Recruiting Intelligence

With Chinese student numbers in serious flux in the US, we thought we’d check in with our colleague Sally Zhu who is currently working with international students in Ningbo, China. Our goal: find out what’s working in recruitment for institutions across the Pacific.

Sally, a contributing Intead Marketing Data Analyst and US PhD aspirant, grew up in China and acquired her post-secondary degrees in the US, returning to her home country in 2020 where she landed a job with a sino-foreign university. Today she’s working as an international student support advisor there. She has a front-row seat to what is on Chinese students’ minds. 

We know this topic will be part of the hallway and session chatter throughout the NAFSA regional conferences coming up this fall. Intead will be discussing a range of student recruitment and marketing topics at Nafsa Region XI in Manchester, NH in October. If you will be there, be in touch to set up a coffee date with Ben or Iliana. We can also meet folks in California in December when AIRC and ICEF fire up. Look for some big news very soon about the learning opportunities coming up.

A couple of weeks ago, Sally sat down (virtually) with the Intead team to give her boots-on-the-ground account of how Chinese students and parents are evaluating their options today. Read on for some valuable perspective on the student recruitment market everyone is fretting about.

Two years into the pandemic and we are still wondering what this elusive “new normal” is going to be. While the authorities and virus hash it out, your job is to help students navigate the shifting winds so they can more confidently enroll for the next semester. (We’re looking at you international admissions teams.)

What we know for sure: international students are eager to get on with their lives after waiting for Covid to pass. But, we know it’s not so simple.

Visa wait times, continued, sporadic travel restrictions, and challenges in accessing and validating US-approved vaccinations are causing delays and headaches.

There is wisdom in listening to real stories from real students studying through this very real pandemic. Today, I encourage you to read this tale of two countries by Intead Marketing Data Analyst and PhD aspirant Sally Zhu. Sally is another outstanding example of the value of the US OPT policies. We are so pleased to see this program recently expanding the definition of STEM and the 3-year work option in the US.

Side note: if you’ll be attending the 2022 AIEA conference in New Orleans (Feb 20-23), be in touch and we’ll find time for a coffee and an exchange of ideas.

Read on as Sally shares her dual experience of living in the US and China these past two years. It offers student enrollment managers and recruiters insights into messaging and approaches to pandemic-related communications. As marketers, topics that are important to our audiences are also important to us, right?