Recruiting Intelligence

A key driver for international students: the ability to gain hands-on work experience in their fields of study.   

If you’re paying attention to SEVIS stats, then you already know the demand for Optional Practical Training (OPT) has been steady for years now. Its numbers show that in 2022, the US pushed through 117,301 new OPT authorizations and 64,844 new STEM OPT authorizations for F-1 students. That’s up 87% and 307% respectively in one decade.  

The significant jump in the latter stat reflects improved opportunities for international STEM students. The STEM fields of study list keeps expanding and the length of stay upped in 2016 from 17-months to 24-months beyond the first year. All really good news for international students. Even better news for institutions like yours that recruit and support the students as well as employers like us who get to tap into their skills and drive. (Coming soon: A post about the journey of two of Intead’s very own and ambitious STEM OPT team members. Stay tuned!)  

The STEM OPT and how it plays out for international student recruitment and retention will be a big part of what we will be addressing head on next week at the AIEA conference in Washington, D.C.  

AIEA Is On! So many opportunities for idea exchange and learning. 

If you’ll be there (and we know many of you will be), sit in on our session, The View as a Data Analyst: International Enrollment Realities, on Feb. 19 at 10 a.m. featuring:  

• Dr. Michael Wilhelm, Associate Provost for Global Partnerships and International Education at University of North Carolina Wilmington 
• Dr. Khald Aboalayon, Academic Program Director, MS Data Analytics, SPS at Clark University 
• Iliana Joaquin, Intead’s Senior Digital Marketing Manager 

Other sessions with Ben and Iliana will cover a range of important topics including global digital marketing, international alumni engagement, AI and enrollment management, and a fave: being an entrepreneur in a bureaucratic environment.  

While tapping into the STEM OPT student audience is not without its downstream hurdles (the not-so-small undertaking of building appropriate programs, training faculty, and developing employer connections come to mind), doing so feels like a no-brainer.  

We know your prospective students are eager to earn a quality degree and build a career. So, if your academics align with their goals, then you’ve already got their interest. Studies also show international students vying for STEM OPT are more likely to complete their degrees – fabulous on many levels. We’ll be diving much deeper into this topic later in the year. We’ll keep you posted. But you get the idea. 

The question now: how do you get them to your campus? Read on for the actionable insights… 

Don’t blame Gen Z, but their insatiable appetite for social media can create quite the content grind on the backend. We hear it from our clients. Why must engaging social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram, which afford marketers all the playfulness and flexibility you could ever want, require so much time and attention? It’s the lament of the modern marketer. 

Content creation is not time intensive. You can use ChatGPT and crank out reams of it in minutes. (As if!) 

See last week's post for our perspective on the use of ChatGPT for enrollment marketing (or any marketing).

Engaging, authentic, effective content creation is highly time-intensive. 

Our advice: stay calm and scroll on. Sometimes, you just need a little inspiration from others who are playing in your same space.  

Opportunities to Meet In Person 

The Intead team is gearing up for some amazing presentations and we hope you can join us. 

• 2024 AIEA Annual Conference in DC, Feb 18-21, 2024
• ICEF North America in Niagara Falls, Canada, May 1-3, 2024
• NAFSA 2024 Annual Conference and Expo in New Orleans, May 28-31, 2024

Let us know if you’ll come share a cup of coffee and a conversation about all things global and digital (info@intead.com) 

So today, we invite you to pause for a quick competitor looksee. We’re not talking about fast-moving trends – those fleeting fads are here one day and gone the next, literally. Remember Wednesday’s (Jenna Ortega’s) dance on TikTok? 22 billion views in 2023. Loved it, right? Not so much on anyone’s mind today, though. 

You can always check TikTok’s Trending Intelligence for the latest. Instead, let’s focus on more lasting ways to use social media in your digital marketing. And yes, we will be checking on what your peers are up to. 

So, read on to get an edge in your social media strategy and draw inspiration (or perhaps critique) from a few real-world applications.  

Until Threads, ChatGPT was the fastest-growing consumer app in history taking a short 2 months to amass 100 million users. Though Threads’ frenetic growth has tapered (and then some), interest in the AI tool has more than 1.4 billion visitors actively engaged with it each month.  

