Gripple
Working collaboratively to increase graduate scheme applications.
About our organisation
At Gripple Ltd, a B CorpTM-certified company and MX Awards Manufacturer of the Year 2022, we design, manufacture, and sell innovative, patented products for the construction, agriculture, solar and infrastructure markets.
The challenge
As a Sheffield-based business committed to both attracting and retaining talent in the region, we were very keen to work more closely with the University of Sheffield on a more holistic level, rather than solely attending careers fairs.
Our retention of trainees on our graduate scheme is historically good, but analysis clearly shows that graduate trainees who either hailed from the South Yorkshire and Derbyshire region or who studied locally were far more likely to build a longer-term career at Gripple. We therefore decided on a strategy of focusing our efforts on attracting Sheffield students to the business and working in partnership with the University to identify and attract that talent.
We felt that, whilst relatively well known in the region, our profile amongst Sheffield students was not as high as it could be, so this needed to be addressed.
What we did
We worked closely with the Careers & Employability Service at the University, explaining our strategy and intended approach to them. The team was very supportive and provided us with details of several initiatives where Gripple could get involved to raise our profile and attract high-calibre students onto the graduate scheme, and indeed, other entry level roles in the business.
The range of activity included careers fair attendance of course, but we were also able to involve our University of Sheffield alumni in the business in an eMentoring scheme, an employability workshop on interview skills and we purchased an ‘Employer of the Week’ slot within the Gripple Graduate Scheme recruitment window which included a social media campaign. We also took on an MBA student to complete a marketing project within the advanced manufacturing arm of the business, in addition to hosting a group of MBA students at our headquarters, where they were invited to take part in an innovation challenge!
The result
We were thrilled to see a marked increase in University of Sheffield applicants to our graduate scheme. In 2022, 15% of all applicants were University of Sheffield students. That percentage rose to 24% in 2023. What was particularly pleasing was that, of the 18 students at our 2023 assessment centre, 12 came from one of the two local universities, and one of the successful candidates was a University of Sheffield student, graduating this summer with a BA Hons in Economics and Spanish and joining the Gripple Graduate Scheme in September 2024.
We are very much committed to building on this new relationship as we now plan for next year’s graduate scheme and beyond.
University of Sheffield applications to our graduate scheme increased from 15% to 24% in a year as a result of the partnership we have built with the team there.
Emma Hibbert
Recruitment Manager, Gripple Ltd