Students talk to Deloitte live on Facebook

Friday, 22 January 2010 3 Comments

Deloitte New Zealand claims it made a world first in graduate recruitment by screening a live interactive show on Facebook yesterday.

Three Deloitte consultants, including partner Grant Frear, were live on video replying to questions typed in by students viewing the screening on Facebook.

Deloitte has 942 Facebook fans and around 50 people formally registered to watch the show, with an unknown number of unregistered viewers watching as well.

Waikato University accounting student Warren Hastie says he really enjoyed the show as it was an opportunity to interact with people already in the profession, to hear about their experience and find out what the jobs like.

"I found the answers they gave were very informative and they gave a lot of insight into what a job there would be like."

He says he views Deloitte as a progressive company looking forward and adapting the business to future trends and demands.

Auckland University student Natasha Endravadan says hearing about the Deloitte experiences and how they come across different situations on a daily basis was quite an eye-opener, as its so different from what is learnt while at university.

Deloitte talent acquisition manager Richard Long hosted the show and says it was a success, as Deloitte didn't know what response it would get.

He says the show only screened for half an hour so people didn't switch off.

"People like to media snack, they like bits of media rather than big chunks, so Deloitte tried to give a bite sized snack."

Tim Watts, director of Grad Connection which helps students find graduate jobs, tuned in to the show and says it is great to see a firm embrace a new medium like that.

"It can only grow for them from here as students return to uni soon and then the numbers will boom with followers.

"It will be interesting to see if any other firms jump on this bandwagon."

Long says the social media gives a sense of the intangible side of the company.

"You can look at the big four and say they're pretty much all the same, but our people and culture differentiates us and that's what this social media really conveys and gives students a sense of."

Long says Deloitte has other ideas in the pipeline for use of social media in graduate recruitment, so to watch this space.

"Unless you constantly push the boundaries of social media and 2.0 technology, you might as well not be in it. It's all about what's developing and looking at what you're going to do next."

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