Recruiting Intelligence

“The term you’re looking for isn’t ‘diversity of thought.’ It’s ‘productive conflict.’”

A thought-provoking post from Lily Zheng, a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant. If you don’t follow her already, she’s one to look up.

Reading her words took me back to the Dec. 2022 ICEF conference in San Diego. I had the good fortune of sitting on a panel alongside Eddie West, assistant dean for international strategy and programs at San Diego State University; Sadiq Basha, the CEO of Edvoy; and Tony Lee, chief visionary officer for ICEF. The topic: agent aggregators.

It was a really great discussion. Open. Honest. And what Zheng may describe as “productive conflict.” I had a blast. And I think everyone in the room did, too. 90 minutes of panel discussion and audience engagement in a packed room and everyone stayed for the length of it. Not many looking at their phones either. Powerful and cutting edge conversation.

It’s exactly the kind of conversation you’d hope to have at ICEF. And I thank the leadership for including me. Because if you know me, I have strong opinions about the student journey and student success. The Intead team has been doing this stuff for a long time.

Please reach out if you'd like to chat over coffee at the AGB Conference in San Diego April 1.

If you’ve not been to the ICEF North America show, I highly recommend it. The value of it is different for institutions at different stages of their student recruitment journey. Definitely worth evaluating. Shoot us an email if you’d like more perspective on the value.

For those who were not in San Diego with us in December, you’re in luck. Read on for a link to the podcast of the agent aggregator discussion. I think you’ll find it both informative and entertaining.

Read on…

…It goes further than identifying opportunities. You also need to manage them. Perhaps a renewed focus on the mechanics will move the needle more effectively?...

Our full-day workshop at San Diego State University was a truly packed day. After initial conversations about the current student recruitment landscape and the data that informs smart enrollment decisions, we broke into 3 discussion groups talking about recruiting agent management, global digital marketing, and global partners.

Attendees were free to flow from one conversation to the other as our all-star faculty held forth using the Intead Global Marketing Workbook as a guide (available through our Intead Plus subscription). It was fascinating to watch the flow of inquiries and learning throughout the day as attendees tapped the expertise they needed to formulate their global marketing plans.

And we noted the praise for the faculty perspectives gathered. Based on the feedback, participants appreciated the highly productive series of deep conversations with the opportunity for detailed answers to specific marketing/recruitment questions.

We spoke to even more colleagues at the AIRC and ICEF conferences who expressed regret that they were unable to attend our workshop due to timing and work conflicts. If you share that perspective, please let us know. We are evaluating when we might hold this event again, on the East Coast or in other locations. Send us a note. Perhaps we can make this workshop accessible to you.

In the meantime, read on for quick notable ideas from our whirlwind trip westward for AIRC, ICEF, and our workshop in between. You’ll be glad you did.

At some point when we listen to stories of successful initiatives, part of that story almost always includes a line like this: "Well, we were really curious about..."

How is your curiosity quotient these days?

Success emerges from teams that want to know and understand. That desire, and how well you act on and fulfill that desire speaks to the drive to succeed.

In a few weeks, a select few of your peers will gather with leaders in our field of international recruiting for a full-day, hands-on workshop to seriously get stuff done. Dubbed “Succeeding in the New Student Landscape,” this event is designed to help you diversify and build your global student recruitment plan for 2023 and beyond. This event offers small-batch, intensely focused conversations to apply the latest data, trends, perspectives, and best practices to your institution's current state. 

We are keeping it small so that every participant gets the kind of attention that addresses the immediate and long-term thinking needed for each unique institution.

The details:

• December 13, 2022 (falling conveniently between the AIRC and ICEF conferences)
• On campus at San Diego State University
• 19 industry thought leaders as your faculty and keynote speakers
• Two tracks: Get It Done (Track I), Leadership (Track II)
• Two on-target keynotes: Social Justice as it relates to International Student Attraction (lunch), and Chinese Student Influencers Today (dinner)
• Cost (inclusive of all meals): $350 

Ready to learn more? Read on for our list of speakers, moderators, and full-day breakdown. We hope to see you there! There are still spaces left as of this blog posting date.

This week, we are taking a look back at one of the more controversial topics (still!) in international recruitment – the use of agents. 

Originally, we thought this discussion was done when NACAC agreed that there was, in fact, an ethical way to engage agents to support your international student recruiting. Well…the debate wasn't quite over, for some.

