AUT set to deliver millennial workforce

Last year 7,200 students graduated from AUT. Photo / NZME

AUT is opening an on-campus recruitment service aimed at helping graduates get jobs.

The service, called AUT Internz, will offer personalised support and coaching to work-ready students and graduates.

Ella Monahan, director of development at AUT, said the university has always been focused on connecting industry and students, and wants to help graduates get their first taste of working life.

"AUT has always been quite focused on connecting industry and students, and so what we are trying to do is create another centralised way at AUT that industry can connect into our graduating talent," Monahan said.

"We want to be able to help students through their studies and into their first taste of working life."

Internz is a scaled-up version of a programme that has been in operation since 2014 to help recruit students for overseas internships.

In addition to this service, Internz will now have a stronger focus on matching graduates with New Zealand employers.

Monahan said years servicing global industry leaders and gaining an insight into what employers want has helped AUT to develop its support system.

"It's led to some extremely practical insights into supporting successful relationships between employers and graduates – that means putting the right students or graduates in front of employers at the right time, and providing our students with guidance to become work-ready and professionally presented," Monahan said.

"It's a launch pad for us to start talking with New Zealand employers.

"Now we're really confident to go out to our local market and be able to say 'Westpac, we're sending finance graduates to your New York office, how about you give them a shot in New Zealand'."

But one of its biggest changes is that students will get personalised support and be coached through the application process with local employers.

"Rather than just a job board where anybody can apply, we are kind of curating that for them," Monahan said.

"We have a recruiter that goes out and works with local employers that are offering paid internships or graduate roles, and then we have a candidate manager that screens our AUT students who are interested in the role and produces a shortlist of the best talent for local employers."

Millennials – those born between 1982 and 2004 – now make up over a third of the New Zealand workforce, according to Deloitte's 2018 Millennial Survey.

In 2017, 7,200 students graduated from AUT.

Anna Williams, director of student employability at AUT, said she was pleased the university could scale up its recruitment service offering.

"We've got a steady stream of graduating students ready to be employed who can demonstrate these skills thanks to a number of programmes we deliver to complement their academic study," Williams said.

Internz will be based at the university's City Campus.

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