Companies are constantly on a lookout for the right resources – who can turn to be an asset in the longer run. And this hunt further becomes tough when you are hiring freshers. With generational shift hitting the job market every five years, standing up to the expectations of every generation becomes all the way more difficult.

In the U.S alone, 989,000 associate’s degrees, 1,975,000 bachelor’s degrees, 820,000 master’s degrees, 184,000 doctor’s degrees are expected to be awarded in the 2019-20 academic year. This means, more than 3 million young talents and job seekers are set to throng into the U.S job market.

To capture this young flock of talents you need to capture them at an early stage – before they debut in the market. Campus recruitment, thus, is the finest way to get hold of these potential hires. As easy as it sounds, creating and implementing campus recruiting programs can be overwhelming – especially if you’re new in this arena.

Procedure for hiring through campus largely differs from the regular job portal hiring. To play your cards right, you must build a well-thought campus recruitment plan which in addition to focusing on this year’s talent pool also nurtures the talent emerging in forthcoming years. To make this process easier for you, we have curated a list of 4 campus recruitment practices that will steer you in the right direction.

Identify Resource Needs and Target Relevant Schools 

First and foremost, you must – at any cost – do is to categorize the kind of resources your company demands. You wouldn’t want to invest your energy and money on resources that don’t align with your organizational requirements and ambitions.

For instance, if your company builds an inhouse tech product, the hiring requirement would be a set of technically-sound resources who can fit into your development team. In such cases, shortlist institutes that are constantly churning candidates with high-technical aptitude.

While zeroing down your options, thoroughly research the past hiring patterns of the institute. Focusing on data-backed insights is the quickest and the most effective of screening your options.

You can easily evaluate which schools to opt for by researching on the internet. There are a number of dedicated companies such as RippleMatch and Handshake who are easing the process of evaluation for the companies by constantly analyzing and rolling out data of best schools to hire from. Also, you can refer to research-based recommendations from CIO, TimesHigherEducation, USnews, and similar sites.

Tip: While shortlisting colleges, give fair chances to tier-2 and 3 institutes as well. These colleges have a pool of niche resources who can prove to be valuable assets.

Build Employer Brand on Campus

According to a research conducted on 300 companies to understand college hiring strategies and tactics, 92% of companies agreed to have faced ‘brand identity problem’ while hiring – unless your brand falls in the top 50 companies young people want to work for.

Hence, building brand visibility and credibility should be an inevitable part of your campus recruitment strategies. In addition to establishing brand visibility among the final year students, you must chart out engagement strategies for the successive batches as well. To start with, organize,

• Mock Interviews for students in their initial years of college
• Industrial visits
• On-campus contests, quizzes, hackathon and more
• Q&A sessions and seminars for interview preparations

Apart from on-campus brand building, also opt for off-campus brand building to help you cultivate a positive and employee-friendly brand image amongst the students. You can do this by,

• Connecting with students on LinkedIn
• Sharing the brand story on social media pages
• Posting stories of successfully delivered projects
• Publishing relevant articles to help them prepare for interviews
• Showcasing customer testimonials on social media
• Posting internship opportunities on job pages, as well as running by paid campaigns on top internship sites

Tip: Offer internships to students who are in their initial years of course. Following this will help you create brand awareness at an early stage and will also reduce recruiting efforts at the time of campus hiring.

Fabricate Smooth Candidate Experience

This is new in the list of campus recruitment strategies.

Why so?

Because stats reveal that bad candidate experience can cost you millions. Virgin Media lost $5M due to their upsetting candidate experience. Negative experiences are not confined to losing a few candidates, it advances beyond that. If not focused rightly, it can put an everlasting dent on your brand reputation. Thus, you cannot – and should not – undermine a candidate’s experience.

By definition, a candidate’s experience can be described as,

The overall experience of a job seeker during the recruitment cycles including attracting, sourcing, interviewing, recruiting and boarding. Positive candidate experience can be determined by respecting candidate’s time, commitments, and maintaining transparency irrespective of the outcomes.

To facilitate smooth candidate experience, adopt recruitment automation including ML systems to screen profiles and Application Tracking System (ATS) to track application progress. Employing these strategies would cut down your time-to-hire and pace up your recruitment efficiency. The quicker you can respond to the candidates, the better impression you would leave on them.

Due to the never-ending cycle of recruitment, the number of “non-hires” would easily surpass the number of hires. Thus, the positive experience would largely be determined by how you are treating the “non-hires”.

To cultivate a relationship with “non-hires”, engage with them through emails and social media campaigns. A popular practice is to send them informational insights and company updates over the mail, so they are up-to-date with company activities and can reapply if an opportunity comes up.

 Tip: Give constructive feedback to non-hires – especially those who make it to the final rounds. It will help you deliver a positive candidate experience and build a positive brand reputation.

Put Your Best Campus Recruiters Forward

Another important aspect that can make or break your brand reputation among students is the ‘Campus Recruiter’.

Primary responsibility of a campus recruiter is to visit colleges, reach out to students, communicate about your company’s vision and mission and interview the candidates.

On the surface, campus recruiter is simply managing the recruitment process but underneath lies a large onus. Campus recruiter is the face of your brand, he/she is responsible for creating a brand image among the students. Thus, while organizing campus recruitments, place the best person in front. ‘Best’ here signifies the person who has exceptional communication skills and all the relevant knowledge about,

• Organization
• Employee Growth Opportunity
• Projects
• Work Culture
• Salary, perks, and benefits
• Job roles and their impact on business growth
• Career Opportunities

At campus recruitments, this is your only chance to make a long-lasting impression. Therefore, if campus recruiters can proficiently answer candidates’ questions and hit the bullseye with their knowledge and expertise, the influx of campus hires would organically multiply.

Tip: Hire a dedicated campus recruiter who has long-standing expertise in organizing, communicating and managing on-campus recruitment processes.