For Early Careers leaders, the pre-onboarding gap between offer and start date is a known vulnerability, but at NTT DATA, this challenge was exacerbated by a three-year program hiatus that impacted their early careers employment brand equity.
Executing a “zero to hero” program turnaround fell to a single-resource talent function that was initially reliant on manual, transactional, and fragmented outreach. However, by strategically shifting to a tech-enabled, automated and AI driven ecosystem, this one-person team successfully overcame operational bottlenecks to scale application volume 6x, secure pipeline retention, and deliver a world-class candidate experience that rivals much larger Early Careers departments, proving that the right vendor partnerships can effectively turn a lean talent function into a scalable, high-impact capability.
Results Snapshot
- “Zero to Hero” Program Re-activation: Rebuild of NTT DATA’s early talent pipeline and early careers employment brand from the ground up.
- Scale for a Solo Operator: Increased operational capacity by eliminating manual bottlenecks to allow seamless scale.
- World-Class Candidate Experience: Replaced transactional processes with a strategic engagement plan, yielding an Intern Experience score of 9.4/10 and a likelihood to recommend NTT DATA as an employer score of 9.5/10.
- 100% conversion of top intern talent to graduate role: successfully secured all 9 high performers into permanent graduate roles.
- 6x Application increase: Accelerated top-of-funnel volume within 12 months, without a formal early careers marketing budget.
- 70% Acceleration in Time-to-Competency: The information, content and insights provided before day one helped new hires feel 70% more prepared and ready to contribute the moment they walked through the door.
“GradEngage didn’t just automate our keep-warm plan, they understood our employer brand and exactly how to engage an early careers audience. The result was a dynamic candidate experience that kept talent-pools engaged throughout their journey, significantly reducing the risk of drop-outs. More than a supplier, they became an extension of our team, taking the time to truly understand our business and ensuring every communication felt authentically ours.”
Elle Rowe, Senior Early Talent Manager, NTT DATA
The Challenge: Operational Bottlenecks & Brand Hiatus
Prior to this initiative, NTT DATA’s ANZ early talent program and employer brand faced critical operational vulnerabilities and low market recognition. A three-year hiatus had eroded campus visibility, leaving university students largely unfamiliar with the brand. Compounding this challenge, the entire regional function and talent engagement strategy fell on a single individual. Manually maintaining candidate relationships throughout the recruitment and pre-boarding windows created an unsustainable administrative burden. Without scalable automation, the business faced a high risk of candidate reneges, directly threatening their ability to fill critical technical capability gaps.
The Strategy: Tech-Led Engagement & Retention
To support NTT DATA’s “Ignite Growth” and “Turbocharge AI” corporate objectives, GradEngage partnered with Amberjack and NTT DATA’s Early Talent Manager to build a tailored delivery model. The strategy focused on three pillars to drive engagement and retention:
1. Automated Front-End Alignment
The process integrated the Amberjack MatchMe tool at the front end. The tool acted as an automated matching mechanism that aligned candidate strengths with specific business streams. This reduced early-stage manual screening by utilising smart automation to filter applications, ensuring only high-fit candidates advanced.
2. Platform-Led Pre-Boarding and Engagement
Following the recruitment phase, successful applicants transitioned seamlessly into GradEngage, an AI-driven talent engagement and retention solution. Rather than relying on generic communication, the platform built and sustained engagement through automated, highly targeted features:
- Content-Driven Campaigns with a DE&I focus: GradEngage automatically synthesised NTT DATA’s existing employment brand, corporate marketing, culture, and training assets to generate bespoke, dynamic EDMs. Embedded within this process was a strict alignment with NTT DATA’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I). The platform ensured all communications utilised inclusive language frameworks fostering a sense of belonging for every candidate from day one.
- Cohort-Specific Scheduling: These communications were intelligently scheduled and tailored to different early careers cohorts based on their specific program, start dates, and regional locations.
- The GradEngage Activities Library: To maintain continuous touchpoints, the solution leveraged its built-in events and activities library. This feature supplied curated toolkits for face-to-face and online group activities, workplace familiarisation tasks, and interactive challenges designed to build early cohort bonds, alongside pre-written invite templates and automated event briefs.
- ATS & Technology Integration: Designed to fit perfectly within the existing tech stack, all communications and engagement touchpoints were formatted for seamless integration with the core ATS, replacing static compliance checklists with interactive, data-driven dialogues.
3. An Integrated Onboarding Ecosystem
Beyond pre-boarding communication, GradEngage’s ecosystem smoothly aligned with internal corporate touchpoints to bridge the gap between offer acceptance and day one. The solution served as the launchpad into an ANZ New Starter Intranet hub, which acted as a single source of truth for the first 90 days. It also drove graduates into dedicated Microsoft Teams channels and monthly virtual “Meet the CEO” sessions. By embedding these touchpoints early, the solution brought the early careers employer brand to life and created connected networks before official start dates. It also increased the business readiness for candidates allowing them to hit the ground running with a 70% increase in time-to-competency.
