How to Create a Successful College Recruiting Program – Plan/Schedule On-Site Visits (Part 10 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 tenth entry, we’ll discuss how to plan and schedule visits by candidates to the employer’s offices, which are often referred to as on-site visits.

Planning and scheduling company on-site interviews can be a little tricky. First, only the most serious candidates usually are invited to on-site interviews. Second, companies often need to consider logistics such as how these candidates will travel to and from the sites. But, a well-planned on-site interview will give students a good look at company operations as well as give company managers an opportunity to see students in action.

The recruiting professionals interviewed for this article were asked what activities were important to on-site interviews/visits. Here is how each of these managers responded:
Heather Kreider from Red Lobster stated that “On-site interviews/tours are conducted by a Director of Operations or a restaurant manager. The manager’s responsibility is to make the interviews as realistic as possible (from an operations viewpoint).”
Making these visits “real world” was also emphasized by Marie Artim from Enterprise Rent-A-Car who said, “(Our) on-site interviews take place at branch locations. The key to these interviews is for the interviewees to get a realistic picture of the people and the environment and also to have an understanding of the work involved so they can make an educated (career) decision.”
Allison Nicholas from Axciom Corporation outlined these key activities for on-site interviews:

• Know what students need at this point in their lives.
• Build a day of events.
• Invite the right candidates.
• Deliver what you said you were going to deliver.
• Make an offer as soon as possible after the interview (Acxion makes offers to May graduates in November of their senior year).