Across early careers hiring, the challenge isn't attracting talent — it's converting it. Application volumes are rising, but more students are dropping off before they even apply, often due to unclear processes or overwhelming journeys.
At the same time, AI is making it easier to apply at scale, while making it harder to spot genuine interest and genuine potential.
In this session, we'll explore insights from over 10,000 students and hear directly from students themselves to uncover what's really driving application decisions in 2026, and how TA teams can adapt their strategies to attract, engage, and convert early talent more effectively.
What you’ll learn:
- Why nearly 70% of candidates are put off before applying, and the quick fixes that can improve conversion
- How AI is quietly inflating application volumes while making it harder to identify your best candidates
- What actually drives students to apply, and why salary, clarity, and role content matter more than employer brand spend
- Which engagement channels are genuinely moving candidates from browsing to applying in 2026
- How differences in confidence, salary expectations, and AI usage should shape your early careers strategy — straight from the source
Agenda
02 June 2026
10:00 – Opening announcements
10:10 – Guest speakers panel discussion
10:40 – Live audience Q&A session
10:55 – Closing comments
11:00 – Event close
Event Partner
Handshake partners with leading employers across the UK and Europe to build stronger early talent pipelines through precision hiring. With over 1 million verified students and graduates in Europe Handshake enables organisations to identify, engage and convert high-intent candidates at scale.
By combining targeted outreach, behavioural insight and employer brand visibility, Handshake helps early careers teams move beyond volume-led recruitment to more strategic, data-informed and student-centred hiring.
Register for the event
With over 15 years of experience, Peter's approach focuses on growth through strategic initiatives, leveraging customer research to create insight-driven sales funnels. This strategy avoids over-reliance on increasing budgets and scatter-gun channel approaches.
For more than seven years, he led the growth function at Splend, an international car subscription scale-up and Uber’s largest EV partner. Navigating a nascent and unregulated industry, he helped achieve subscription growth of more than 500%. At Splend, his high-performance cross-continental team was consistently benchmarked as one of the top teams for staff retention and engagement scores.
Natasha Preocanin is the Managing Director for In-house Recruitment (IHR), the largest and most engaged community for In-house Recruiters. Our 20,000+ community benefit from over 70 live and virtual events each year ranging from our 1000-strong exhibitions and high profile awards to exclusive half-day breakfasts and targeted dinners for Recruitment Leaders. We also produce industry leading digital whitepapers, webinars and leadership videos alongside high value community forums and an all-inclusive supplier directory.
With a background in events, Natasha's joined the company in 2012 as an Events Executive and quickly progressed up the ranks to her current position as MD. She now leads the company in becoming the go-to resource for all In-house and Talent Acquisition teams who are looking to become better recruiters. Natasha can often be seen on stage, hosting our events or behind a microphone, interviewing a host of industry experts.