Recruiting Intelligence

During the winter break, I found more time to read lots of books and magazines. Let me share one headline that stuck with me.  "Average is Over." It's the title of economist Tyler Cowen's book about the future of our economy. But beyond the title of this book, this theme was prevalent in many of the books and articles I read. Competition is intensifying across all product and service categories, and product cycles are decreasing. Higher education is no exception to that increased competitive environment.  And you, the admissions and marketing departments, stand at the forefront of that competition for qualified and motivated students.  

• What motivates and interests this generation?
• How can universities communicate and how does this student group communicate with each other?
• What can we tell about how this generation consumes content?

The millennial index highlights five different segments and personas (See Chart 1). Depending on your focus (undergraduate vs. graduate studies), you will find a different share of these segments among your target audience. 

Teaching English as a Second Language in the US for the past six months, has opened my eyes to a whole new area of higher education. The blast of university international students wanting to study in America has increased significantly over the past few years and I am excited to be a part of its growth. Working in the classroom, I get to have close interaction with the students on a daily basis and learn about each one individually. Everyday I am amazed with their strength and optimism adjusting to our country as well as our education system.

This INTEAD insight is going to report on our learning. Have a look at our chart below. Over 50% of all emails were opened on a mobile device in December 2013 according to Return Path, a large email solutions provider.  27% were opened on a desktop client such as Outlook and 22% from a webmail client such as Gmail opened within a browser. 

In this Intead Insight, we take a deeper look at the long term trends in international student enrollment. Universities need a long-term commitment to build internationalization programs. Successful international enrollment requires dedicated staff resources and expertise as well as campus-wide support. 

We are using the open door data, collected annually by the Institute of International Education (IIE). This year to year view of international student enrollment trends is extremely helpful. The most recent report showed a 7.2% overall increase in the total number of international students studying in the U.S. which represents 3.9% of all college level enrollment in the U.S.

The three years that I spent as an admission counselor at Washington University in St. Louis included some of my favorite experiences. Looking back a dozen years later I recall that ambitious, young, eager, college graduate embarking on an exciting and life-changing first job. I attended Washington University as a double major in architecture and American history. After the long hours I spent in the studio, spending time in the admission office giving tours, meeting students, and participating in admission presentations was a welcome break. As I realized in my final year of college that I didn't want to pursue a career in architecture, my friends (future colleagues) in the admission office saw an opportunity to encourage me to join the team. Although I didn't attend college with the intention of becoming an admission officer who would ultimately lead a fruitful career in higher eduction, this was one of those occasions in which an indeterminate path led to great future gains. Though I've chosen to stay in higher education for fifteen years, colleagues in the admission office moved in many different directions. The skills we learned in our time as admission counselors arguably had a profound impact on us as professionals.

In 2013 our research and editorial teams worked hard to bring you engaging and cutting-edge blog articles and Insights. As we enter 2014 we thought a retrospective of the best and most popular Intead content of 2013 was in order-- just in case you missed anything the first time around.

We hope that you enjoy reading our blog and Insights. Stay tuned in 2014-- we’ve got plenty of exciting content coming your way!

Top Blogs of 2013