Recruiting Intelligence

Nafsa - That's a Wrap

As a seasoned admissions colleague and first time Nafsa attendee shared with me last week, “The pace of this conference is insane!” I couldn’t agree more. And if you tried to attend the Brazilian, Turkish and New Zealander’s evening receptions, well, “insane” doesn’t start to cover it.

Following all of the great conversations we had during our 3 presentations at #Nafsa15 (slides to follow next week), we must thank all of our co-presenters and the many attendees who participated, asked questions and fostered the discussions. Digital marketing is new and constantly changing. Learning how other universities have waded into this form of global marketing helps keep us all on the right track.

Following the theme we started last week with a focus on the student experience, today we get the first-hand, personal details from Hongqian Su, a Chinese student who chose to get her Master’s Degree here in the US. The student experience is critical to our understanding where and how to allocate our limited resources for the best results.

Students and Agents

Hongqian Su, from Beijing, has just completed NYU’s prestigious and rigorous master’s program in digital marketing. With degree in hand, she is now moving on from Intead’s internship program as well and heading out into the world. The story of how she came to study in the US is informative to all of us doing international recruiting and admissions work. Note the important and influential roles of her mother and her agent and her reflection on the application process now that she has earned her degree.

Intead regularly analyzes macro data sets about digital marketing and international student mobility. We also engage in small focus groups and one-on-one conversations with international students so we don’t lose our focus on the micro interactions that inform our work.

Thank you Hongqian, for all the great work you did for Intead during your internship. We will miss you while we watch your star continue to rise.  

As for you, our readers, Hongqian’s student experience is concrete and real. Read on to gain some valuable recruiting insights. We've highlighted some key marketing points to make it easy for you.           

 ~ Ben Waxman

In honor of the Annual Nafsa Conference going on this week, we are thrilled to introduce a new Intead blogger to our community.

Emily Henry is an American living in The Netherlands. Originally from Missouri and earning her Bachelor’s at University of Missouri-Columbia (Go Mizzou!), Emily has just completed her Master’s in International Non-Governmental Organizations at Webster University located in Leiden, Netherlands.

As the Intead team navigates #Nafsa2015 and offers our 3 recruitment-focused presentations, we like to keep Emily and our other Intead staff who hail from international education backgrounds front and center.

This year’s conference has a record 10,700 attendees! 

The learning and networking that go on during this amazing week, the conversations we are having, are almost entirely about the business of academic offerings.

• How do we make the operational elements work better?
• How do we let students know the value of our programs?
• With whom do we partner to deliver a better student experience?

And there lies the key: the student experience. Let’s stay focused on that as we talk about the business of education.

As a fundraiser at Child and Youth Finance International, Emily has worked with educational institutions across the globe. As an international student with a serious case of wanderlust, Emily has also studied in Chile and Rwanda.

Emily’s story as an international student has some interesting pointers for those in the field. Read on and please extend a hearty welcome to our newest addition to the Intead team.

~ Ben Waxman

In last week’s blog post, we shared with you the trends in Malaysian student mobility. In Part 2 of our Malaysian mini-series we will give you a better sense of how you might want to market your institution to these prospective students.

A quick aside: We are thrilled to be presenting at #NAFSA2015 with some great, global institutions including:

• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
• Fresno State
• University of Cincinnati
• American University
• University Cattolica Sacro Cuore
• University of Otago Language Centre 
• Thompson Rivers University

We will share the dais with two of our expert marketing partners:

• FPP EDUMedia
• Admission Table

This week we launch our Malaysian mini-series giving you the international student recruitment landscape along with our tips for marketing your institution in this country. Our two-part blog post should help your team relate to prospective Malaysian students.

Before we dive in, let’s take a moment to remind our readers of our upcoming #NAFSA2015 Conference presentations. If you or your colleagues are attending the show, you’ll want to hear from the great lineup at all 3 of these free sessions on global digital marketing and international student recruitment:

• MYSTERY SHOP INSIGHTS - Wed 5/27 11:45am - how your peers fail (or succeed) at digital mrktg
• STUDENT MOTIVATIONS - Wed 5/27 2:45pm - groundbreaking research from 800,000! students around the world
• CHALLENGES OF IMPLEMENTING - Fri 5/29 8am - practical marketing experience from your peer institutions in field

Our blog from 5/6/15 provides more detail on these great presentations. We hope to see you there. Now, let's travel to Malaysia...

You’ve heard us talk about this before: the power of digital marketing. Unlike other forms of marketing, call it “old school” where measuring results and learning required far more investment, digital marketing provides analytics that tell you where you can improve.

If you are coming the the NAFSA conference in Boston in just a few weeks we will be presenting on this topic.

The learning from digital marketing campaigns can keep you repeating your successes, not your mistakes. And with the marketing landscape and student mobility trends shifting constantly, the analytics that tell us what works are becoming increasingly important as we allocate scarce resources.

So, what does that mean to you?

Interest level of international students studying abroad is not immune to change. It is important that university admissions officers be aware of market and regional trends to identify opportunities that match their institution's strengths. With limited international student recruiting resources, information is key to allocating your resources wisely. To save you the legwork, we have explored the potential of the Taiwanese market for international student recruitment. Skip to the end of this post to see some great recruiting tips if you've not researched Taiwan before.

Oh, before you check out this post, we'd be remiss if we did not hype the upcoming NAFSA conference in Boston. Our staff will be zipping in and around the conference non-stop. We will be presenting on international recruiting topics with some of the leading universities and organizations in the field. Can we buy you a cup of coffee and chat?

“Make learning more affordable and effective (and perhaps addictive) – Learn until you understand, not fail.”   Most of us involved in education, would generally agree with such overarching goals, right?

How do we achieve these goals? Ryan Craig answers this question in the forthcoming book College Disrupted (March 2015). We will summarize the the themes of this book here. 

Intead has taken a few major steps forward in the past months. I’ll credit you and all of the friends we meet at our industry conferences.

Last December, we met with so many of you at the AIRC and ICEF conferences and we made a number of new friends who have now become clients. The growth we’ve witnessed in these industry events and our field over the past 5 years has been tremendous.

Although students are the ones who will ultimately attend a higher education program, the role of parents cannot be minimized. International parents seem to play an even greater role in school selection than American parents. Armed with this knowledge, the next logical question is: What do parents want to know?

What factors need to be considered in developing a strategic plan for international student recruitment? Which stakeholders need to be involved in that process? Though there isn't a one-size-fits-all solution for all institutions to these questions, we'd like to use this post to give you some factors to consider as you develop or augment your strategic plan.