Prospects taps into Discord to connect recruiters with Gen Z
UK's first Tech Careers Fair with Discord: 1-4pm, 21 October 2021
Graduate careers experts Prospects, part of Jisc, is launching the first Tech Careers Fair in the UK to be hosted on communications service Discord, addressing the generational gap between recruiters and people in their teens and early twenties.
The event will connect employers and educational institutions with hard-to-reach young talent interested in technology careers. Recruiters will meet students, advertise roles and courses and explain exactly what they are looking for, while students and graduates will find new opportunities and discover where their career could take them.
The fair is free to attend and take part. Prospects is looking for employers who have a range of tech graduate and apprentice roles to fill each year as well as educational institutions that offer tech apprenticeship courses and undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. It is also seeking people who are already in tech careers or who are studying relevant courses to talk to students.
The Prospects Discord server, akin to a conference building, has been designed so that the experience is similar to what students would expect at a physical careers fair. Categories and channels act like smaller rooms, providing useful information as well as spaces for talking and meeting.
Users orientate themselves in the Start Here category where employers, careers advisors and mentors will be recognisable by a badge and a Roles channel helps employers and educators find out more about students.
Two main event stage channels use Discord's large-scale voice and video format so that employers and educators can run talks with up to 10,000 people at once. They will also be able to host their own personalised channels where they can provide company information and run voice or text discussions about careers and roles.
The Student Community channels enable students to interact while careers advisers run a category on CV Help. Students will also be able to explore the full range of tech careers by talking to professionals working in roles from software development and UX design to cyber security and data analysis.
The server's longevity means that it can continue to grow beyond the constraints of a timed event, providing students with a place to find resources and chat longer term.
Discord emerged for gamers but its popularity exploded and it now has over 150 million monthly active users globally including Prospects' target audience of around four million young people aged 16-23 in the UK.
Sarah Brookes, marketing and business operations director for Student Services at Jisc said, 'While Discord is used to build brands it is rarely applied to recruitment. Every year employers are left with unfilled tech vacancies and one of the main challenges they face is many recruiters don't use the same channels as people in their teens and early twenties. Discord is a hot platform for communicating with this hard-to-reach demographic and should provide ripe ground for reaching them.
'Students are generally very comfortable when talking online and engagement increases when they don't have to worry about being in front of a camera. The text heavy format of Discord provides an element of privacy perfect for meeting young people. The fair lasts for three hours so students have plenty of opportunity to move around and meet prospective employers.'
Visit Prospects Discord.
Media enquiries
Clare Tregaskis, Prospects and Jisc Student Services, clare.tregaskis@jisc.ac.uk, 07792 429227
About Prospects
Prospects has worked at the heart of higher education for nearly 50 years. Part of Jisc Student Services, the directorate collaborates with government, universities and employers to improve student and graduate career outcomes through information, guidance and opportunities. It includes Prospects.ac.uk, which is visited by 2.1 million students and graduates each month, Prospects Luminate and the UK's official postgraduate course database. Jisc Student Services also manages Prospects Hedd degree verification and fraud services.
About Jisc
Jisc's vision is for the UK to be a world leader in technology for education and research. It owns and operates the super-fast national research and education network, Janet, with built-in cyber security protection. Jisc also provides technology solutions for members (colleges, universities and research centres) and customers (public sector bodies), helps members save time and money by negotiating sector-wide deals and provides advice and practical assistance on digital technology. Jisc is funded by the UK higher and further education and research funding bodies and member institutions.
For more information, contact kate.edser@jisc.ac.uk, or 07918 562869. Alternatively, use media@jisc.ac.uk or 07443 983571.