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In this section, we will understand some of the key campus recruitment best practices you can embrace and look at a few innovative campus recruitment strategies readily available at your disposal.
Instead of trying to build a relationship on the last day of college, focus on relationship-building from the first day itself.
This is what General Electric and Consumers Energy did. The brand was present on move-in day at Michigan State University’s College of Engineering, helping students to move in. The idea was to nurture talent throughout the year instead of doing it once or twice a year.
Ramp up your campus recruiting efforts by creating a dedicated landing page with all the information students might need. For inspiration, take a look at Airbus’ landing page, which offers all the relevant information such as upcoming opportunities, recruitment process, testimonials, etc.
Having a student-focused career page allows your brand to connect better with your target audience and provide a personalized recruiting experience.
If you think handing out flyers can help you get great candidates, think again. LinkedIn’s survey revealed that millennials attribute “innovative and inspiring” work environments as their first choice when job hunting. So catering to this digitally-affluent target base needs to include “tech-savvy recruiting.”
For instance, General Mills stepped up their recruiting game by taking students on a VR tour through the Oculus Rift headset. Students took a tour around the brand’s office and the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area while still on campus.
Additionally, to make your campus hiring more innovative, you can leverage the following:
A. Assessment tools: To boost your hiring quality with respect to cultural fit and performance, you can leverage AI-powered screening assessment tools. These tools can analyze data and predict hiring outcomes accurately. Additionally, these tools can assess students on various factors such as aptitude, domain skills, personality traits, communication skills, etc. Such tools are extremely effective in gauging candidate potential and accelerating the pace of hiring.
B. Simulator-based screening: If you wish to assess the candidate’s coding skills and problem-solving capabilities, you can invest in simulator-based tests. These ultra-powerful data-driven tools can mimic real-life scenarios and effectively test candidates’ technical skills.
C. Virtual interviews: With COVID-19 creating havoc and mandating social distancing, virtual interviews have become all the rage. To add structure and order to the campus recruitment process, you can use video-driven, location-agnostic tools and conduct virtual interviews with relative ease. For non-technical roles, you can structure the interview questions based on your organization’s competency needs and current requirements. To hire for technical roles, you can use an online interview platform that is embedded with a coding simulator. This can significantly expedite the hiring process for tech roles.
To build a rapport with students, you need to create an informal environment while recruiting. You can schedule lunches with students and existing employees of the company, allowing the former to understand the company better.
You can have students shadow members of your team.
For example, Odgers Berndtson spearheads the “CEO for a Day” program, empowering 18 promising future leaders (students) to spend the day with the CEO of companies such as Ikea, Cisco, GE, Twitter, Cineplex, etc.
If you do not have the budget to source candidates internationally, hackathons can help. Not only will you get access to multiple potential applicants at once, but you can also understand if a candidate is the right cultural fit for your company.
On the other hand, hosting a webinar allows you to demonstrate to your target base what to expect from the recruitment process and hold a Q&A session with hiring managers.
The learning:
Campus recruitment goes above and beyond career fairs and boring company presentations. You need to continuously revisit your recruitment strategy and keep your initiatives tech-driven and student-oriented for the best results. Follow the campus recruitment best practices outlined above and rise above the competition.
