campus, hiring has gone virtual. So what are the long term implications for early careers and how are companies reimagining their future talent strategies?
My guest this week is Dawn Carter, Director of Global University Recruiting at Uber. In our conversation, Dawn talks about the effect of the pandemic on Uber’s internship programs and campus recruiting activity and also share her thoughts on what the future of early careers recruiting might look like.
In the interview, we discuss:
• Uber’s approach to university recruiting and how it is changing
• Moving to digital internships
• Changing student attitudes to university study
• Market realities
• Reimagining on-campus events
• Differentiating employer brand
• Can high tech also be high touch?
• Moving from talent acquisition to talent marketplaces and long term talent engagement.
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Transcript:
Matt Alder [00:00:00]:
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Matt Alder [00:01:23]:
Hi everyone, this is Matt Alder. Welcome to episode 278 of the Recruiting Future podcast. In the last few months, college recruiting and internship programs have been refocused, scaled back, and in many cases cancelled. Internships have become digital internships and on campus hiring has gone virtual. So what are the long term implications for early careers and how are companies reimagining their future talent strategies? My guest this week is Dawn Carter, Director of Global University Recruiting at Uber. In our conversation, dawn talks about the effect of the pandemic on Uber’s internship programs and campus recruiting activity and also shares her thoughts on what the future of early careers recruiting might look like. Hi dawn and welcome to the podcast.
Dawn Carter [00:02:20]:
Welcome Matt, it’s nice to chat with you.
Matt Alder [00:02:22]:
An absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Could you just introduce yourself and tell us what you do?
Dawn Carter [00:02:27]:
My name is Dawn Carter and I am the Director of Global University Recruiting and Programs at Uber. Been there for about nine months.
Matt Alder [00:02:37]:
Tell us a little bit more about what what that job means within Uber, what Uber does in terms of university recruiting, and then maybe we can sort of talk about how that’s changed in the light of recent events.
Dawn Carter [00:02:46]:
Yeah, it’s a great question. When I was brought on in September, it actually was the first time that they had centralized university recruiting before had been decentralized, kind of under business unit approach and sometimes even more narrow than that. And so we had a team of roughly 30 people globally working on university recruiting and programs. And we just felt the organization, felt the leaders felt that it was really essential to start building a really foundational best in class program. And so what we did was we’ve been journey over the last, you know, eight or nine months since I’ve been here to form a centralized team to drive to common vision and strategic priorities that will take us to a, you know, our true north, our destination of, of what that means to us. You know, what’s interesting though is what we started with and where we’re at is a little bit of a difference of a journey related to COVID 19. I think it has allowed us as a team to take another step back and make sure we have the right vision, set and strategic priorities. And that’s an exercise we’re doing right now. And in all of that, we’ll understand what our pillars are, we’ll understand what type of offerings we provide to the organization and then that will help us drive to what is the right org structure for us. So a lot has happened in nine months. A lot of craziness, a lot of learnings. But for Uber, it’s kind of that next destination of top talent for our roles that we hire for.
Matt Alder [00:04:32]:
It’s probably a bit too early to say in a definitive fashion, but how is COVID 19 affecting university recruiting so far? And is it something that’s being replicated all around the world?
Dawn Carter [00:04:45]:
Yeah, it’s a great question. I think the one thing I can say is that it’s nothing is the same and everything is different. You know, each university is managing their process globally very differently. And that also translates to how organizations like Uber are thinking about how we go back on campus and how we manage all of our processes. You know, we had a small SWAT team that in less than a month and a half took an entire in person intern program to an entire virtual format program. You know, and from that, you know, we have interns working for uber in over 30 different countries this summer, which is a challenging in itself. Right. How do you have a virtual relationship with a student? So it’s something we’re working on, I think will take a lot of learnings from the intern program that will help us drive what our programs look like for the fall. But I think the one thing is that nothing will be the same and hopefully everything can be different. And what I mean by that is I think this ability to have a connection to a student will change. And what is the new balance like? What is the new balance of in person and virtual? What will that look like? What is most important to Generation Z? That may not have been as important two months ago or three months ago. So, you know, it’s been really interesting to watch. I’m very excited to see how kind of the next season of, you know, graduate and intern recruiting takes place and what learnings we have from it.
Matt Alder [00:06:36]:
There are a lot of employers out there who have scaled back their student recruitment or even canceled their intern programs. Obviously that’s not something that you’re doing.
Dawn Carter [00:06:47]:
Well.
Matt Alder [00:06:47]:
What are the, what are the dangers for employers of kind of withdrawing from, from the market at this, at this particular stage?
