Make your mark with the Orange Graduate Panel
The Orange Make Your Mark Graduate Panel is a team of undergraduates, graduates and postgraduates who want to have a voice in the debate about what businesses must do to understand and inspire young people in the workplace.
Orange wants to help reconnect young people and businesses. Young people should have the opportunity to fulfil their potential at work and employers need to know how they can make the most of what young people have to offer.
We're giving graduates the chance to voice their ideas, opinions and expectations and have them heard!
What does it involve?
The Orange Make Your Mark Graduate Panel will meet at least three times a year to discuss relevant and tangible issues, and share their opinions with businesses. Members will also explore ideas for how they can make positive changes for everyone’s benefit.
Session one - April 2007
The first meeting of the Orange Make Your Mark Graduate Panel took place in April 2007. Key themes that emerged from the discussion include:
- Panel members feel recruitment techniques are an inadequate way to assess talents.
- Graduates demand authentic, transparent, responsible businesses - and recruitment processes that give an honest picture of what to expect.
Read more in our summary of the first meeting of the panel (PDF - 17 KB)
Graduates reveal the secret of hiring wellRead Director magazine's feature on the first Orange Make Your Mark Graduate Panel session.
You can also view our gallery of photos from the session.
Session two - July 2007
Headline conclusions from the second panel meeting included:
- Employers need to place more trust in graduates and be bold about giving them more responsibility to reveal their full potential.
- Employers should exploit young people’s adeptness at networking by building “mentor networks” to support their development
Read more in our summary of the second meeting of the Orange Make Your Mark Graduate Panel (PDF - 128 KB)
You can also watch some of the discussion in this video:
Talent on demand Read The Guardian's article on the second Orange Make Your Mark Graduate Panel session.
Session three - November 2007
Issues discussed in the third panel meeting included:
- Graduates feeling as though their ideas are not valued in the workplace
- Employers being unaware of potential new technologies, such as social networks and blogs