Recruiting Intelligence

Spoiler alert: It is simply not ok to tell prospective students you have a vibrant campus community. You gotta show them.  

Our goal: marketing messaging that resonates based on very real consumer connection. 

Human beings rally around things. We rally around our families (biologic or chosen), our sports teams (Celtics, Manchester United), our celebrities (TSwift, Beyonce), our professions (cybersecurity engineer, IP attorney), events (Rio Carnival, Chinese New Year), crises (Gaza, Ukraine), political issues (don’t get us started). 

It has a lot to do with shared experience over time. The connections we make with others who engage in a project, achieving a goal, together. As humans, we want to protect and bolster the things we love.

So, no wonder, people rally around their campus community. Having shared a period of time together and having a degree conferred by the same administrative body – these activities and achievements form bonds. 

We eat in the same cafeterias, walk the same halls and pathways, endure the same exam schedules, and wear the same cap and gown as we walk the same stages to receive our parchment pressed with our school seal. 

With the rise of online degrees, a new sense of shared experience develops.

Opportunities to Meet the Intead Team  
- NAFSA Region XI, Hartford, Connecticut, Oct. 27-29, 2024
- PIE Live North America, Boston, MA, Nov. 19-20, 2024
- AIRC, Seattle-Bellevue, Washington, Dec. 4-7, 2024

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Access 800+ articles, slides, reports with relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Check it out.

There is far less connective tissue to draw students together with the online experience. Yet, there remains a common set of activities and the earned degree creates that same sense of pride in achievement born of concerted effort toward a shared goal. 

When we think about student recruitment from the prospective student point of view, as the university selection list gets shorter, the heart plays a larger and larger role in determining where they will enroll. In focus groups, the most common phrase is some form of, “After all the thinking, I felt this was the right choice for me.” (emphasis added) 

Here’s the thing: it’s hard to build student evangelists within your community when they see their education and their community as entirely transactional.  

Not rocket science. However, it takes the investment of dedicated time. This is more than a simple 90-minute brainstorming session with your team's marketing talent. There's trend data to evaluate, focus groups to convene, influencer affinity groups to build and manage. 

Sounds like a fair amount of work, right?

And when you think about those institutions out there who just seem to be crushing it, what do they seem to have going for them? Sure, they have the product mix and the measured price point. But what hits you right in the face is the vibe. That is the thing that gets you thinking, "Oh, I wish we had that connection to our audience."

That audience connection doesn't just happen. It is cultivated by talented, thoughtful, invested people who believe in the opportunity.

Below we share a few pointers. Please be in touch if you'd like to dive into a deeper analysis of the specific opportunities for your institution (info@intead.com). This is about the consumer insights the Intead team is so very good at identifying and leveraging. Read on… 

US student visa approval rates have long been a topic of concern and consternation by everyone involved, the approvers (State Department) and the approves (students). While academic leaders, students, and agents often dwell on the rejected, the US State Department focuses on the approved. Numbers are up overall.  

Regular readers here know that the Intead team collects and dissects data to give strong counsel to university and high school enrollment leaders. This week, while we acknowledge there is plenty of data to analyze about visa application volume, wait times, and denial rates, we offer a different actionable perspective and guidance in another visa-related area: what your team can do to improve yield on your international student applicants (with the visa process in mind). 

During the EdUSA Forum earlier this month, there was a slightly tense luncheon that caught everyone’s attention as academic institution leaders poked at State Department leaders regarding visa approval rates and processes. Truth is, in any operation, processes can always be improved.  

Last week, in this two-part blog series, we talked about the importance of developing STEM curriculathat meet the current tech industry demand for talent. As noted, Microsoft is seeking to fill 6,000 to 9,000 open positions around the world on any given day, according to Bruce Thompson, Head of Americas, Microsoft Education who spoke at the recent EdUSA Forum in DC. If you missed that post, well, take a few minutes for some practical advice doled out by tech industry execs who spoke at the Forum. 

