The September return to school typically signals a rush of campus recruitment activity for employers looking to secure their choice of top students for internships. There is plenty of competition between organizations vying for attention on campus, and students can be easily overwhelmed by the process. In stark contrast, the rest of the school year sees sporadic campus recruitment activity at best, a complete void of interest from employers at worst. If your campus recruitment efforts are limited to seasonal initiatives, you are missing a big opportunity to build strong employer brand awareness within this critical talent segment.
Want to ramp up your campus presence, but aren’t sure how? The following ideas can quickly impact your overall employer brand awareness and lay the foundation for longer term campus recruitment strategy.
Keep Your Student Hires Warm
Have you extended advance employment offers to interns or other students before they have graduated? There can be a big lag between your offer and their start date! Stay engaged by inviting these new recruits to company events or conferences during their last year in school. Consider starting a mailing list to share internal newsletters, milestone achievements, product launches and more, so they can stay up to date with company happenings. This helps new employees start building their network even before their official start date, shortens speed to productivity once they start and become relevant in their role faster.
Stay Top of Mind
A consistent presence on campus through an ongoing relationship with university and college career services is important if you want to become an in demand employer in the eyes students and grads. Offer multiple touch points throughout the year for students to learn more about your organization and career opportunities. Students are often frustrated by the crowds during traditional career fairs, so be creative and find ways to connect with smaller groups and over longer periods of time. Students want to have meaningful conversations with recruiters! Make it happen.
Leverage Your New Student Hires
They’ve been through the campus recruitment process, know who they’d want to work with and are excited about your company. Help your new student hires become ambassadors for your employer brand! Encourage them to chat with their peers at school to share their experiences with your organization or support their peers still looking for work by organizing discussions on what they learned about interviewing and landing a job. Check in with your new hires to learn more about the types of questions student candidates have, or identify referrals that would be a good fit for your organization. These tools are part of helping you plan for the future – it gives interested candidates plenty of time to prepare, opportunities for them to ask questions, and ultimately, be able to put their best foot forward when applying to your company.
Be Consistent with Social Media Presence
One of the keys to making social media work for your brand is consistent, shareable content. Videos, short employee profiles, info-graphics or other quick reads specific to careers within your organization are a good place to start – but don’t forget to have some fun along the way, as entertainment value goes a long way with the student demographic. If you need support, an employer branding partner can help you develop a social media calendar, and create high impact videos and material to appeal to candidates. Even when students are not actively looking for work or reviewing your career site, you’ll be able to establish your company as a great place to work, and stay in the back of students’ mind until formal recruiting season.
Stay on campus all year and your efforts will result in much stronger employer brand awareness amongst new and graduating students. A shorter recruitment cycle with better fit candidates not only impacts your hiring metrics, but supports overall business outcomes of productivity, engagement and retention.