Courting Creativity at Disney

The entertainment company tops our survey as an entry-level employer. But don't expect the typical structured corporate environment

Anne Ceruti is the vice-president for talent acquisition at Walt Disney(DIS). This fall, Disney ranked No. 1 in BusinessWeek's inaugural "Best Places to Launch a Career." Disney clinched the top spot based on a survey of 37,000 U.S. undergrads. Cynics need not apply: the culture stresses creativity, optimism, and decency.

During the 2005-06 school year, Disney recruited on 450 undergraduate campuses. Ceruti spoke to BusinessWeek's Lindsey Gerdes earlier this year. Here are edited excerpts of their conversation.

How can you tell if a candidate is right for a certain role?

We don't interview people specifically for a role as many would think. We look at them by their ability to grow with the company, to lead and collaborate. Someone who's looking for a very structured environment, everything nailed down all the time, like at a manufacturing company, might not be someone we're looking for, because we're a creative company.

What would you say are the three most important characteristics Disney looks for in entry-level applicants?

We look for communication skills, leadership skills, and analytical skills (see BusinessWeek.com, 06/09, "Best Places to Launch A Career").

How much is networking stressed in the entry-level chain?

It's a very important part of our process. We have a diverse and established internship program across the companies. Theme parks have an international component. We have summer and year-round internships.

We have a long list of activities to gain exposure to different business units. We bring them together to showcase our leaders through Q&As, dinners. Interns don't just get the viewpoint of one business unit, they get a view of what the company's about.

You have an internship program where participants live together. What's that like?

You're referring to Orlando. They have a lot of opportunities for exposure. We showcase leaders in different groups. They come in every six weeks, and we have housing for domestic as well as international. On site we provide transportation. It's like a small city.

Any particular ways you engage this generation of new hires?

We currently have four different generations working together. We really try to motivate this generation. We've expanded our internship program, educated managers on what it takes to engage this particular workforce. We also leverage technology, engage them through their own informal communities, like MySpace, LinkedIn.

Do you recruit off these social networking sites?

We don't necessarily recruit off of MySpace, but we're very aware where this generation goes to think about opportunities. There's a lot of information out there on the Web. We tap into blogs and find out what things people are interested in, in terms of why they would join a company.

We want to encourage people to collaborate. I think prior generations focused more on traditional career ladders, move up and be on a particular pace with peers. That's still important to some extent, but this element of collaboration is so much more important than for previous generations.

How else are you adjusting your recruiting to attract and retain this group?

From what I understand by looking at external data, we are fully aware of what is driving this newest generation, what engages them, motivates them. There are many ways a candidate might come to know about Disney, like obviously on-campus recruiting.

We strive to expose people to our leadership through many venues, by speaking at conferences, leading panel discussions, or leveraging our alumni connections. We will be looking at our programs and our practices to make sure we attract young people and retain them. Those things are in development.