At the Forum, I had the privilege of presenting on student recruitment budgeting alongside SIO extraordinaire Jill Blondin from Virginia Commonwealth University to a standing room only room. (The slides are available to Intead Plus members.)

This week, it is all about student visas. Consider: the US State Department’s visa operations team is charged with keeping the US safe from harm by ill-intentioned actors (economic schemers and of course, more serious hardened criminals). Hundreds of millions of people in the US and around the world count on State to do a really good job at that. 

Our next opportunity to meet!   
NAFSA Region XI, Hartford, CT, Oct 27-29. The Intead team will be there presenting on Admission Process Analysis, Marketing Data Analytics, and Marketing Study Abroad Programs with university partners from our New England region friends from Quinnipiac, Johnson and Wales, Clark, and Emerson. Practical strategies and creative tactics to hit your enrollment targets.  Hope to see you there! 

PIE Live North America, Boston, MA, Nov 19-20. We will be talking about our analysis of career success data and how institutions can use that data to improve recruitment initiatives around the world. Our powerhouse co-presenters: Kerry Salerno, Chief Marketing Officer, Babson College and Andrew Chen, CEO, F1 Hire.

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Take your challenge of the day and plop it into our search bar. With 800+ publications and our 15 years of weekly blogging, you will find relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting. Check it out.

One of the great things about the three-day EdUSA Forum is the opportunity to chat with EdUSA’s REAC’s (Regional Educational Advising Coordinators) from around the world. These approachable, super smart, and culturally adept folks shared their views on current realities in every region around the world – economic realities, education system realities, visa approval realities.  

Today, a closer look at the process of obtaining student visas and the actions those responsible for international student recruitment (university and education agent representatives) can take, given where we all are right now. Our view: it’s all about setting and aligning expectations. 

Read on… 

The tech industry moves fast. Can’t help it. The rate of change, the development of new stuff from quarter to quarter never stops.  

As they move forward with their development roadmap, Microsoft has between 6,000 to 9,000 open positions around the world on any given day. So says Bruce Thompson, Head of Americas, Microsoft Education. He spoke at the EducationUSA Forum earlier this month.  

At the Forum, people working on the global front lines of student recruitment gathered in DC for three days. These knowledgeable folks shared their views on current realities in every region around the world – economic realities, education system realities, visa approval realities.  

The US State Department has been supporting US institutions for 25 years and this year’s EducationUSA Forum delivered on many levels. The intel shared is so important as we evaluate where to invest our recruitment budgets globally. Where should we travel? Where should we develop new partnerships? Where should we invest in digital campaigns? Where will the student demand and family financial capacity levels provide the strongest returns on those investments?  

I had the privilege of presenting on student recruitment budgeting alongside SIO extraordinaire Jill Blondin from Virginia Commonwealth University to a standing room only room at the Forum. (The slides are available to Intead Plus members.) 

Beyond the valuable on-the-ground perspectives shared at the Forum this year, the high-level stuff that struck me were deep and valuable discussions about: 

• The challenges inherent to the student visa approval process and
• Consistently stale STEM academic offerings found at institutions   

Our next opportunity to meet!   
NAFSA Region XI, Hartford, CT, Oct 27-29. The Intead team will be there presenting on Admission Process Analysis, Marketing Data Analytics, and Marketing Study Abroad Programs with university partners from our New England region friends from Quinnipiac, Johnson and Wales, Clark, and Emerson. Practical strategies and creative tactics to hit your enrollment targets.  Hope to see you there! 

Bookmark this: Intead’s Resource Center 
Take your challenge of the day and plop it into our search bar. With 800+ publications and our 15 years of weekly blogging, you will find relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting. Check it out.

In this 2-part blog series we take a closer look at the process of obtaining student visas on the way in and preparing those students for the jobs they want on the way out.  

We’ll start with the jobs thing. If you’ve not already downloaded our Connecting Dots Report, highly recommend. You’ll appreciate how the Intead analytics team dove into mountains of US Department of Labor data to help your marketing recruitment team stand out at any student fair anywhere in the world. How do you do that? Read the report.

