Recruiting Intelligence

The vast majority of companies still treat social media as a fad and social phenomena. Their use of social media tools for marketing is rudimentary and the equivalent of marketing by billboard. Not to say that billboards are ineffective. It's just that digital marketing and social media offer a different marketing opportunity and by and large, folks simply don't know how to use it effectively.

And so, because social media marketing is free, more and more companies are putting up their billboards (first it was websites back in the 1990s and now it is social media accounts). So here's the thing: digital marketing is a waste of time given the number of billboards now posted, UNLESS you have the infrastructure to create and disseminate compelling content and track the online activity.

And so, the answer is "yes" that will require more investment in digital tools, staff or vendors. Effective marketing is not free afterall. Even when using social media. Sorry to be the ones breaking the news.

Today we want to highlight data from a report from Sprout, a company providing social media management tools.  

We'd like to proudly introduce a new content source for you-- Intead Index-- a set of indices that provides you with all of the information you need to make informed decisions. We will publish the lists regularly on the blog over the next few months.We will be publishing a compilation of these lists on a yearly basis. While we'd like to think that our research is comprehensive, we know that there might be service providers we inadvertently overlooked. That's where you, our loyal readers, come into the picture.  We welcome your comments and additions to the lists. Feel free to use the provided link to share your feedback. 

As institutions attempt to distinguish themselves from competitors, university marketers and recruiters seek additional means of highlighting institutional strengths. One of the previously overlooked, yet easily highlightable, assets is post-graduation career placement. As we've mentioned in the past on this blog, we strongly encourage our clients and colleagues to highlight post-graduation employment. Students and especially parents are increasingly interested in learning about how your graduates fare in the job market. Though international students have a unique set of circumstances regarding post-graduation employment, understanding the career prospects of graduates is frequently listed as an important factor for higher education selection.

How do you successfully market education? Is today's youth so disaffected by bleak job prospects that they just don't care? Are parents turned off by inflated and growing tuition costs?

Higher ed is increasingly challenged to demonstrate that education matters. More than ever before, higher ed must demonstrate that there is a positive return on the investment of time and money. What's a university to do?

Objective research to the rescue: the Pew Research Center recently provided a useful study, called “The Rising Cost of NOT Going to College.”

Chart 1 (below) shows the growing divergence of earnings between groups with different levels of education.  As you can see the gap has risen from generation to generation. Today’s millennials, with at least a Bachelor degree, earn significantly more than less educated full-time worker in the same age bracket of 25-32. 

China is the second market in our series on niche or micro-markets in student recruiting. Last week, we covered the Indian market as presented by Lakshmi Iyer, today we are sharing with you the insights from Kim Morrison from GrokGlobal on the Chinese market. Kim gave a great presentation at the annual AIEA conference in Washington, D.C., in February 2014.

We recommend that you download the presentation which contains many more fascinating slides than we can present here (registration required - Please note that the actual presentation starts on slide 5).  

Peanut butter and jelly. Batman and Robin. Abbott and Costello. And the most recent dynamic duo: teenager and internet. Since the iPhone became a regular at the family dinner table, the landscape of teenage life has changed—including how they search for, and ultimately choose, an institution of higher education.

You already know this, and so do today’s wide range of digital lead generation services. These digital services can provide a more student-driven, personal search process that suits today’s independent and tech-savvy teens—a far leap from the mass mailings (or even e-mailings) from student search service contact lists. See our recent blog-- Digital Direct Marketing to International Students: Are You on Target? Several of these services even offer international expertise. Want to know where to start? Here are some key considerations.

In a world of fast-paced activity and seemengly never ending responsibilities, it isn't always easy to find the time to listen. It's important to take a break from charting progress, developing novel programs and tools, and talking through brochures, websites, social media and face-to-face. Listening is critical. With that in mind we recently conducted a focus group with international students, many of whom are college freshmen, to take the time to listen to what was important to them in the recruitment process. We learned four key takeaway messages which are outlined below.

India is the second largest source of international students coming to the U.S. Many factors are contributing to this flow of students and current projections suggest future growth in the number of Indian students studying in the U.S. and other countries. In looking at the Indian market you will find a very diverse student population and complex market than many outside observers assume. When we here at Intead evaluate the Indian market, we consider the many "micro-markets" within the country that are more likely to be effective for international student recruitment. 

International travel tours and college fair attendance are two of the biggest expense items in most international admissions departments that utilize this recruiting channel for their international student enrollment.  We have developed a list of criteria for you on how to select vendors for these trips.