Dawn Carter [00:06:54]:
You know, if you would have asked me in 2008, 2009, I would have most likely and most doubtfully given you a very different answer. But I think in today’s world, every organization had to do what’s best for them. And in every organization, whatever decisions they made that was tough were really tough. I can’t imagine having to cancel your intern program, but I don’t know of a company out there that did that in a way that didn’t make the best sense for the student or the company or the organization. At Uber, we were, while we did not cancel our intern program, we do have interns that are currently working in different countries that we just couldn’t support in a way that made sense for them and for us. And so in those cases, if we weren’t able to defer their internship, we have ended up paying them out. So we paid them out for their entire internship and housing stipend because we really felt that’s super important. You know, student debt is one of the biggest things that, across students mind. And so making sure that at least if they have that coupling of outcomes for the financial way, then while we would have loved to have an internship experience, we couldn’t in some of those cases. And probably the other hard factor that Uber had to look at is, you know, we have recently gone through layoffs and we had to also balance that with reneging on a number of new college grad offers globally. And that’s not our first choice, our second choice, or our third choice. It was a choice we had to balance between layoffs, onboarding, what type of work was going to be here, how the shift of the mobility of people was ever changing in our world. So, you know, for each company, I think no one took it lightly. And for us, we understand as an organization, we have to rebuild the trust with students around. Please accept a conversion offer with us. And a year from now we, you know, we promise that the job will be here. When that was not the case this.
Matt Alder [00:09:11]:
Year, again, it’s probably too early to kind of say definitively what’s happening. But obviously universities all over the. All over the world are looking to their next academic year and how they’re going to be able to deliver their teaching programs. And there’s obviously a huge amount of talk about online learning and blended learning and all these, you know, all these kind of radical changes for many, many institutions. How do you think that’s going to affect student attitudes in terms of how people select universities they go to and whether they choose to go at all?
Dawn Carter [00:09:43]:
Yeah, I mean, I. It will be interesting to see. I think what I would love to see is there some students that decide to go a trade degree right? In this country and globally, we still need people that are welders and masonry people and mechanics, and maybe there are folks that decide to go that route. I think that’s an awesome opportunity globally for us to build an impact of type of talent that may be lacking in some of our countries. From an. From a university perspective, I don’t know when we’ll actually see the outcry or the outfall from it. And what I mean by that is, you know, especially in the United States and even in Canada, I think we’re going to see decreased amount of students enrolling. I think we’ll see potentially an increase in gap year. We’ll definitely see a decrease in students coming here to take graduate programs, master’s in engineering and science, which then has a downward impact to us a year from now or two years from now when we’re trying to hire them as interns or new college grads. And I also, as you mentioned earlier, which I love the thought which is, you know, if I’m a student and I’m going to a top university and that university is virtual, would I pay the enormous tuition fees for that first year or can I go locally and transfer later? So I think the whole migration of how talent is going to do their first year or second year is drastically going to change. In some countries where students have choices, right. In smaller countries where maybe there’s just a few universities, we may not see the same impact. But I do think in some countries where students have choices, they’ll stay closer to home. If they’re going to do virtual, they might as well pay a state price versus a premium price for a private university. So I think more to come, but I definitely think the downward impact is we will have less students to hire, and that will mean more competition for an already, you know, small resource that we need to hire from certain pools of talent.
Matt Alder [00:11:55]:
So coming back to the activity that you’re sort of doing right now and through the rest of 2020. How do you sort of differentiate yourself as a brand when everyone’s working remotely?
Dawn Carter [00:12:07]:
Wow, great question. I think we have to go back to what’s basics for Uber, which is we are trying to solve very complex problems around mobility of people, mobility of freight and how we’re changing that world and where safety is extremely important both to our drivers, to our riders. But I think some of that and continued all of that can still be done from a virtual insight. And I think we have to be really thoughtful of how we onboard teams and how we bring teams back as an organization. We’re working from home until the end of Q3 and that’s for us in September and we may start having people go back later this summer, but that’s going to be very small percentage of our employees going back. And so for me, if I look at when do I think I’ll have 100% of the ur team back in an office? I don’t know. I really don’t think it’s going to be till the end of the year or beginning of next year based on making sure we’re balancing the wellness of our employees, the safety of our employees. So I think as a, as a leader I have to work with my team and to understand how do we build that cohesiveness of his team virtually and then how do we even share that with students as a brand. Right. And what that may look like and how their first year may be different than their second year or their third year of an organization.
