Morgan McKinley Drives Client Growth with 280 Intern Placements

A summer student internship is a win-win. It allows an employer to raise its profile among the next generation of graduates and identify potential future permanent employees, whereas it is an amazing opportunity for the interns to acquaint themselves with the recruitment process and gain some invaluable work experience. However, such a programme imposes a massive administrative burden over a short-term period, distracting the HR team from "business as usual”. The client resolved the problem by turning to a trusted partner, Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions.

As a strong, diversified, vertically integrated utility, the company operates right across the electricity market, from generation through transmission and distribution to supply.

Today, the company is a leading Irish utility focused on providing excellent customer service and maintaining its financial strength. It has a regulated asset base of approximately €9 billion, with 43% of electricity generation capacity in the all-island market. It currently supplies electricity to approximately 1.5 million customers throughout the island of Ireland.

The company has a highly trained and committed workforce of more than 7,000 people operating in a diverse and high-skilled business.

Thousands of undergraduates look for work experience at the end of their second and third academic years, to enrich their academic lives and help them think about future careers. The competition to attract the brightest and best of them is intense. For the past three years, Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions has assisted the company with its summer student campaign.

The company’s HR team decided to outsource the project as there was such a high volume of recruitment activity to be completed in a short timeframe. Graduate recruitment also provided an excellent opportunity to raise the visibility of the organisation and to reinforce a positive employer brand among a key target audience, therefore the project needed to be handled sensitively and with a high degree of efficiency – a stellar candidate experience was imperative.

Starting in 2013, the company engaged Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions to manage a two-month annual project to hire 80+ summer students for three-month internships. The project started in February and the internships commenced in the first week of June.

The company selected Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions because of our capacity to manage a high volume of hiring, as well as our ability to conduct in-person interviews and phone screening. Within the two-month project timeline agreed in detail with the company each year, Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions allowed 10 days for application screening, two weeks for telephone interviews, and 3-4 weeks for onsite face-to-face interviews.

This project has since then been extended to additional projects and has been ongoing for the past three years.

HR Specialist at the company was delighted with how the campaigns had progressed:

“My experience with Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions was professional and seamless. They understood our requirements and delivered them in an efficient, friendly manner. I would be very happy to work with them again.”

The summer student campaigns in Dublin and Cork have resulted in 280 hires over the three years from 2013 to 2016 while enabling the company’s HR team to focus on other talent acquisition and general HR activities. The interns then worked on a three-month fixed-term contract basis. The cost per hire was a fixed fee, which gave the company full transparency over costs.

Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions made all of the hires directly, i.e., without recourse to third-party agencies, streamlining communication on the project.

“Over these three years, we met our service level agreement targets with the company by 100%."

- Programme Manager, Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions.

By outsourcing the campaigns to Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions, the recruitment team at the company was able to focus on “business as usual” roles, secure in the knowledge that Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions would handle the end-to-end process professionally and efficiently, projecting the right image for the company.

Many of the interns subsequently joined the company on a full-time basis in graduate roles as diverse as electrical engineering and customer care.

“The programme allowed the organisation to introduce the company to some of the brightest and best talent in Ireland, providing a pool of potential future candidates and customers while raising awareness of the company as a leading employer brand."

- Morgan McKinley Talent Solutions.

It also benefited the candidates equally.

“Successful candidates benefited from the subsequent work experience, but everybody got the opportunity to acquaint themselves with the recruitment process. We provided detailed feedback to unsuccessful candidates, for example, on how to write a compelling CV or handle interview questions, which will be of assistance to them in seeking future opportunities,”.