STRIVE may have been cancelled this year, but that’s not stopping us from learning a thing or two from the recruiting leaders who were set to speak! We caught up with Chicago Trading Company’s Meghan Dreyer to learn more about her team’s early talent recruiting strategy, learn how she and her team are building a diversity recruiting strategy, and more.

Tell us a bit about Chicago Trading Company.

Chicago Trading Company is a forward-thinking, technology-focused proprietary trading firm that helps the world price and manage risk. Our fun and trusting culture inspires us to solve the industry’s most challenging problems and take smart risks in a collaborative environment. We strive to be the most innovative firm in the industry that makes a positive impact on the markets, the lives of our employees, and all the communities to which we belong.

Started in 1995 by a team of traders, we are proud to call ourselves an industry leader that keeps making markets and each other better. As we look to the future, we strive to scale our successful options market making business to expand into new markets, new technologies, and new geographies.

How did you get started in early talent recruitment? What interests you most about it? 

I worked as an admissions representative for my alma mater right after college, and a few years later transitioned to working in corporate talent acquisition, which helped me discover campus recruiting. I love the interactions I get to have with students during the recruitment process, and am passionate about helping them find a great career match. Campus recruiting is a field that is always changing to keep up with student interests and technology advancements, and that makes it very exciting.  I’ve been given the opportunity to work on continuously improving our recruitment strategy and internship program, and that keeps me engaged every day. 

In the past year, what professional accomplishment are you most proud of?

In October 2019, CTC sponsored the Grace Hopper Celebration for the first time to recruit female engineering talent for our entry-level roles and internship program. We brought a team of 18 employees down to Orlando for the conference and met many talented women, some of which will be interning and working for us full time. I am really proud of CTC’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, and that the executive team is supportive of sponsoring amazing conferences like this. I’m excited to increase our presence even more at GHC20!

Find out how Chicago Trading Company automated campus recruiting and increased candidate reach by 45%.

Learn More

What’s the most innovative thing your recruiting team has done this year?

Sponsoring the Grace Hopper Celebration was the most innovative thing we did in 2019, since it was the first time we stepped out of the traditional “core school” campus recruiting model. 

What do you see as the biggest challenge facing early talent recruiting teams?

I think the biggest challenge is understanding students and their thought process in making decisions.  Even the most data-driven recruiting strategy is not fool-proof in getting students to accept your offers!  

Describe what it’s like to partner with Yello.

It is such a pleasure to partner with Yello. I’ve had the opportunity to work with a handful of customer success managers and implementation consultants over the years, and they truly have the campus recruiter and coordinator in mind to further humanize the candidate experience.  With a small team, Yello’s solutions have allowed us to spend more time building relationships with candidates because we can streamline manual administrative work. In addition, we’re able to build a pipeline of candidates to target our job opportunities to after events, and easily capture data on each step of our recruiting process.  This data has helped our executive team understand the impact campus recruiting is making on diversity hiring, and has driven improvements to our overall strategy.