Today, it’s all about the tools we use that offer us shortcuts to our work as marketers. While ChatGPT is the latest shortcut tool, it is not so different in so many ways from the old school marketing template that saves us time and if misused (like ChatGPT) reduces, even eliminates, our creativity and effectiveness.

On the surface, we can point to a plan well executed, right? Our starting point has already been legitimized based on past performance (ChatGPT or some previously used design or report template). So, it stands to reason that using those tools will produce similar results. Uhm, maybe…

But probably not.

It is basic human nature. Use of shortcut tools often means we slack off on scrutinizing the details of what we are producing. Less scrutiny of what we produce and deliver to the world, less customization of our messaging and content, means we are prone to error. Some of those errors can be hugely damaging.

There goes our credibility with our target audiences.

Opportunities to Meet In Person 

The Intead team is gearing up for some amazing presentations and we hope you can join us. 

• 2024 AIEA Annual Conference in DC, Feb 18-21, 2024
• ICEF North America in Niagara Falls, Canada, May 1-3, 2024
• NAFSA 2024 Annual Conference and Expo in New Orleans, May 28-31, 2024

Let us know if you’ll share a cup of coffee and a conversation about all things global and digital (info@intead.com) 

Looking particularly at ChatGPT, its ability to read and synthesize the entirety of the internet is amazing, staggering. Searching and understanding for complex information and analysis of huge datasets - what a time savings. Useful with even not so complex information. If only it provided reliable results without blending information inappropriately and even fabricating results out of thin air. Recent ads we've heard from AI service providers include the claim, "hallucination-free AI." Uhm, what?

Can you truly promise that? How did we get to a place where you need to promise that? 

When even the experts cannot explain to us how and why AI is producing falsehoods, when we get information that might have completely fabricated results and basic users (non-subject matter experts) cannot identify which pieces of information are accurate and which are not, we are in serious trouble.

Read on for perspective and our actionable what to do checklist. We want to help you, as a marketer, use shortcuts like AI and marketing templates wisely and avoid falling into the banality of functionality – the death knell of any marketing effort and potentially, the killer of a brand's soul. 

Important Note to Readers: This is not another article on how to master ChatGPT prompts to get ‘genius’ responses.  

With the very real concern of declining domestic enrollment numbers, US institutions are right to broaden their recruitment strategies, including their international reach. Thinking beyond traditional student markets, like China and India, is old news by now.  You’ve diversified your draw and Vietnam has been on your list, right?

Don’t get us wrong, China remains an important market and neighboring India is clearly a recruitment stronghold. Learn more about these sending countries in recent posts here (China) and here (India). Today, we focus on Vietnam and why this country offers value to institutions looking at best practices and diversification in their international student draw. 

When we run our global marketing workshops, more than a majority of the institutions attending identify Vietnam as a student market they've targeted as a growth opportunity. The competition for students coming from Vietnam is only growing.

We’ll be at AIEA in DC in about 4 weeks and participating in 3 great presentations: 

• AI for enrollment management  
• Entrepreneurial leadership in bureaucratic environments 
• A discussion around International Student Points of Entry and a new publication to be released later in 2024 
  

And of course, we will be presenting at NAFSA in New Orleans in late May. If you’d like to schedule time to chat over coffee instead of over Zoom, please be in touch (info@intead.com). 

According to the latest numbers from Vietnam’s Ministry of Education and Training (MOET), approximately 190,000 Vietnamese students study abroad, the majority focusing on post-secondary institutions. That was for the 2019-20 academic year, though it appears the numbers are as strong or better today. Globally, Vietnam ranks as a top 10 sender of outbound student mobility per the ICEF Monitor. 

The majority of these students head to South Korea or Japan for university. Depending on who you ask, either 66,000 Vietnamese students studied in South Korea in 2022 per Capstone Education or just over 37,000 according to Korea Educational Development Institute. Less disputed are Japan’s numbers, which Study Japan puts at 49,000 incoming Vietnamese students in 2021. 

