It’s that time again—students are buying their books and scheduling their classes as they prepare to head back to school. And, recruiting organizations are preparing for the 2009-2010 campus/graduate recruiting season. Just like buying books and scheduling classes have become a habit for students, our top campus/graduate recruiting priorities have become habit: choosing target schools wisely…check, being the employer of choice at those schools…check.
We station our representatives at our target school, hang our organization banner at the booth, and stack our shiny marketing brochures on the tables. While the leg-work of these priorities are important agenda items, we are missing an opportunity to have a large impact on our campus recruiting effort.
The oft-missing ingredient: clearly explaining the day-to-day job experiences to students while on campus, which can increase their performance once hired by 22%. As novices in the professional arena, students can easily misperceive the jobs themselves. Also, in an environment where you will be receiving an overload of applications from job-hungry students, encouraging them to be discerning about the job itself can help candidates self-select out of the process.
Consider the following:
- Have we consulted with hiring managers to confirm our perceptions of the job?
- Do our job descriptions clearly lay out the day-to-day activities?
- Do we have day-in-the-life videos or testimonials from recent graduates?
- Do we have hiring managers and/or recent graduates to speak with student candidates about the job experience?
(For Recruiting Roundtable members, we have a number of resources to help you implement a more effective Campus/Graduate recruiting program.)
Posts
