Winner of the SAGEA Graduate Recruiter of the Year Award 2024 – Aarti Singh – believes that authenticity is the key to memorable student interactions.
SAGEA’s annual Candidate Insights asks recent graduates to name the graduate recruiters they came across on their job-seeking journey who made a lasting impression on them. The Candidate Insights does not provide a list of names or any prompts – so winning this Award means doing something exceptional to be top of mind.
I spent a delightful hour chatting with Aarti Singh, Senior Manager and Talent Acquisition Lead for graduates at PwC, and gained a strong sense of Aarti’s warm, engaging personality, the impression she makes on her graduates and just why she won the Award. But that is just the tip of the iceberg.
PwC’s national intake is around 500 graduates per year across several specialisms including audit, technology, digital, tax and accounting. With over 10,000 applicants, a robust applicant tracking system is critical. For audit appointments selection decisions are made based on thorough screening and between one and two interviews, which meant that in Aarti’s previous role she was doing an average of four to five graduate interviews a day during peak recruiting season!
Although she is not interviewing as much these days, much of Aarti’s day is filled with student interactions as she focuses on engaging with signed-up students, building relationships with them, dealing with questions and preparing a softer landing for them when they start work at PwC. Aarti has recently spearheaded PwC’s 6pm Club—an initiative spawned by PwC’s 6am Club for employees who want to advance and grow their digital skills. The 6pm Club’s curriculum addresses future skills, digital and tech skills, presentations, professional communication and “AI as your buddy”. The programme culminates in a showcase by the students and has been a resounding success.
For Aarti, the magic in her engagements is authenticity and transparency—remaining true to yourself and to the person you are interacting with makes the biggest impact. Being in tune with the candidate’s demeanour and tapping into who they really are builds rapport and puts them at ease. Getting candidates to talk about themselves and share their story—and then finding ways to relate to their story and share a little about herself—is part of Aarti’s success formula. Digital interviews present the interviewer with a small window into the candidate’s world and often there is something in the view that might be a conversation-starter—be it a poster on the wall or a trophy in the background. She shared an amusing story in which a candidate’s dog was in the room at the time of an online interview and let out a bark each time a certain word was mentioned! Although the candidate was mortified, it endeared her to Aarti and made the interview truly memorable.
I asked Aarti for tips on remembering candidate names and about her response times. Being intentional about repeating a person’s name during an interaction helps with remembering who’s who. When it comes to response times, Aarti’s goal is a 48-hour turnaround time on queries, but she admits that is not always possible given the volume of students she interacts with across 15 universities.
Naturally there is more to Aarti’s role than student engagement—she is responsible for strategic planning around PwC’s intake, reporting, social media and marketing engagement and ensuring that PwC is making an impact. No two days are the same and it’s the variety that keeps her on her toes. With many priorities to balance (and the 6pm Club!) the days can be long. Between her Jack Russell that keeps her busy, being a self-confessed foodie and an enthusiastic Sharks, Man’ United and F1 supporter and the social cheerleader among her friends, Aarti makes sure she maintains a good balance.
Youth development and upliftment is close to Aarti’s heart and her role at PwC affords her opportunities to make an impactful change to individuals, their families and even communities—by setting them on a meaningful career path with the employer of choice in the accounting sector.
Speaking of employer of choice: Aarti attributes PwC’s positioning to the dedication of her team, the value of the PwC brand and its evolution as an organisation that is never static, constantly innovating and preparing itself and its people to remain ahead of the curve. At PwC it truly IS about the people—keeping it real and being there to support and carry one another.
Aarti’s words of advice for other graduate recruiters? “If you are transparent, authentic and create a space where candidates feel seen and valued, which makes the recruiting process more human, your interactions with students will be memorable.”