Recruiting Intelligence

A serious question for you: what should your recruitment team and The Avengers have in common?

We hope your answer isn’t fashion sense, although if you’ve been wearing capes to any student fairs recently, that’s certainly one way to attract attention!

The Avengers know the secret to a powerful team: skill diversity. As you build your own roster of recruitment superheroes, it is important to consider the specific “superpowers” needed to be effective at each stage of the recruitment funnel. And yes, each stage is different. Ensuring that you have the right staff member in the right place at the right time will be paramount to achieving your enrollment goals.

Having just returned from the ICEF and AIRC conference conversations in December, we feel compelled to consider your staffing needs. Do you have the right people in the right seats with the right skills?

So, what are these superpowers, you ask?

We’ve created a helpful infographic to guide you through team roles and needed skills at each stage of the funnel. Use it to assess your own team structure and identify areas for professional development. Keep this funnel in mind as you draft job descriptions and make hiring decisions and remember to consider both the hard and soft skills new team members may bring to the table.

Avengers assemble! And read on…

Let’s talk about student recruitment without the data for a change. Let’s talk about the underpinnings of this human experience of recruitment. Stay with me here.

Why are we doing this work in the first place?

The cynical among us point to the economics: we recruit students to get their tuition dollars. Ok, this is true. Faculty must be paid to get them to deliver education services. They actually get pretty adamant about this. And administrators need to get paid to keep the operation going.

Bigger thinkers among us believe education fosters cultural understanding. And global education fosters cross-cultural understanding. All this education helps build stronger economies (think jobs) and more peaceful times. 

Personal growth and communal growth.

And how in the world will this blog intro bring us to our favorite topic: student recruitment? Trust me and read on...

This week, Ben at Patricia are in Miami at the AIRC conference 2018, where they will be hosting a digital marketing workshop alongside Angel Ahmed, CEO of GNET, and Hillary Dostal, Director, Global Initiatives at Northeastern University. This expert team and comprehensive workshop will help international recruitment leaders develop strategic communications plans that differentiate their unique institutions. And, they will be talking about the skills needed throughout the process to achieve success. 

Plans are only as good as the team executing them. Seems obvious, right?

Is your team aligned on your strategic enrollment plan? Do you have a comprehensive marketing plan to work from? Are there gaps in the skill sets? We bet there are at least a few areas that could use improvement, right?

This week we want to walk you through our strategic marketing workshop format and a series of corresponding worksheets available via Intead Plus to guide your marketing and enrollment teams. Ready? Let's check it out. 

Rankings can be addictive. Ask any student who has ever clamored for that valedictorian spot, every salesperson who has tried to outgun her colleagues to be the month’s top seller, every parent who beams at their kid’s position on the Little League batting lineup.  

While you’re at it, ask an enrollment professional, too.

University rankings—think U.S. News and World Report, The Times Higher Education (our far and away favorite in the field if we had to choose), QS, or the Shanghai Jiaotong Academic Ranking of World Universities, and now the Wall Street Journal — affect so much. Students place a lot of weight on ranking lists, and so do parents, alumni, research funders, and governments around the world.

A great ranking can be like an institutional lucky charm, nearly guaranteeing ongoing success. Working at such an institution can feel like taking a perpetual victory lap, waving to crowds of adoring fans as applicants and endowment funds come rolling in.

But a poor ranking can feel like an institutional curse, dooming an institution to mediocrity. Working in enrollment at an “average” institution can sometimes feel like an exhausted, uphill scramble for applications and dollars. This shouldn’t be the case—and it doesn’t have to be.

Rankings matter a lot. Should they? And what can you do about it? Read to the end to find out! 

A couple of opportunities to learn more before we dive into today's topic:

1. Bite-size data points: Intead Insights is re-launching on Twitter! We're sharing quick stats that, in  15-20 seconds, can teach you something new about enrollment marketing. Fun, informative, surprising, and all the cool kids are doing it (as if). Follow us on Twitter: @Intead 
2. Digital marketing full-day workshop at AIRC: On Dec., 5, 2018, Intead and our talented colleagues, Angel Ahmed, GNET, and Hillary Dostal, Northeastern University, will be giving a full-day workshop as part of the AIRC conference in Westin, FL. If you have not yet registered, now is the perfect time! Register here

Now, what's a mid-ranked or low-ranked institution to do? Let's review the concerns and provide some advice...

Returning from NACAC this week and reflecting on all of the amazing individuals we met and experiences we shared, one conference session in particular stands out.

We were struck by Women in College Admission: The Impact and Power of Female Mentorship delivered by Meylin Andares, Director of Enrollment Management & Student Success - SUNY System, Nikki Chun, Senior Associate Director, California Institute of Technology, Ashley Cole, Director of University Counseling, Rochambeau French International School, Kristen Harris, Director, College Readiness Supports, NYC Department of Education and Lisa Sohmer, College Consultant, Sohmer College Counseling. 

It was an honor to hear these women's stories and it's an honor to share a few highlights from their presentation here with you this week. Just like so many of you, our eyes and ears have been keenly tuned to the media these past week as we watched the testimony of Dr. Blasey Ford and considered the #MeToo movement in the context of higher ed and all of the strong female leaders we know and respect so deeply.

This week, we want to introduce you to a few of the many female leaders we admire and who inspire so many others in the field. If you are a woman in higher ed, we see you, and this one's for you!