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!
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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…
US STEM Curricula Are Consistently Stale and Lacking. Are Yours?
Katy Crist-Barrett, Director of Workforce Development at Synopsis, participated in a tech industry discussion and, having worked in tech and HR for 20+ years, had great insights to share. One of her primary points that struck me is the value of incorporating industy tech directors and managers into curriculum development and delivery processes.
Industry needs new hires who exhibit critical and analytical thinking and flexibility (creativity) in their approach. This is classic stuff taught in business programs. And as our new friend from Microsoft, Bruce Thompson says, the approach to becoming an effective, adaptable human being needs to be baked into every class, not an elective on its own.
But when you get to the specific technical needs in the semiconductor industry, for example, academic institutions are not able to adapt fast enough to the training needed for these jobs, according to Katy Crist-Barrett, an industry veteran who is in the trenches.
Solution: incorporate industry career-based, current, real-world problems for student projects woven into the curriculum. Conduct joint research projects between employers and faculty. Incentivize these partnerships for faculty to prompt them to rethink their curricula (something many are hesitant to do). Create hands-on experiences in labs and share these ideas/approaches across campus.
Example: Clean room access is often limited and hard to come by for students in these tech fields. Can you add a frequent VR experience component in addition to real-world access?
When thinking about the future in this field, Ms. Crist-Barrett cites the coming mass retirement of technology senior-level management. These retirees could be fabulous faculty advisors to help develop more relevant curricula. Are your STEM department leaders thinking about the now and the future with this kind of prescience? Or are they thinking they know what they’re doing just fine as it is?
Also loved Ms. Crist-Barret’s anticipating the rise of the woman engineer, “You can’t be one if you can’t see one.” Promoting women in tech programs and successes helps balance the field that absolutely needs more rising talent. (Think Microsoft's 6,000-9,000 current job openings).
When talking about where and how innovation happens, she referenced NeoCity and Valencia, the nearby community college in the Orlando, Florida area. Take a look and you’ll understand a bit more about what tech employers need and where significant investments are being made. As the promo video for NeoCity says, “The future is bright.”
For your prospective students, the shiny future and cool jobs are great, but the immediate draw is salary starting points. What you can do to promote your institution has everything to do with how many years of education prospective students need to get hired into these jobs. Our Connecting Dots Report (link above) has so much perspective to help you figure out your marketing approach and messaging. Have you downloaded that yet? Oh, good!
The other question you’ll want to be ready to answer on the student recruiting front, “How many years of work experience will I need to climb the ladder.” Your alumni in the field are a huge help there. Do you have an effective network of alums helping you with recruitment? See this blog post to help strengthen this recruitment avenue.
Last point on this topic: As you adjust your curricula, you may want to challenge traditional thinking about seeking various academic certifications and accreditations. These processes can take a year in best case scenarios – another reason current curricula are consistently stale. Consider seeking industry certifications and micro-credentials for your programs. When you develop the curriculum with industry professionals involved, that becomes even easier. Thanks again to Ms. Crist-Barrett's advocacy for this approach.
Back to our goal: develop curricula in line with industry needs and get our students out into highly relevant, industry approved internships, co-ops, and jobs faster. Find your helpers – those working in the tech industry who need you to be successful so they can fill all those open positions.
The Intead team is here to help develop those bridges, build those partnerships, and communicate the advantages your institution offers. Drop us a line.