A few tech industry speakers at the Forum caught my attention and provided industry perspectives I found truly insightful. Next week, we’ll review the slightly tense luncheon that caught everyone’s attention as academic institution leaders poked at State  Department leaders regarding Visa approval rates.  

Our goal here is getting our curriculum in line with industry needs and getting our students out into highly relevant, industry approved internships, co-ops, and jobs faster. Think big. Think innovation. That means take well-researched risks and follow untrodden, or lightly trodden paths. 

Read on… 

Our first time attending the GMAC Conference put on by the talented folks who produce and manage Graduate Management Education (GME) testing and so much more. With 600+ in attendance, the networking flows easily and the conference logistics seem a bit smoother than some of the other conferences we attend.  

GMAC, as an organization, has a larger, more international staff than other U.S. academic associations. And they have a revenue stream (from testing) that others in this field do not have. Their global outposts support academic business programs in countries around the world and confirm the value of their entrance exam for institutions in these countries as well. 

Conference sessions covered marketing, recruiting, admissions, diversity, program management, and predicting future enrollment, among others. With many concurrent sessions, I found it hard to identify the most valuable use of any given hour in my schedule. That’s a good thing. 

Our presentation topic: predicting the student recruitment future based on international data and the global shift toward stronger anti-immigration policies. Our slides will be available to you for the next week before they move to exclusive access for our Intead Plus members. 

Our next opportunity to meet!   
EducationUSA, Washington, D.C., July 30-August 1. Ben and Virginia Commonwealth University SIO Jill Blondin will share insights on Navigating Budget Challenges in International Recruitment: Practical Strategies for Every Phase.  Hope to see you there! 

The Resource Center for Industry Insiders 
Take your challenge of the day and plop it into our search bar. With 800+ publications and our 15 years of weekly blogging, you will find relevant content on any topic important to enrollment management and student recruiting.  Valuable perspective and data ontopics you care about. From agent-university partnerships to predictive modeling and CRM efficiency, to new market development, our Resource Center has you covered. Check it out.

Below we share 4 way-cool and thought-provoking takeaways from the sessions I attended at GMAC. And of course, the slides from my session about the future and how cultivating an innovation mindset is your best approach in the face of national and international policy threats. We compare and contrast very reliable sources (IIE, British Council, and IDP) and make our own case for the value of innovation and perseverance. 

Read on for the insights and be sure to scroll to the very bottom for the link to our slide deck – which we think is well worth the scroll ; -) 

Conferences come and go each year. And each time we attend a conference or a session, we promise ourselves, “I just want one thing to take away that I can use when I get back to the office.” And as the conference slides into our rearview mirror, do we confirm that one thing? Do we do something to ensure the time and money invested really bring value to our work? 

If we are being honest: Sometimes, yes. Sometimes, no. Right? As far as our boss is concerned: Always, YES!  ; -) 

Well, here’s our effort to make an honest person of you (of all of us). We are looking back at New Orleans and NAFSA 2024 (just 6 weeks ago) and sharing our actionable takeaways we think you can use in your day-to-day. With 7 of our Intead team spread out around the conference, it was tough to filter our takeaways down to just a few. We’re bringing out the best 4 for you. 

At this year’s NAFSA, Intead’s Iliana Joaquin teamed up with UMBC SIO Dr. David Di Maria to talk about the realities of using AI in enrollment management. You can grab those slides here.

And I gave a presentation with UC Davis SIO Dr. Joanna Regulska offering new data we conducted with NAFSA on the value of a US degree. You can read about that and grab the slides here.  

Our next opportunity to meet!   
EducationUSA Forum, Washington, D.C., July 30-August 1. Ben and Virginia Commonwealth University SIO Jill Blondin will share insights on Navigating Budget Challenges in International Recruitment: Practical Strategies for Every Phase.  Hope to see you there! 

The Resource Center for industry insiders 
Access our international student recruitment research database with over 800 datasets, infographics, webinars, podcasts, articles, and more. A go-to collection of Intead’s 15+ years of industry analysis. Check it out and bookmark for later. 