Matt Alder [00:13:45]:
You mentioned the mix between face to face and virtual and what that might look like in the future. And obviously universities teaching online only and everything that’s going on, looking at the on campus events and on campus relations, there’s obviously technology out there currently that allows that to happen remotely or virtually. Do you think that that’s an area needs to dramatically accelerate in terms of sophistication? Do you think that the existing tools are fit for purpose in this, in this kind of new version of the world?
Dawn Carter [00:14:19]:
I think they’re fit for purpose for right now. I agree with you that I think as we balance what becomes virtual and that’s okay with students to what eventually will go back to being in person. There has to be a fine balance of still high tech and high touch. And I don’t know if all of the high tech is in a place that is going to make it seem right or useful or engaging for a student. What I worry about is that, you know, most organizations are in person and on campus. And when you shift to that being a flip of that for students, then what challenges and scares me is the stress we’re going to put on students. So, you know, if we’re attending one or two events virtually, and now students are attending 30 or 40 events virtually, will there be that virtual fatigue? And I don’t even know if that’s the right word, but I do worry about the stress this puts on students and how they’re going to manage all of this shift to virtualness so that they feel like they still have the same access to the same roles and organizations.
Matt Alder [00:15:39]:
You talked about at the beginning that you’ve been reviewing this strategy and really looking at where your kind of North Star was in terms of this type of recruiting. Obviously early careers, graduate recruitment, campus recruitment, whatever it’s called in whatever part of the world is always evolving in terms of how companies look for talent in different ways and fit that talent into their organization. How do you think this is evolving anyway? Do you think it looks different in the future from a talent acquisition perspective?
Dawn Carter [00:16:07]:
Yeah, I definitely do and I hope it looks different. Right. I think there is this shift around even the verbiage of is it, are you just acquiring talent, Is it just talent acquisition or are you really thinking about a talent marketplace or a talent enablement or, you know, where you’re enabling a group of talent to learn and understand yourself, but to also be able to engage with them in a different way? And so I definitely think there is a shift from just kind of this talent acquisition to talent engagement. And I think that some organizations are already doing this. But you know, to me, just acquiring talent means you’re just thinking about ready now talent. And if you think about a talent marketplace, you’re thinking about not only ready now talent, but future ready talent. So how you’re engaging with the students or professors or faculty through all stages of the relationship life cycle. And then how do you think about building different connections, that path forward that you can nurture and grow and innovate and students may not have thought about you, now think about you. And so I think in the long run it’s just a shifting of how we think about talent and where that acquisition of talent actually sits. Right. So I think it’s in a journey and it’s in a place where for some organizations they were already on this journey and I think for a lot of organizations with COVID 19 that they’re kind of forced into having maybe conversations earlier than they would have had or where their company or organization is, is ready for.
Matt Alder [00:17:57]:
So final question, I suppose, to maybe focus on the positives in the. In the situation. So, you know, you said that you’re effectively now running these digital internships. What have you learned from that? What surprised you? What have been some of the positives of shifting things in that way?
Dawn Carter [00:18:14]:
You know, we, we definitely, as a team, our, our programs, because we are so decentralized, are more alike than they are apart, which is great. We are learning that the students have this enormous amount of tenacity and ability just to bend and go and try. And definitely, I think we’re seeing them build even internal communities among themselves in a different way than we probably would have had they been 100% in person. They’re meeting interns that are global, that they may not have had interactions with in our older program. And so I think for us, it’s definitely insights from the interns. They’re not afraid to tell us what’s going well. They’re not afraid to tell us what’s not working well. And so we’re able to pivot and quickly pivot and change direction for them. And so it has been insightful and delightful. A little challenged, I think, to, to onboard 500 plus interns. And how do we make sure everyone has laptops? But everyone has been extremely gracious that we still have the intern program. A lot of their friends may not have had the same impact. So overall, it’s been a lot of fun so far. We have our last set of cohorts starting this month, and so it’ll be exciting kind of summer to see this continuation.
Matt Alder [00:19:45]:
Don’t. Thank you very much for talking to me.
Dawn Carter [00:19:47]:
Thank you so much, Matt. It’s been a pleasure.
Matt Alder [00:19:50]:
My thanks to Dawn Carter. You can subscribe to this podcast in Apple Podcasts or via your podcasting app of choice. Please also follow us on Instagram. You can find the show by searching for recruiting future. You can also listen and subscribe to the show on Spotify. You can find and search all the past episodes@www.recruitingfuture.com. on that site, you can subscribe mailing list and find out more about working with me. Thanks very much for listening. I’ll be back next time and I hope you’ll join me.
