Ask the Experts: How to decide which school to visit in-person versus virtually

Many employers, large and small, are in the midst of deciding which colleges and universities to target this school year for their hiring of part-time, seasonal, intern and entry-level employees. We asked experts what the most important criterion is for their organization when deciding what schools to visit in-person versus virtually versus not at all.

Laser offers some pros and cons of various decisions recruiters have to make. Deciding on the amount of investment you want to make in potential future hires is a difficult task. Laser aims to make this decision a little bit easier for you:

• Is it beneficial to host company career days and invite local students?
  • Pro:
    • Can inexpensively sample a diverse set of candidates within one geographic location.
  • Con:
    • You, again, have no control over who is in the candidate pool.

• Is it worth it to build relationships with colleges/universities?
  • Pros:
    • Receive responses from candidates who actually have interest and related skills.
    • Can have phone screenings before accruing costs of face-to-face interviews.
  • Con:
    • You have no control over how the posting is shared or communicated at the school.
  • Laser describes how to figure out which schools will best benefit you. “Reach out to organizations and associations that cater to your needs and ask what college/university programs their members attended, or simply Google it.”

Laser strongly encourages recruiters to attend industry meetings and events. Even more, if you speak at the event you can use that opportunity to share job postings. Also, Laser encourages recruiters to reach out to candidates is by scheduling on-campus field-specific interview days.

Second Tip by Katie Kocmond, Campus Recruitment Manager at Addison Group:

• How Addison Group looks for their talent:
  • The characteristics and qualities they want appear across different majors.
  • “We start by looking at our most recent hires and find trends from which schools they graduated from,” Kocmond explains.
    • They then compare those trends to the alumni they have hired from those same schools.
  • Another thing Addison Group looks out for is similarities in activities and clubs amongst hires.
    • Evaluating this data helps them narrow down which schools to visit that will best attract new talent.

Third Tip by Tara Lilien, Chief Talent Officer at Peppercomm:

• How Peppercomm carefully selects their candidates:
  • They target universities with strong industry-relevant programs.
    • Programs such as Communications, Public Relations, Digital, and Data Analytics.
  • They also look for universities who seek partnerships.
    • This enables them to be more involved than just a booth at a career fair.
    • These partnerships include student visits to our office, panel speaking opportunities for our executives, or portfolio reviews/mock interviews with students.
  • Peppercomm also makes good use of technology to couple with the campus outreach. Skype interviews have helped them to cast a broad net geographically. Lilien explains, “this allows us to select the right candidates for our intern and associate roles.”