Read on for a quick-hit summary of 4 key takeaways from the NAFSA 2024 conference conversations we found useful: Visas, Budgeting, Staffing, and Strategic Planning. We’ll keep it short and sweet. 

That photo and headline were admittedly clickbait. There are certainly turbulent waters ahead, but no abyss from our point of view. We do have some great fiscal perspective to share here. And awesome photo, right? We took that while attending the AIRC Symposium and ICEF North America Workshop in Niagara, Canada. 

During the AIRC event, Maggie and Ben gave a truly valuable presentation with a new set of Intead slides focused on a data-driven, actionable approach to budgeting for international enrollment efforts. This session and the slides were extremely well received, especially in the currently ambiguous, post-covid student mobility climate.  

Let’s meet in New Orleans @ NAFSA 2024! 

Join one of Intead’s two NAFSA presentations: 

• ChatGPT and AI: What are the real opportunities for enrollment management? 
  Wed., May 29 @ 1 p.m.
  This one gives you the real-world picture, filtering out all of the smoke and silliness. Featuring David L. Di Maria, Senior International Officer & Associate Vice Provost for International Education at UMBC, and Iliana Joaquin, Senior Digital Marketing Manager at Intead 

• Groundbreaking Data: International Student Employment After Graduation
  Thurs., May 30 @ 11:30 a.m.
  This one presents unprecedented data about the value of international students after they graduate. Never before research Intead conducted with support from NAFSA and 12 US institutions offers great opportunities to advocate for your internationalization efforts. Featuring Joanna Regulska, Vice Provost and Dean of Global Affairs, UC Davis and Ben Waxman, Intead CEO

Get ahead with soon-to-be-released data from Intead.  

Intead is gearing up to release 3 new proprietary data sets that will change the way your team thinks about international student recruitment in the coming year. Incredibly telling data on international student career aspirations, the companies that hire them, and how the US election figures into international student decisions. More to come at NAFSA 2024. Pre-register to receive the reports as soon as they become available. 

For the past 15 years, the Intead team has been watching the numbers and predicting the future of international student enrollment with accuracy. It was February 2020, as the Chinese government shut down travel in and out of Wuhan and Covid had just begun its rampage though Italy that we were quoted in the Boston Globe pointing to the impending global shut down of international student mobility. Not everyone was happy with our saying so. But we weren’t wrong. 

Our point: we are willing to be bold and make statements that others have every reason to avoid. Someone’s got to feed our industry sober and helpful intel without all the blather. 

So, read on for what we see ahead and will be talking about at the upcoming NAFSA and GMAC conferences. Oh, and to grab our budget planning slides from the AIRC Symposium that will be available here to our blog subscribers for just one week before we move them into our library only available to our Intead Plus subscribers.  

I’ll be honest with you, the AIEA 2024 conference produced a tremendous number of insights from so many leaders in our field. It has been a challenge reducing, selecting, and summarizing those I think will be most valuable for you. But sharing great ideas is central to why we publish this blog, so today I’m narrowing down a set of seemingly disparate ideas and tying them together, so they are valuable, actionable, and transferrable to you.  

Hey, use the comments below to let me know if I succeeded. 

For the observant, there is SO very much to take back to your desk from these gatherings. And since we had three Intead staff present and presenting at AIEA 2024, we came away with a lot.  

Events you won’t want to miss:

“Shattering Accessibility Limits in Digital Learning,” a Chronicle of Higher Ed-hosted webinar, featuring Gallaudet President Roberta Cordano and ansrsource CEO Rajiv Narayana. Register here. (All registrants will receive the recording even if they cannot attend. ASL interpreters will be present.)

The AIRC Spring Symposium on April 30. This one-day, in-person event in beautiful Niagara, Canada, will explore best practices in developing, managing, assessing, and sustaining the many partnerships that are foundational to international enrollment success. While there, be sure to attend Intead's session all about student recruitment marketing budgets – we've got some great new insights to share. Register today!