The third most popular destination is the US, hosting nearly 22,000 Vietnamese students in 2022-23 per the latest IIE Open Doors data. A distant third, yes, but considering the literal distance (8000+ miles between LA and Ho Chi Minh City as the crow flies), the numbers are encouraging. The reasons for choosing a US education we most often hear when speaking with Vietnamese students: 

• A US degree is strong 
• Classroom instruction encourages creativity and develops critical thinking 
• Soft skills are taught 
• Access to a multinational job market

That all makes sense from a prospective student perspective. But, why should your institution choose to actively recruit in Vietnam? What might make these students interested in your institution? And will it be a worthwhile effort for your institution’s enrollment growth? 

Below we share 3 big reasons why we find Vietnam a top student source for markets around the world and offer an insider’s take on the Vietnamese student mindset. To shape our thinking, we tapped our long-time colleague Hien Dao, founder and CEO of Golden Path Academics Vietnam, a Hanoi-based program that preps Vietnamese students for global academic and professional environments. She’s a great resource for any Vietnamese student recruitment initiative. Read on for insights. 

If something isn’t online, does it even exist? We jest, and yet, without a strong online brand presence, many prospective students and their families really won’t know you exist. Because let's face it, prospective students today are basically born with smartphones in hand and earbuds on. If something isn’t online, it’s next to invisible in their world. 

That’s why institutions across the board have spent the past decade+ ramping up digital marketing budgets, perfecting their Insta image, and all the rest. A recent Washington Post article claims some well-funded universities are spending upwards of $1-2 million per month on digital ad campaigns alone. (Emphasis there on "well-funded!")

While that number is not industry average, most institutions do not have a Barbie budget, that figure is still a clear indication that digital is mission critical to higher ed marketing. No surprise to you or your finance team.  

But here’s the thing. The newest crop of students and their tag-along Gen Alpha siblings are at once more immersed and less smitten with social media. It's certainly no longer novel. Social media is life as they know it and they are adept at downloading ad blockers and avoiding sales pitches. So take note. Authenticity rules, while overproduced and slick messages are generally ignored.  

Our recommendation is to keep honing your digital marketing game, with this caveat in mind: your digital approach works best in tandem with other channels. We are talking out-of-home, print, in-person, and the like. In other words, the best-bet strategy is omnichannel.

We’ll be at AIEA in DC in about 5 weeks and participating in 3 great presentations: 

• AI for enrollment management  
• Entrepreneurial leadership in bureaucratic environments 
• A discussion around International Student Points of Entry and a new publication to be released later in 2024 
  

And of course, we will be presenting at NAFSA in New Orleans in late May. If you’d like to schedule time to chat over coffee instead of over Zoom, please be in touch (info@intead.com). 

Read on to better understand the importance of omnichannel marketing and how you can use it to engage your target audience and grow your enrollment numbers.  

As I headed to Phoenix for the AIRC 2023 conference, I wondered if the window had already closed for education institutions just now considering starting up with commission-based agents as an international student recruitment channel. Happy to tell you, that window has not closed at all.  

Yet, there is a lot to consider for those institutions just starting, and those having been at it for years. 

With the largest AIRC conference to-date (480 attendees), more than 200 first timers attended. Clearly there is demand to learn more about how effective university-agent partnerships work. And having been part of the AIRC community for 14 of their 15-year history, I can tell you that AIRC is one of the best places to learn about international student enrollment growth. 

From sample contracts to efficient agent engagement policies and practices, AIRC’s documentation and counsel are outstanding. This year, 7 members of the Intead team traveled to Phoenix to attend, in part because the learning opportunities and global connections at this conference are among the best in the industry. The other part was the opportunity to share our own expertise with the attendees at our full-day Global Marketing Workshop. That was a hoot. The Intead team just loves this stuff. 

We’ll be at AIEA in DC in about 6 weeks and participating in 3 great presentations: 

• AI for enrollment management  
• Entrepreneurial leadership in bureaucratic environments 
• A discussion around International Student Points of Entry and a new international student-focused publication to be released later in 2024 
  

And of course, we will be presenting at NAFSA in New Orleans in late May. If you’d like to schedule time to chat over coffee instead of over Zoom, please be in touch (info@intead.com). 

At AIRC 2023, we gave our full-day Global Marketing Workshop with half a day devoted to an interactive lecture on the fundamentals of the strategy that drives a university’s tactical execution. After lunch, we dove into 1:1 consulting with participants to address the group’s self-identified greatest needs.  