We’ve all heard the education agent debate—how do I find and sustain ethical and productive relationships that benefit both my institution and my prospective students? How do I know whether I am working with the right agents? And ultimately—is using agents worth the risk? (Because we all know there are some bad actors out there).

This week we are taking a look at the regulations and a few of the underlying arguments and the evidence on either side.  

In September of 2016, the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC) amended two parts in their guidance to U.S. educators on using education agents. This code of ethics, titled Statement of Principles of Good Practice (SPGP), was originally adopted in 2014. This document lays out the code of ethics and standards for the association and its members.

Then, in April of 2017, the U.S.-based Middle States Commission on Higher Education proposed new policy languages that would prohibit use of incentive-based compensation for international student recruitment. That objection eventually died on the vine.

Add to that the changes taking place in China and Vietnam around how these countries have recently relaxed regulations for recruiting agencies so that almost anyone can raise their hand and announce they are now a student recruiting shop.

Yet, the American Council on Education (ACE) recently released a report on internationalization efforts by U.S. institutions and they shared this: In 2011, 17% of respondents were engaged with education agents compared with 45% in 2016. Hello!

Our own recent research with FPP EDU Media that we presented at NAFSA in 2017 identified that 50% of international students find education agents helpful as they evaluate their options. And our sample size? More than 1M students surveyed resulted in 57,000+ student responses from 65 countries! (Find the link to our slides below). Those results are some of the most substantial and reliable in our industry.

Bottom Line: While the use of education agents by U.S. institutions is on the rise (considerably!), concerns about unethical practices are being addressed. Have you figured out where the best and most reliable agents are around the world? Is your institution too fearful of the downside? If so, you are probably not relying on THE recruiting channel that pretty much all institutions with any significant increase in international student population are using. And they use agents successfully. If your goal is to increase international student enrollment, ignore this recruiting channel at your own peril.

Read on to get some of the details of recent regulatory challenges and our insights into using agents to support your international student recruiting. This channel cannot be ignored. The risks are really only in whether you put the right processes in place to select and manage your recruiting team.

Let's start with a Happy Diwali to all our friends who celebrate! We share wishes for prosperity, wisdom and peace to all. And with those well wishes, we want to consider ideas about student retention this week.

When do you start thinking about student retention? Have you looked at your retention data lately? Our thought: we all need to think about retention from the get go, from the point of the admissions offer.

This week's post offers perspective on the advantages of this approach and some tips you'll want to consider as part of your communications plan. If your retention stats are not where they should be, and those stats will vary by type of institution and program, this post is for you. Frankly, even if your retention stats are where you want them to be, this post is probably still a good one for you.

Want to learn more from us? Intead will be at NAFSA Region X in Princeton, NJ, October 23-25. Two presentations with our latest recruitment insights:

• International Recruiting…From Your Backyard with Bill Mena, Director of Boarding and International Admissions at Sandy Spring Friends School in Maryland, and
• Know Your Chinese Audience: Using Personas to Guide Your Marketing with Ita Hemouet, Director of Admissions, International Research & Strategy from Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences University in Boston.

...or set up a time to meet us for coffee! We can always use an excuse for that extra cup of joe! 

Not heading to Princeton this month? How about Florida in December? Our team will be at AIRC (Dec. 6-9) and ICEF (Dec. 11-13). And of course there is AIEA in DC (Feb 18-21). So many opportunities to meet and discuss our latest research (4 new e-books heading your way in the coming months - Shhhh! We are keeping that quiet right now).

But if you REALLY want to learn from the best of the best, check out our faculty at the 2nd Annual International Student Recruitment Bootcamp in San Diego (Feb 11-13). This small, hands on workshop format is for a select set of institutions making a real commitment to improving their international student recruitment program.

Meanwhile, in this week's blog we are considering retention. Retention starts with the offer of acceptance to your institution. That might seem like a bold statement – a shift in perspective, but we like to think that it should be intuitive. When you offer a student a place at your institution, you are committing to the entire process of maintaining that relationship until the point of graduation and beyond.

While it might seem hard to believe that extra effort focused on retention this early in their university process will impact your prospective students’ decisions down the road – we assure you that it can. Build your relationships early and often. Let’s take it from the beginning. Read on...