Transportation Opportunities
Problem
How do you recruit 1,800 new transport planners to the industry in three years?
Brief
Today there are simply not enough transport planners. In fact there is such a severe shortage that the Government's £180billion Ten Year Transport Plan may be undeliverable without the profession attracting new recruits in rapid time. To address the imbalance the transport industry needs to recruit new people from a variety of backgrounds and with a variety of skills.
As part of a wider initiative to help recruit more Transport Planners, the Transport Planning Society, decided to try an online solution. A website was required that would link-up transport employers and graduates or job-changers who might not even be aware that they might be interested in a career in transport planning. The website needed to give background information, but more than that, employers needed to be able to post jobs, and browse the CVs of candidates who expressed an interest.
Solution
- Made Media developed a website with a fresh, youthful feel to appeal for graduates.
- An 'online career dating service' was designed that would match the interests, location and salary expectations of candidates to jobs and employers.
- An extranet was developed to allow employers to log-in and update information about their company, post jobs, and browse the CVs of candidates.
- An additional summer-placements module was developed for students. This provided a similar system, but for student summer placements, to encourage students to consider Transport Planning as a career.
Outcome
- Within two weeks of launch the website had solicited 250 candidate profiles. There are currently over 800 profiles online.
- The summer placement scheme was a massive success, with the online version soliciting five times the registrations of the previous years paper-based scheme.
- The website has moved beyond pilot phase, and has become a key part of the benefits of TPS Stakeholder membership.
- Further features are in development, such as an online course search.
