A health check for your Early Careers.
How does your Early Careers programme really compare? ECO benchmarks your Early Careers function against the market on the six areas that drive performance. You’ll see where you lead, where you lag and where to act first, without a heavy consulting project.
Help shape the 2027 Trends Report.
Tell us how Early Careers works in your organisation, and see how you compare.
Leave your email at the end and we’ll send you a high-level summary of the findings, with how your organisation compares to the others taking part, ahead of the full report.
Take the survey- 10 to 15 minutes. Five trends: AI, skills, stakeholder support, inductions and retention.
- See how you compare. A summary of the findings and where your organisation sits, before the full report is out.
- Confidential. The published report never names you or your organisation.
Get the ECO overview.
The six performance vectors, the ECO journey and what you get at the end, all in one PDF.
Fill in your details and we’ll send it straight to your inbox.
A robust study.
Mixed-method research. Data analytics. Expert industry knowledge.
ECO offers transformational insight into your Early Careers Function along six proprietary performance vectors.
ECO generates your unique profile, diving deep into your performance along each vector. Your profile benchmarks your performance against the market median, allowing you to harness your unique differentiators.
Performance vectors.
Can you answer these with evidence? ECO scores you on each one. Where the answer is “not sure” is usually where to start.
Click on the cards below to see more details about each vector
Do you have a defined approach?
Where are you going and do you know how you're getting there? Put differently, do you have goals and plans to achieve your desired state? And how do you define goals as an Early Careers Function?
High performance in Strategy avoids being reactive, non-directional, and inefficient. It benefits from moving closer to goals every day.
Are you a candidate's first choice, last choice, or not even on their radar?
There should be an alignment between what is promised and what is delivered on joining. Early Careers Attraction thinks about how to reach diverse and specific populations.
High performance in Attraction will have a strong employer brand that resonates with target recruits. It will be clear on purpose, vision and/or culture, and represent a target recruit's point of view.
Are you recruiting right?
Functions that prioritise recruitment will strive to deliver a top-class experience end-to-end. They will also strive for efficiency due to the heavy process and procedure that underpins recruitment at scale.
High performance in Recruitment understands that a recruitment experience becomes one of the first personal and real experiences an individual may have with you.
Are you delivering the promised product: learning, growth, and development?
The product bought by a new recruit is the promise of growth, learning, and development.
High performance in Development & Management will ensure learning is deeply ingrained, be a unique differentiator, and deliver high satisfaction. It will be the foundation that everything is built on, be intricately laced throughout and delivered with quality. It will inspire and be a reason to commit to the organisation.
Are your Early Talent succeeding for the long run?
A function that prioritises retention will appreciate the longer-term value creation opportunities of Early Careers, in a broader Labour Market context.
High performance in retention will continue to deliver high quality employment experiences post-programme, with clear strategies in place to promote retention and success.
Is your function built for the role it performs?
Many Early Careers Functions could be small or medium size businesses in their own right.
High performance in an Early Careers Function shows impeccable coordination, high levels of expertise, and alignment within the Function. They are aware, responsive, and invest in things that influence their ongoing performance within the organisation.
Your ECO Journey.
With the help of your dedicated Client Services Manager, we use mixed-method research, data analytics, and expert industry knowledge over a 12 to 18 week period to understand your current state, and work with you to define your future state:
Initiation Workshop.
Project plan, align on participants, assess metrics, and agree timelines.
Execute Research.
Mixed methods approach combining rigorous quantitative and human-centred qualitative research.
Analyse & Report.
Detailed analysis of quantitative and qualitative data; interpretation and insights including key findings.
Strategic Focus Workshop.
Receive your bespoke ECO Profile, including recommendations and strategic action planning.
Your ECO Profile.
The result of your ECO journey.
The result of your ECO journey is a bespoke ECO Profile — a detailed, data-driven report that scores your Early Careers function across all six performance vectors, benchmarks you against the market, and maps a clear path to high performance.
Your ECO Profile gives you the evidence base and strategic direction to invest with confidence, prioritise the right improvements, and make the case for change within your organisation.
Trusted by leading organisations.
ECO is helping us to deepen our focus on Early Careers at J&J by allowing us to challenge if what we’re doing is best-in-class, validating our place in the market, telling us where we stand, and helping us discover where to go next.
ECO has provided my TA team with a much stronger voice to the business. It’s chock full of data, insights and external benchmarking that our stakeholders need, and now we’re able to deliver that to them.
Getting an insight as to where we stand, compared to mature and established Early Careers functions has helped us guide our activity at an important time in our growth.
The 2026 Best-Practice Early Careers Guide.
A handbook of high performance across the whole Early Careers talent lifecycle, from strategy and attraction through to retention. Built on proprietary ECO data, alongside industry research and trend forecasting.
Get the guide