It’s the time of year when college students are getting ready to go back to campus to complete their education and find their place in the world of work. But students aren’t the only ones heading back to school. Employers, too, have business on campus as they look for the best and the brightest to join their organizations. 
Connecting with the talent that will carry employers into the future takes more effort than just setting up a table at a campus career fair a couple of times a year. Employers are finding that a more meaningful connection is necessary to make campus recruiting truly pay off.
Thomas Borgerding, CEO and president of Campus Media Group Inc., and Jeff Goodman, managing partner at Campus Strategic Partners, recently presented a Business and Legal Resources webinar titled “College Recruiting: How to Attract Top Performers Through Relationship Building.” Their advice for employers? Don’t just look for students to plug into jobs after graduation. Instead, build a relationship.
Students turn to professors, deans, campus career centers, and student organizations as they’re deciding their career paths, so employers need to maintain connections to all those influencers, Borderding and Goodman say. College career centers once were the main place for employers to go since those centers are the force behind the traditional college job fairs, but nowadays employers need to branch out.
Building relationships
“Students are still using those career centers,” Borgerding says. “They are still going to those career fairs. They are looking for opportunities to be able to engage.” But employers need to diversify their efforts in order to reach all the top prospects.
Professors and deans, for example, are familiar with their students and can facilitate introductions. Student organizations devoted to an employer’s area of interest also make good contacts, Borgerding says. And those connections need to be built and maintained even when an employer doesn’t have openings to fill.
“Often the best time to recruit students—or really build your brand—is when you’re really not recruiting at all,” Goodman says. That’s the time an employer can shift its focus from “what’s in it for me” to “what’s in it for them,” he says.
Goodman says he’s known of employers that think they can just “buddy up” with professors in their area of interest “and they’ll just pass their best candidates to me,” but it really doesn’t work that way. “However, you can build a fabulous relationship with them”—a relationship that requires active participation.
Universities often have curriculum councils and outreach programs, Goodman says. “They may give you the ability to come in and teach seminars, join their industrial affiliate programs, work with student groups themselves.” Student groups are eager to have employers come in and give talks to help students understand their career options and how their degree will fit into working life.
University career centers can serve as the gateway to the various relationships recruiters can build. For example, Goodman says career centers can identify professors who might provide access to classrooms or invite employers to participate in seminars or workshops. Plus, career centers can link recruiters to student organizations that also can be a source for talent.
Borgerding reminds employers to use common language, not industry terminology, when talking to students about opportunities. He says he’s talked to a lot of students, and “regularly, I hear that students are self-opting out of opportunities” because they don’t understand the jargon employers use.
Use apps, websites, social media
Beyond building relationships with students, faculty, administrators, and career centers, employers need to develop innovative ways to communicate with potential future employees. Borgerding says having a phone app is a great way to create engagement. Such an app can include videos of testimonials from employees who are recently out of school—a group that students can relate to. An app also should include contact information for recruiters and a calendar that shows where a candidate is in the hiring process.
A company’s website and social media presence also are vital sources of information for students considering a certain employer, so it’s important that the messaging is consistent, Borgerding says. Also, employers should share the good with the bad. He says he’s found that students have a “keen sense” of messages that seem a little too “market-y.”
10 takeaways
In their webinar, Borgerding and Goodman outlined 10 tips for employers recruiting college students:
- Look for culture fit. Make sure students understand the organization’s values and what it’s like to work there.
- Be honest and transparent when recruiting students. Most bad reviews on sites such as Glassdoor are a result of students not understanding the complete story of an employer—the good and the bad.
- Don’t wait. “If you find a good candidate, make the offer to them,” Borgerding says. “Don’t make them sit for a while.
- Engage in students’ lives. Be a part of student groups and organizations.
- Use career centers, faculty, and staff to help find the best candidates, but the help should go both directions. Involved employers can help colleges develop the talent that employers need.
- Use recent hires just a few years out of college to talk with target candidates.
- Use mobile communications, such as texting and phone apps, to stay in touch.
- Once students are hired, don’t leave them hanging. Often, students are offered jobs in the fall before graduation in the spring, so employers should start onboarding early. For example, employers can provide such students opportunities to start training or become involved in company events even months before they begin work.
- Promote the benefits that interest students.
- Be positive and supportive. Continue to encourage new student hires that they’re in the right place.