Proving to a partner what their partnership achieved

What does a partner actually look at in a results report?

A schools relations manager on the employer side rarely compares one school to another on the mood of the fair. They compare what each school cost them against what each school achieved, often in the same spreadsheet used to defend their own budget internally.

A results report answers that question in the same words as that spreadsheet: invested, met, hired, cost per hire. That is what makes it usable as it stands, without the partner having to translate it themselves.

A results report that only offers adjectives (a successful fair, strong turnout) asks the partner to do the translation into figures themselves, or worse, not do it at all and judge the partnership on their impression of the day. A results report that carries the four indicators saves them that work, and shifts the renewal conversation onto ground the school knows better than anyone: its own data.

What are the five blocks of a results report?

A complete results report fits on one page. It always carries the same five blocks, in the same order.

Block	Content
1. Invested	What the employer paid for the event or partnership over the period
2. Met	Number of students who attended, with their programme and search stage
3. Applications	Applications received from those students after the event
4. Hires	Placements, apprenticeships or jobs won, with the resulting cost per hire
5. Recommendation	One line stating what the school proposes for the following year

Should every block be detailed, or should it stay on one page?

One page is enough in most cases: it is the format a schools relations manager on the employer side will circulate internally, often unchanged, to defend their own budget. A longer document risks being summarised by its recipient before it is even fully read, and it is then the school that loses control of that summary.

The one block that sometimes deserves an annex page is the detail of students met, when the partner follows several programmes or several campuses at once: one line per student, with their programme and search stage, on top of the total shown on the main page.

Format matters almost as much as content. A simple table, with figures right aligned so they compare at a glance, reads faster than a paragraph that buries them in a sentence. That is what the Results report component on the pillar page reproduces: each figure on its own line, cost per hire brought forward.

One last point of form, often overlooked: date the results report, and state the exact period it covers. A partner who receives two results reports a year apart should be able to check within seconds that they cover two different periods, without having to cross-check event dates themselves.

Where do the hires you count come from?

This is the hardest block to fill in, and the one that gives the results report its real value.

Two sources are usually enough. The first is placement and apprenticeship agreements validated by the registry: any student who met the partner at the event and later signs an agreement with them becomes an attributed hire. The second is the graduate outcomes survey run after graduation, which surfaces jobs won later in the year.

A hire is only counted when it is reasonable to think the event contributed to it: a student who attended the event, then applied to that same partner in the months that followed. Two or three well documented hires beat one inflated figure a partner can challenge.

A third source, rarer but useful when available, is direct feedback from the partner itself: some employers will confirm, on request, how many of a school's students they hired that year. That confirmation is worth more than any internal estimate, because it comes from the person who will decide on renewal.

When should you send the results report?

Two moments matter more than others.

The first, four to six weeks after the event, to share early figures (attendees, first applications) while the day is still fresh.

The second, two to three months before the period when the partner decides whether to renew, usually ahead of the next fair season or their annual budget decision. It is this second send, completed with confirmed hires, that weighs most on their decision.

A third, shorter send has its place when a strong sign appears mid year: a confirmed hire, a placement converted into a job. It does not need to wait for the next full results report; a line sent at the right moment is often worth more than a complete document that arrives too late.

How do you fill in the template?

The results report template is filled in field by field from what you already have: the amount invoiced to the partner, the event attendance list, applications tracked in your careers platform, placement agreements validated by the registry.

Pypelane is designed to automatically match these sources from a simple export, and produce a results report per partner with no re-keying.

The field most often left blank is the recommendation: after filling in the first four blocks, it is tempting to consider the document finished. Yet it is this last line, a sentence proposing a format or volume for the following year, that turns a summary into a renewal offer rather than a plain account.

What mistakes do schools that send a good results report avoid?

Three mistakes come up most often when a school starts sending results reports.

The first, waiting for perfect figures before sending anything: a results report with hires still incomplete, sent on time, beats an exhaustive one sent after the partner has already decided.

The second, sending the same results report to every partner without adapting the final recommendation: a partner who hired little this year does not expect the same line as one who hired beyond their targets.

The third, keeping the results report within the employer relations team alone, without sharing it with leadership: yet it is the same material that feeds partnership revenue and the renewal rate tracked at school level.