Many of the conversations we took part in or led at AIEA 2024 centered around fighting for and justifying internationalization budgets. One important notion (credit to David DiMaria, SIO, UMBC, (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) comes from the Japanese concept of Nemawashi (根回し). The term means “turning or taking care of the roots” and suggests that growth comes from taking good care of the foundation. There’s a lot of truth in this. 

As you seek to initiate a new project or grow something already in place, take time to meet with the many stakeholders individually and understand their points of view and concerns before the power brokers or full committee meets to take a vote on your plans and budget requests. Lay the groundwork so that you know the outcome before that decision point arrives. 

This is just one of the many ideas we’ve been ruminating on since our trip to AIEA. Read on for our selection of key actionable takeaways and our slides on data, AI in enrollment, and entrepreneurship in higher ed. 

Cultural nuance is no “nice to have.” It’s a must. Does your current marketing team understand this? Do they have the deep consumer insights needed to attract, recruit, and convert different cultural cohorts? Let’s get into it.  

When we talk about audience segmentation – the customization of content by region or country or academic interest AND country/region – what we’re talking about is the language and metaphors, images, and offers that resonate. We’re talking about deep consumer insight research that enables marketing efforts to move the needle in a competitive marketplace. Without these insights, your colorful examples, imagery, phrases, and language can only take a campaign so far.  

Non-marketers you can roll your eyes if you like. We suggest you take a look at our 3 examples below for a quick look under the hood at how deep market research informs the creative process and produces stronger results. 

Opportunities to Meet In Person 

The Intead team is gearing up for some amazing presentations and we hope you can join us. 

• The Forum on Education Abroad in Boston, March 21, 2024
• AIRC Spring Symposium and ICEF North America in Niagara, Canada, April 30 - May 3, 2024
• NAFSA 2024 Annual Conference and Expo in New Orleans, May 28-31, 2024
  

Let us know if you’ll share a cup of coffee and a conversation about all things global and digital (info@intead.com) 

As we develop approaches to attract and recruit students to institutions, we carefully consider what they will find relatable and help them make wise decisions. What will capture their attention among the many ads and posts they see online? What phrases will resonate with them as they consider their options – at each point in the decision process (the marketing funnel)?

Essentially, we are trying to figure out what will pause their scroll and prompt the smart click.

Prospects can only follow up with so many offers. In the end, they will apply to somewhere between 5 and 20 institutions. Most will receive 3 to 7 acceptance letters, sometimes more. What will help them make a wise decision for their particular situation? Will the content you create and disseminate influence them to apply and then enroll? 

So many institutions believe their own marketing and put out the most generic messaging because they think the great pool of prospective students will simply find them and connect with them. Some faculty and administrative leaders still believe that "marketing" is unnecessary (or worse) because their institutions are clearly excellent and students will simply find and select them. This point of view persists within the academic community -- marketing as snake oil sales. And hey, there are plenty of marketers out here lacking integrity in their approach, so, we understand the disdain for the marketing field.

To be clear, effective marketing is communication with integrity. Effective marketing helps consumers make wise decisions. Full stop.

Read on to explore the use of motivational language, colorful metaphors, and local language to create marketing campaigns that will attract attention, resonate, inform, and recruit. 

As I headed to Phoenix for the AIRC 2023 conference, I wondered if the window had already closed for education institutions just now considering starting up with commission-based agents as an international student recruitment channel. Happy to tell you, that window has not closed at all.  

Yet, there is a lot to consider for those institutions just starting, and those having been at it for years. 

With the largest AIRC conference to-date (480 attendees), more than 200 first timers attended. Clearly there is demand to learn more about how effective university-agent partnerships work. And having been part of the AIRC community for 14 of their 15-year history, I can tell you that AIRC is one of the best places to learn about international student enrollment growth. 

From sample contracts to efficient agent engagement policies and practices, AIRC’s documentation and counsel are outstanding. This year, 7 members of the Intead team traveled to Phoenix to attend, in part because the learning opportunities and global connections at this conference are among the best in the industry. The other part was the opportunity to share our own expertise with the attendees at our full-day Global Marketing Workshop. That was a hoot. The Intead team just loves this stuff. 

