College recruiting programs are on the rise. Based on worldwide survey conducted by GMAC Corporate Recruiters, 89 percent respondents plan to conduct on-campus recruitment. Besides referrals and internships, college recruitment is proven to be one of the most effective offline hiring methods to attract highly qualified candidates. So, is your organisation ready to jump on the bandwagon too?
Nowadays, many employers have launched college recruiting programs as an important agenda in their hiring strategy. Through this program, companies gain direct access to students and alumni even before they complete their graduation. Later on, you can scout potential talent for internship, full-time job, temporary job, and other co-op opportunities with the company.
There are several methods to achieve success in the college recruiting program. For example, employers can post their job openings and internship offers on the school's website. In addition, companies can also take proactive approaches by hosting on-campus career fairs, holding seminars related to employment tips for students and fresh grads, inviting for walk-in interviews, as well as offering additional sessions for those who want to gain information about the business.
For employers, college recruitment program is a great method to fetch prospective talents, even before they actually leave schools. The raw fresh talents can be easily moulded and trained to follow the company culture. Meanwhile, for the students and alumni, this program provides a golden opportunity to discover the professional world, apply for their first job and internship, and meet directly with the potential employers.
If you want to make improvements to your college recruiting program, here are some meaningful ideas to make your employer brand stand out and get noticed:
1. Leverage big data and analytics
Leading companies have started shifting to data-driven approach to recruitment practices, where decisions and strategies are based on data and facts, rather than baseless assumptions. If you want to upgrade your college recruiting program, you should follow this trend by leveraging big data and analytics.
For example, you can analyse the information collected from the big data about business schools that nurture and develop top performers, so you can focus your search efforts for potential new hires from such institutions of repute.
2. Use student referral and networking
Just like employee referral programs, student referral and networking is proven to be an effective method to hire high-quality candidates. This program not just helps reach out to passive talented candidates, but is also a great time saving method, if you want to hire more people to the talent network.
3. Establish college ambassador program
Who knows best about the ins and outs of a school and its people? The answer is the students themselves. Therefore, establishing a college ambassador program could be a great alternative, if you want to place a full-time recruiter within the college.
The main task of this ambassador recruited is to deliver and socialise your company brand through student meetings and discussions.
4. Validate the screening and hiring criteria
Mere high qualifications do not guarantee success in someone's career. Higher GPA scores from prestigious institutions could mean nothing in the professional world, unless the talent possesses suitable skills and knowledge required by the industry. Hence, companies are required to validate candidate skills during the screening process, as one of the crucial hiring criteria to decide on the next suitable hire.
5. Update your mobile hiring platform
Mobile culture has become a commonplace. Hence, you need to adapt with the current trends by upgrading your mobile platform. Students carry their smartphones everywhere they go, and rely on these devices most of the time for valuable information. Companies can take advantage of this mobile culture by creating awareness about the recruitment programs through innovative creative mediums, such as writing tweets, developing recruitment videos, sharing social media messages, establishing virtual groups and forums for discussion, etc.
With recent advancements in science and technology, conventional methods of finding the perfect hire is no longer enough to attract and retain the potential candidates. In order to hire the best graduates from the talent pool, you have to think out of the box and innovate upon recruitment practices.
