Recruiting Intelligence

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.

LinkedIn dominates online professional relationship building. LinkedIn creates and retains connections, provides transparency into professional backgrounds and accomplishments.  Professional recruiting is heavily influenced by LinkedIn.  An now LinkedIn is starting to build a direct connection to universities, alumni and even university rankings.  What does that mean for your activities as university administrators, admission officers and alumni offices?

For effective international student marketing, you know that you're supposed to post regularly on social media platforms. You also know that you're supposed to brush your teeth multiple times a day, pick salads over french fries, and exercise daily. What we're supposed to do doesn't always happen, even with the best of intentions. We're here to support you and give you some tips for improving your social media posts.

Does this sound familar? Your institutional leadership has announced that you will be embarking on a campaign to increase your international student population. By 2017 you need to increase the number of international students by 100, 500, 1000 students. Are you really prepared for an influx of international students?

The transformation of higher education is a hot topic for authors.  Two new books will be released this spring by Kevin Carey from the New America Institute and Ryan Craig from University Ventures. While the authors have very different professional backgrounds - a policy analyst versus a professional venture capital manager -- they derive at similar conclusions and insights about the future of higher education.  Higher education as we know it will not be sustainable according to the authors and a great deal of disruption and change will be upon future student generations.  

Both books have a remarkable optimism that sees the future of education with greater access, more innovation, better outcomes and lower costs.   Yet change will not happen without pain for many existing institutions. 

I recently had the pleasure of connecting with Lavinia Yang, Executive Director of First Study, a Taiwanese education consultancy. Ms. Yang shared in depth responses about the recruiting landscape in Taiwan. Higher education professionals with an interest in developing or expanding recruitment in Taiwan should read Ms. Yang's insightful responses to my questions.