You’ve completed 308 campus recruitment events in 4 months (or at least that’s what it feels like) and you’re ready to collapse into a bleary-eyed haze of Netflix and KFC.
But wait…
These campus recruitment events were only the kick-off. You now have hundreds, maybe thousands of resumes and applications to sift through, and you know for sure that, buried among the pile of excellent candidates are a handful of rockstars that you and every other major corporation are going to be competing to sign up.
It’s a race to identify the best talent and get them on your side before someone else beats you to the punch.
No problem. You know there’ll be time to rest once your campus recruitment follow-up strategy is done. However, let’s see if we can get you to your $20 Fill Up Bucket and the latest season of “Is It Cake?” a little quicker.
Start campus recruitment season with a kick-off session
The best way to get your post-campus recruitment event follow-up strategy running quickly and efficiently is to start BEFORE the season begins. Get all of your recruiters, your planners, your internal teams, and your associated teams together and make sure everyone knows exactly:
If your overall strategy is clear, and everyone involved can see the part they’re playing, you’ll go into your campus season with everyone feeling confident and ready to go.
Yes, it’s another event to organize on top of all the others, but get this one right and the end result will speak for itself.
Encourage use of tech to track and record everything
If you’ve already invested in specific campus recruitment software – well done – there will always be some on your team who will be reluctant to use it and be inclined to stick to their tried and trusted paper trail.
Try to train or incentivize them to adopt the technology. Campus recruitment event software works best when it’s used consistently so you can reduce administration, speed up the identification of target candidates, and identify steps in your process that can be improved.
If you’re not yet using campus recruitment event software to register students and automate their journey through the gamut of applications and interviews, we urge you to get on this. We know of no current strategy that will have a larger and more immediate impact on your ability to improve your campus strategy results.
Check if your current recruitment event software has a specific campus recruitment event module. If it doesn’t, we have a recommendation at the end of this blog.
Have a plan to quickly identify top talent
It’s always exciting to talk to a student who is clearly a rising star and is going to be a boon to whichever company they choose. But when you’re in the throes of a busy event, it’s easy to get distracted and fail to take immediate action.
Making a mental note to flag the student’s resume and follow-up within a few days is risky, not just because you might forget, but because today’s recruitment environment is too competitive to delay.
Instead, create a specific policy, for everyone who attends events, that requires them to take immediate action if they believe they’ve spotted a key recruitment target. This might take the form of flagging them on your recruitment system (again, tech is going to be your friend for this kind of thing), assigning them to a specific recruiter, and then requiring that an initial follow-up be completed within 24 hours, or even before the end of the day.
This can be coupled with a plan that allows recruiters, once they’ve confirmed that an individual is a prime target, to access more senior members of the team to arrange further follow-ups.
The more plans of this type you put into practice BEFORE your event begins, the smoother your follow-up strategy will play out.
Hold monthly, or bi-monthly, check-ins
If your campus recruitment event season is substantial, arrange regular check-ins with your teams to debrief them and find out what’s going well, what needs adjusting, and if any additional resources are needed.
This is also an opportunity for your team members to ask questions. And since you’ll often find the same issues coming up repeatedly, having a Q&A in a group session will save a lot of time on repeatedly putting out the same fires.
Figure out how you’re going to woo your main targets
On the one hand, yes, you should treat each important candidate as an individual and flex to their priorities and interests. But it’s also good to have an arsenal of perks that you can call on to demonstrate that you’re genuinely interested in bringing them onboard, and to convince them that you’re the right choice for their next role or internship.
Think of it like a courtship. You’re trying to woo the candidate and show them that you believe they’re special. Which means you need to offer them things that you’re not offering to everyone else.
Getting senior leadership involved is a good place to start. Even if there are experienced individuals at your firm who are not typically active in your general campus recruitment event activities, having these high-level colleagues on standby, who can pick up the phone at short notice and call an important prospect, can make a real difference in the mind of the candidate.
Depending on the geographical practicalities, you could also, for example, invite the students to visit one of your offices to meet their potential future colleagues and take a tour of the office.
Automate your superdays
When it comes to campus recruitment event administration, nothing is a bigger tangle of emails, answering machine messages, missed calls, direct messages, and confused students who can’t figure out where they’re supposed to go and when, than a busy superday.
This might just be the biggest reason to use campus recruitment event software automation. Get this kind of system running smoothly, in advance of your superdays, and you won’t believe the amount of time and energy that you’ll free up.
Imagine a system where students can sign up for a superday online, choose their preferred day, time and location, automatically book themselves in, and then receive automated emails and messages reminding them when the event is happening, what they need to do to prepare, and what travel options are available.
Instead of that constant back and forth with dozens of different students, all with different questions and issues, you can create an environment in which the vast majority of students can attend your superday without having to clarify itineraries, venues etc.
***
We don’t need to tell you how important a strong follow-up strategy is to making a success of campus recruitment event season.
However, we think it’s worth a reminder that much of what happens AFTER the events can be planned for and smoothed out BEFORE you begin.
Getting your teams organized and clear in their mind about what their role is and what is expected of them is going to make a huge difference.
Arguably the biggest boost to your campus recruitment event follow-ups that you can make is to make good use of the technology that has become available in recent years.
Oleeo is the only recruitment event solution on the market with a specific campus recruitment event module for managing and tracking your activity. And it can even be customized to your precise specifications.
We wish you nothing but success in your campus recruitment event season. Go find today’s undergraduates who are going to be tomorrow’s business superstars, and do everything in your power to get your offer in first.
