written by Christina Young, Assistant Marketing Specialist, Digi-Me
There are an estimated 2.8 million university graduates entering the workforce this year and around 75% of employers plan to hire new grads. Due to the high demand of college grads, this creates a highly competitive market among employers. Although many of this year’s grads may have already secured jobs, a college recruitment strategy should be something recruiters build and maintain throughout the academic year.
In today’s tech-savvy world, college recruitment can be broken down into two segments: campus recruitment and digital recruitment.
Campus recruitment relies heavily on face-to-face interactions with students, typically on their college campus. Recruiters should carefully select and target colleges with the type of talent they are looking for at their organization. Once recruiters have the list of schools they would like to target, they should build relationships with faculty and staff on-campus. This should also include building a relationship with the Career Services department, as they are often the gateway to setting up information sessions and/or a source for current job openings for students and alumni. Information sessions can involve visiting a classroom, being a guest speaker or even tabling around campus.
After establishing on-campus connections, employers should strategically select who they send to the campus. You want your on-campus representatives to be someone who embodies your brand, can sell the organization and is well-trained to answer students’ potential questions. Alumni or current interns can also be great options to send to campus, as they will be able to engage in peer-to-peer promotion of the company and its opportunities to students.
Speaking of opportunities, you shouldn’t be recruiting college students unless you have positions available for them based on their qualifications. Your company should have internship and cooperative education opportunities available for college students. These opportunities allow students to gain experience and exposure to your organization. They allow employers to develop talent pipeline for hiring top, quality candidates for their positions post-graduation.
Employers should also consider how they are going to engage the students beyond their company representative. In an information session or classroom setting, consider utilizing a video rather than a slideshow. Not only is video more captivating than text presentations similar to the ones students see within their day-to-day courses, but students can retain more information about your company. Did you know candidates can retain up to 60% more information from a video versus a text job description alone? Video allows you to better show and tell your company culture. Culture and giving back are very important to this audience. You can incorporate testimonials from current employees about what it’s like working at your company and what they like about it. Cultural videos can also be utilized if you were at a job fair or tabling on campus as a way to attract students to your table and show them what your company is like.
Another important aspect of college digital recruitment is social media. Pew Research reports that 90% of Americans ages 18-29 used social media in 2015, the highest among any other age group. Because of this, college-aged candidates turn to social media to learn more about potential employers and tend to be turned off from employers who are not active on social media. It is imperative to be active on the social networks that job seekers use most during their job search, which are Facebook (67%), Twitter (45%) and LinkedIn (40%) respectively.
Along with connecting with students on social networking sites, college-aged candidates also expect to stay informed during the recruitment process. This includes staying in contact with them while decisions are being made, being available to answer their questions and being upfront with them during the search process.
But what is an easy and affordable way to stay in touch with candidates throughout the recruitment process?
Digi-Me’s Candidate Expectation video solution was created to save recruiters time that was previously spent notifying individual candidates of their status during the job application process. The short, customized videos help to set job candidate expectations for the recruitment process, leaving them with a clear understanding of timing and next steps, as well as providing a positive experience during their interaction with a potential employer’s brand.
Digi-Me provides intelligence on where candidates are viewing your company’s video. Digi-Me Candidate Expectation Videos, Cultural Videos and VIDEOJOBS™ are trackable, with reports that measure the number of views and shares by each source and they fully integrate with your ATS! Not to mention, Digi-Me videos can be easily viewed on mobile devices and are equipped with a social share function.