It was fascinating to see how our workshop attendees debated and decided amongst themselves what the second half topics should be. Here’s where we ended up: 

• I need a marketing budget, what do I do to get it approved? 
• I have a marketing budget. Now what? 
• Identifying and filling resource gaps 
• Processes for nurturing and converting leads 
• Creating authentic and powerful recruitment content 

Do these topics resonate for you? Be in touch and we can share what we know and how we have helped institutions like yours succeed.  

During the AIRC conference, Intead’s Sr. Digital Marketing Manager Iliana Joaquin joined Dr. David DiMaria, SIO at UMBC, for a practical discussion about how AI and ChatGPT are being used today in enrollment management and what we can realistically expect in the next year as AI-driven tools evolve. Short answer – it ain’t there yet, but it very likely will be in the next couple of years. So much more to talk about on this topic. There are definitely some gains that can be made in some areas, but the hype from the vendors is creating so much noise. Very frustrating.

Later at the conference, I ran a session with Vanessa Andrade about staffing challenges that so many institutions are facing today. The discussion about what skills and tasks to hire for and what to outsource was dynamic with so many additions from the folks in the room. This is what we absolutely love about the AIRC conference.

We are making these insightful presentations available to blog subscribers for free. Download them here.

Below we summarize 3 key take-aways from the conference. Please read on… 

2023 ushered in some much-needed numbers. Enrollment rose among undergraduate (+2.1%) and graduate (+0.7%) students. And while freshmen enrollment trended downward (-3.6%), interest in shorter-term credentials was on the rise (+9.9%). All this per National Student Clearinghouse figures. 

Likewise, IIE Open Doors data showed a 12% increase of incoming international students in 2022-23. And the more up-to-date SEVIS data indicated 2023 fall enrollment maintained this welcomed momentum. All good news in aggregate. As we parse all these data sets, there are interesting findings and nuanced opportunities to be sure. 

Yet, all news was not good. The chaos of the world at large continued to make its way onto campuses across the nation. Safety continues to be a growing concern, and your prospective students and their families are unsure what to make of it. More admissions inquiries shift from campus life to safety and mental health support services. Also important to note: social justice activities influence an increasing number of applicants. 

In the midst of it all, we do our best to use this blog to weigh in on topics that matter to enrollment teams like yours. So, it’s always interesting for us to look back and see which posts were your faves for most valuable content from the year. There are always a few surprises. 

In 2023, there was a ton of interest in all things internationalization – especially around how student activity in India and China is changing. But that’s not all.

We were told our posts on student career prep, social media trends, and budgeting framework were also really helpful. So, with that, we share our top 10 posts from 2023, as chosen by you, our readers. Plus our staff pick for the most valuable post of 2023. If you missed any of these top pieces, you’ll want to read on…  

From the annual CIEE conference in Paris to Pie Live in Boston then AIRC in Phoenix and a super quick turnaround to ICEF in Miami, Q4 literally flew by. You, too? We wouldn’t change a thing, of course. It’s hard to replace the simple act of togetherness. It’s how ideas come to life. Cliché? Fine. But it’s so true. 

Sharing our research and student recruitment campaign results with our community always feels great. We’re here to make you more effective (and have interesting insights to share at your team meetings).  

A few key Q4 takeaways we will absolutely be bringing into the new year: 

• The global competition for international students is stronger by the day, and institutions need to be increasingly smarter in their approach to international education, including recruitment. Can you be? (hint: it has to do with the skill sets you access to do the work) 
• China and India are hot topics as always, especially India’s dramatic rising numbers of incoming graduate (and undergraduate) students.  
• Enrollment departments are eager to leverage AI. The question is: how? And, is it ready for us? 
• More must be done to support student mental health. So much more. 
• And how about the new IIE Open Doors report?! Lagging data that points toward the future. 
  

Just a few notes we’re thinking about. Clearly there’s no lack of issues for our industry to address. So, if in the midst of this really busy few months you didn’t have time to read all of our posts, we understand. That’s why we’ve compiled this quarterly at-a-glance post. It covers all our news from how to navigate TikTok’s ad platform to what’s going on with higher ed in India and so much in between that you and your team won’t want to miss.Read on… 

The PIE Live North America event in Boston did exactly what it was supposed to do. We gathered, we laughed, we explored, and in some cases, we clashed. Not dramatically, just a bit. But there were definitely some presentations and ideas shared that prompted collegial discussions with some friction. And that is exactly what a news publication should foster.  

