Julia Weeks
Recruiting college students today is not as easy as simply signing up with career centers and attending job fairs. Today’s college students are not always actively searching for work, so it is important for companies to get creative with their college recruiting strategy.
Employer Branding
First things first, take a look at your employer branding and make sure that it truly represents your company culture. Ensure that you have the perks that employees are looking for and that you are clearly portraying these perks in your branding. If your employer branding is not appealing to college students, you need to think about ways you can change this in order to attract top talent.
Campus Visits
Recruiting passive college students is not as simple as just showing up for job fairs twice a year. As stated by ere.net, “relying primarily on the career center will cause you to miss out on as much as 50 percent of the undergraduate campus population.”
Make sure your company brand has a presence on campus. Create a list of the colleges you have had successful hires from in the past and make sure that you or someone on your team is visiting each campus, meeting professors of courses that are relatable to your industry and the type of jobs you will be hiring for. By building close relationships with the professors, you may receive opportunities to speak to their classes and become visible to their students.
Keep In Touch
As you build relationships with professors, be sure to hang onto their contact information. Staying in touch with the professors gives you greater probability that they will refer their top students to you and your company. Likewise, keep in touch with students that you meet on campus. Let them know the benefits of working with your company and that you are interested in speaking with them about a position once they have graduated.
As ere.net notes, don’t only focus your attention on seniors. Rather, consider all students. It’s never too early to market your company to its next great hire, whether that hire joins the company a year from now or four years from now.
College recruitment strategies, as well as employer branding strategies, should be reviewed and revised yearly. Having a fresh marketing strategy and increasing your visibility on campus will help you and your company become a memorable brand to students.
How do you market your company to college students? Please share your tips and experiences in the comments below.
Check out Spark Hire’s infographic: “How to Hire the Perfect Grad”
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