We’ll be at AIEA in DC in about 6 weeks and participating in 3 great presentations: 

• AI for enrollment management  
• Entrepreneurial leadership in bureaucratic environments 
• A discussion around International Student Points of Entry and a new international student-focused publication to be released later in 2024 
  

And of course, we will be presenting at NAFSA in New Orleans in late May. If you’d like to schedule time to chat over coffee instead of over Zoom, please be in touch (info@intead.com). 

At AIRC 2023, we gave our full-day Global Marketing Workshop with half a day devoted to an interactive lecture on the fundamentals of the strategy that drives a university’s tactical execution. After lunch, we dove into 1:1 consulting with participants to address the group’s self-identified greatest needs.  

It was fascinating to see how our workshop attendees debated and decided amongst themselves what the second half topics should be. Here’s where we ended up: 

• I need a marketing budget, what do I do to get it approved? 
• I have a marketing budget. Now what? 
• Identifying and filling resource gaps 
• Processes for nurturing and converting leads 
• Creating authentic and powerful recruitment content 

Do these topics resonate for you? Be in touch and we can share what we know and how we have helped institutions like yours succeed.  

During the AIRC conference, Intead’s Sr. Digital Marketing Manager Iliana Joaquin joined Dr. David DiMaria, SIO at UMBC, for a practical discussion about how AI and ChatGPT are being used today in enrollment management and what we can realistically expect in the next year as AI-driven tools evolve. Short answer – it ain’t there yet, but it very likely will be in the next couple of years. So much more to talk about on this topic. There are definitely some gains that can be made in some areas, but the hype from the vendors is creating so much noise. Very frustrating.

Later at the conference, I ran a session with Vanessa Andrade about staffing challenges that so many institutions are facing today. The discussion about what skills and tasks to hire for and what to outsource was dynamic with so many additions from the folks in the room. This is what we absolutely love about the AIRC conference.

We are making these insightful presentations available to blog subscribers for free. Download them here.

Below we summarize 3 key take-aways from the conference. Please read on… 

The PIE Live North America event in Boston did exactly what it was supposed to do. We gathered, we laughed, we explored, and in some cases, we clashed. Not dramatically, just a bit. But there were definitely some presentations and ideas shared that prompted collegial discussions with some friction. And that is exactly what a news publication should foster.  

Intead was honored to be selected to present on the topic of student mobility data. Sharing the stage with Sandhya Balasubramanian, Assistant Dean of Business Programs for Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Kirsten L. Feddersen, Senior VP of Analytics & Consulting for North America at Studyportals, we dove into the market research data that drives recruitment and enrollment decisions. We focused on putting that data into action. The fast-paced presentation and our Intead workshop handouts hit the mark for the many who attended. If you’d like those action-oriented handouts, consider joining Intead Plus with access to our full library of training materials and so much more. 

Unlike the unwritten rules that often constrict the way we interact at conferences run by associations with broad memberships, media outlets thrive when there is disagreement. Controversy draws more eyeballs and sells more newspapers (please forgive the throwback concept of selling newspapers).  

You want a for instance, right? Well…coinciding with IIE’s latest Open Doors data release, we learned of a new coalition of international education leaders called U.S. for Success seeking a national effort to increase the number of international students coming to the U.S. From their website: “U.S. for Success seeks to position the United States to effectively compete and cooperate on a global stage by attracting top talent and ensuring the success of all international students.” 

Lofty goals that align with what NAFSA, IIE, AIEA, AIRC, and many other associations already proactively seek to promote in concert with ACE. We are left with many questions about what exactly this new initiative will do and how it will get it done. See this PIE News story on the topic and see if it doesn’t leave you scratching your head a bit. 

We have our own ideas on the topic, of course. More will come to light in the year ahead, we are sure. We hope for the best and want to see our colleagues at these industry-leading associations find effective partners for their important work. 

For more notes from Pie Live, read on…