How to Create a Successful College Recruiting Program – Define the Methods You Will Use to Reach Target Schools (Part 8 of 14)

The purpose of this series of CollegeRecruiter.com Blog entries is to define and describe the basic steps to create a successful college recruiting program. In the first entry, we defined success and laid out the steps to the program. In this eighth entry, we’ll discuss how to define the methods you will use to reach your target schools.

The two main methods to reach target schools used by companies are on-campus recruiting and web sites. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages and as such, deserves its own explanation.
Why is your college recruiting web site important? Unless you are fortunate enough to work for a company that conducts national advertising campaigns like Red Lobster and Enterprise Rent-A-Car, your web site is frequently the initial contact students have with your company. Some companies have an obvious advantage: students may have actually seen how these companies operate from an observer or consumer viewpoint.

So, think about first impressions in this world of technology — frustrate a student online with poor navigation and insufficient information and you have lost a major opportunity to sell your company. A Corporate Guide to College Recruiting, written by Sandra Grabczynski, explains the following about using the Internet for selling your company to students:

Today’s students, raised on MTV, want fast, glitzy activity. For the wired (and now, wireless) generations, the Internet is a way of life, and the first place they begin their research. It is an excellent vehicle for advertising and keeping interested parties current on your company’s activities and advancements.

The subject of designing a web site for recruiting and specifically, college recruiting, is addressed in more detail in a later entry in this series of articles – Designing Your Web Site to Address Student Concerns.
What the Professionals Say About the Importance of Web Sites
In response to an interview question asking how important the company’s web site was to her company’s college recruiting efforts, Heather Kreider of Red Lobster responded as follows: “Our company’s web site is very important to our recruiting; it compliments all other efforts. But on-campus relationships are the most critical” to Red Lobster’s recruiting efforts.
Allison Nicholas of Axciom reinforces the comment about on-campus relationships with this statement, “Our web site is important as an information source, but nothing replaces relationships with students on-campus.”
Herein lies the major disadvantage of college recruiting web sites — they are impersonal. And on-campus recruiting, properly executed, gives students the real people deal. On-campus recruiting planning deserves your attention. The next section deals specifically with this topic, the second main method to reach target schools.