Intead was honored to be selected to present on the topic of student mobility data. Sharing the stage with Sandhya Balasubramanian, Assistant Dean of Business Programs for Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and Kirsten L. Feddersen, Senior VP of Analytics & Consulting for North America at Studyportals, we dove into the market research data that drives recruitment and enrollment decisions. We focused on putting that data into action. The fast-paced presentation and our Intead workshop handouts hit the mark for the many who attended. If you’d like those action-oriented handouts, consider joining Intead Plus with access to our full library of training materials and so much more. 

Unlike the unwritten rules that often constrict the way we interact at conferences run by associations with broad memberships, media outlets thrive when there is disagreement. Controversy draws more eyeballs and sells more newspapers (please forgive the throwback concept of selling newspapers).  

You want a for instance, right? Well…coinciding with IIE’s latest Open Doors data release, we learned of a new coalition of international education leaders called U.S. for Success seeking a national effort to increase the number of international students coming to the U.S. From their website: “U.S. for Success seeks to position the United States to effectively compete and cooperate on a global stage by attracting top talent and ensuring the success of all international students.” 

Lofty goals that align with what NAFSA, IIE, AIEA, AIRC, and many other associations already proactively seek to promote in concert with ACE. We are left with many questions about what exactly this new initiative will do and how it will get it done. See this PIE News story on the topic and see if it doesn’t leave you scratching your head a bit. 

We have our own ideas on the topic, of course. More will come to light in the year ahead, we are sure. We hope for the best and want to see our colleagues at these industry-leading associations find effective partners for their important work. 

For more notes from Pie Live, read on… 

Market diversification is one obvious answer to sustaining enrollment numbers. How to successfully go about it, however, is often less obvious. Looking beyond your own campus to see how others are doing it can help. So, we have a story to share. 

If you've seen our other case studies, you know we share more concrete details and data than any other agency out there. We want to make you that much more dangerous and demonstrate the value of investing in customized, creative, and well-tracked paid campaigns.

In 2021, a mid-tier, public, Midwest regional university needed to recruit international students. It’s a student segment they’d had success with in the past, but Covid, as it does, threw a wrench in their recruitment efforts. It became clear they needed new ways to reach prospective students residing overseas. We know you were wrestling with this very issue at the time, too. We all were. 

Find us at AIRC and ICEF. Let’s connect! 

The Intead team is gearing up for some amazing presentations and we hope you can join us. 

• AIRC Annual Conference – As you read this, our team is in Phoenix offering our full-day digital marketing workshop. If you are at the AIRC conference, please look for us here in Phoenix, Dec 6-9, 2023 
• ICEF North America Workshop in Miami, Dec 11-13, 2023. We'll be offering a half-day workshop on Dec 11 and meeting with everyone on Dec 12-13.

Let us know if you’ll come share a cup of coffee and a conversation about all things global and digital (info@intead.com) 

Back to the results of our digital campaigns in Bangladesh and Vietnam.

With a media buy budget of $35,000, the institution was admittedly skeptical they’d be able to make any meaningful progress in a new market. We always want more wiggle room with our media buys, but we also felt certain they could succeed, with the right approach. They trusted our experience and the market research we delivered.

Our mission: understand who and where the prospective families are and then reach them in ways that prompt engagement. So our data detectives and creative talents set out to: 

• Confirm the institution’s high-value student recruitment regions and where there might be room to grow
• Develop on-brand, targeted, and effective digital marketing assets   
• Launch and optimize digital campaigns to generate highly qualified leads (and build awareness, but really, we all want the high-value leads) 
• And of course, report on campaign analytics to inform future marketing investments.

By any measurement, it went really well. One $12,000 media buy generated 40 million impressions, 500,000 clicks, 1,087 leads, 122 applications, 40 admitted students, and 7 enrolled. But who’s counting? (Please say you are!)

It was a fast, 14-week campaign involving two markets, two academic programs, and two social platforms. Want more insight? Download our free case study. Read on…