Recruiting Intelligence

A new year calls for new beginnings. We're always a little sentimental given the fresh start to the new year. In the years we've been working in higher education we've noticed an increasing negativity towards higher education. At the core of everything we do we believe strongly in higher education-- access, affordability, creative approaches, and positive change. We know why education matters.

In 2014 our research and editorial teams worked hard to bring you engaging and cutting-edge blog articles. As we enter 2015 we thought a retrospective of the best and most popular Intead content of 2014 was in order-- just in case you missed anything the first time around.

In our previous blog, we introduced you to student enrollment trends in Japan. In this post we would like to give you a summary on the digital marketing environment which will make it possible for your institution to reach Japanese students more easily.

Last week we revealed that Intead has once again conducted a mystery shopper experiment. This week we reveal the big winners! Read on to discover if your institution made the list...

What happens when a prospective international student uses Facebook and Twitter to signify her interest in, and hopefully to learn more about, various institutions in the English speaking world? We, at Intead, recently conducted another mystery shopper experiment with institutions in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. As has happened in previous mystery shopper experiments, we were not surprised, yet still disappointed by the dismal rate of response by institutions in these countries. One country proved exceptional in their universities’ ability to respond quickly and effectively. You might be surprised to learn the big winner of this experiment.

To better recruit Japanese students it helps to have a deeper understanding of the higher education landscape in Japan. In this post we will introduce some factors that affect Japanese students’ interest and ability to study abroad.

“It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.” as Yogi Berra is famously quoted as saying.

In general, it seems much more fun to make long-term predictions, since nobody will check back whether we are right or wrong. And yet, with this blog coinciding with Election Day, there are plenty of pundits making all kinds of near term predicitions as we write this blog. At least half of them are going to be wrong. Will any of us go back and take them to task?

So why all this talk about predictions? The British Council published their 2024 forecast for postgraduate mobility trends. ICEF was kind enough to post the full report. 

• Continued strong growth in post-graduate mobility 
• The U.S. is projected to grow 4% per year and host 407,000 graduate students (Good news since the graduate school deans were worried about their enrollment figures.)
• India will be a driving force and Chinese graduate students are expected to increase despite a decline of 30 million students in China
• Useful summary of demographic trends for higher education 
• The status quo is projected forward without any impact from technological, policy or attitudinal changes

The authors state clearly that they rely on trends, "for which there is data available, and do not take into account other variables that may affect international student mobility in the future."

We'll be honest with you, we are really struggling with this last line. Making predictions about the future without considering other variables for which you have no data? Hmmmm.

If you are actively recruiting in China and/or have many Chinese international students on your campus, it might be time for your institution to get on the WeChat bandwagon. This is Part II of a two part series about using WeChat for international student recruitment and marketing. Click here to review Part I, WeChat 101: Maximize Your SNS in China and Beyond.

In our ongoing effort to share the latest in social media marketing we begin this two part series on WeChat. We are eager to share this exciting Chinese social media platform that is quickly becoming popular throughout the world. And yes, you can create posts in Chinese and English.