Operational Perspective on Collaborative Delivery
“Our implementation was never a rushed, template-focused, or transactional ‘tick-box’ exercise. We regularly jump on calls, work through things line-by-line, and ask open-ended questions to get the best results. Absolutely nothing is ever off the table, and that shared openness to feedback and fresh ideas is exactly what has allowed a single-resource talent function to achieve this level of scale.”
Elle Rowe, Senior Early Talent Manager, NTT DATA
The Impact
The rollout of the GradEngage and Amberjack partnership at NTT DATA delivered measurable quantitative results across recruitment, retention, and diversity metrics.
Performance at a Glance
| Metric | Prior State | Current State |
|---|---|---|
| Application Volume | Low/ad-hoc market presence | 6x increase (284 applications in the first cycle without a formal marketing campaign) |
| Candidate Sentiment | Fragmented direct outreach | 9.4/10 Intern Program score and 9.5/10 Employer Recommendation Score |
| Gender Diversity | No baseline measured | 42% Graduate and 47% Intern female new joiners |
| Time-to-Competency | Standard onboarding lag | 70% acceleration in day-one business readiness |
Business Outcomes Unlocked
Accelerating Day-One Impact: By delivering foundational business culture, strategy, and role information directly during the digital GradEngage pre-boarding phase, candidates arrived fully prepared to hit the ground running on day one. NTT DATA’s metrics confirm that graduates arrived 70% more supported and informed about the business landscape, their responsibilities, and corporate strategy.
Executive Leadership Perspective
“At NTT DATA, we see future talent as one of our most important investments. What makes this initiative particularly powerful is the way technology, data and human connection have been brought together to create a scalable talent ecosystem. By partnering with Amberjack and Gradengage, we have not only transformed how we attract and engage emerging talent, but also strengthened our ability to build the diverse, future-ready workforce that will help drive innovation and growth across our business for years to come.”
David McKeering, Executive Managing Director ANZ, NTT DATA
Candidate Engagement and Retention
The pre-boarding experience locked in future enterprise talent, successfully converting 9 out of 15 interns into formalised graduate roles for the upcoming intake, representing a retention of the primary talent pool.
World-Class Candidate Advocacy
The organic, public advocacy shared by the 2026 cohort on LinkedIn highlighted the profound human impact of this interactive digital ecosystem:
“This program has genuinely changed my life.”
Ben Muir, Intern 2026
“I’m incredibly grateful for all the support so far and looking forward to what’s ahead!”
Bailey Fisher, Graduate 2026
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to kick off my career in cloud technology with an organisation that’s so innovative and people-focused… I’m looking forward to learning, growing, and contributing to meaningful solutions alongside a great team.”
Ella Dawe, Graduate 2026
Drive for DE&I Strategy
Elevated employer brand advocacy directly supported NTT DATA’s diversity, equity and inclusion benchmarks. The program achieved 42% female graduate and 47% female intern representation, nearly doubling global technology sector averages, where female representation rests at 26.7% (Deloitte) and young women considering tech careers sit at 27% (PwC). This landmark success served as a strategic catalyst, driving the launch of an internal Gender Diversity Working Group and establishing multi-year Women in STEM university partnerships with UMelb, UTS, QUT, and ECU.
Future Scaling
This partnership delivers a powerful proof of concept for the modern early talent landscape, proving that a lean talent function can leverage targeted technology to execute large-scale attraction and retention strategies. Building on this strong momentum, NTT DATA has established a strategic 12-month roadmap to:
- Expanding brand activation deeper into strategic TAFE and university networks.
- Formally growing the early talent Cadetship program stream.
- Exploring APAC opportunities to scale this early talent and tech-led delivery model across the broader region.
“What makes this initiative truly innovative is that it demonstrates how technology can amplify human connection rather than replace it. By combining AI-enabled engagement, data-driven decision making and a deeply personalised candidate experience, we have transformed early talent from a traditional recruitment activity into a strategic capability that supports NTT DATA’s long-term growth, workforce readiness and innovation agenda.”
David McKeering, Executive Managing Director ANZ, NTT DATA
Perspective on True Strategic Partnership
“When working with an external supplier, true differentiation comes down to how they engage with us as a business. With Gradengage, I am never treated as just a transaction or a client on a list; they genuinely make me feel like I am their only priority. It is never about a quick sell—it is always focused on long-term value and the big picture. Because of that relationship, they truly understand my voice, allowing us to tailor our communications to resonate perfectly with the graduate mindset.”
Elle Rowe, Senior Early Talent Manager, NTT DATA