Recruiting Intelligence

Bringing the real world into the classroom is so important to the future of your students. And last week we shared one way Suffolk University is taking action (find that post here). A sort of ​Career Readiness 101. This week, Career Readiness 201 as we talk about you and offer a helpful career-prep checklist, complete with on-campus practices and recruiter tips, too.  

Opportunities to connect in person and hear our latest market intel:

• Join us in Paris Nov 8-10 at CIEE's 76th Annual Conference.
• Join us in Boston Nov 13-15 at PIE News Live.

Let us know if you'll be joining us (info@intead.com).

Like you, the vast majority of students we talk to are playing the long game. Well before they even have a high school diploma, they’re thinking beyond university. They’re smart consumers and they need to know what their hard-earned degree, whatever the field, will mean for them in the market. Never mind that many of them are not sold on a major yet. They’ve been hearing for years about the rising costs of higher education. They understand ROI more than previous generations ever did. And their parents are all about that approach. 

According to the National Center for Education, in 1980, the annual cost of attending university (including tuition, fees, room, and board) was just over $10,000, adjusted for inflation. Fast forward to the 2019-20 academic year, and that that bottom line had ballooned 180 percent to nearly $29,000. This is the story your prospective students have grown up hearing. For decades, everyone, university administrators and families, have been wringing their hands about the rising costs and yet, not a thing has been done about it. 

For families, the reality is they’re looking at an average debt for a four-year Bachelor’s degree of $34,700 per the Education Data Initiative. And while the standard repayment term for federal loans is 10 years, it can take up to 30 or more years for more than a few students to pay off these loans. You can see their concern. 

Some of us optimistically thought the rise of online education would bring costs down and become a reliable source of revenue for universities and a powerful educational avenue for students. The reality: yes, a growing source of revenue, but the cost to produce truly effective online education that carries students forward with all the tools and supports, is fairly pricey to produce. And the low quality stuff really does not achieve the educational outcomes, so students pay for an ineffective degree - a credential that does not meet real-world employer needs. (See our blog post here about the perceived value of online degrees) 

Of course, these are tuition numbers you’ve thought about many times. And they’re all over the news right now as student loan repayments will soon be back on after a long pandemic pause. Smart students want to know the kind of return they’re going to get on their investment, and they’re looking to you to provide an attractive answer. 

So, what is your answer?

Read on for a checklist of essential ways to help ensure your campus helps prep students for the careers they’re hoping higher ed will lead them to. And yes, we’ve included pro-tips for you recruiters. Read on...

Let’s talk about the messaging your institution uses to convince students and families that what you offer has value. Pretty simple stuff, right? Maybe not. You’ll appreciate the helpful checklist that follows in part 2 of this series. Think marketing differentiators in a competitive marketplace. You won’t want to miss it. 

Opportunities to connect in person and hear our latest market intel:

• Join us in Paris Nov 8-10 at CIEE's 76th Annual Conference.
• Join us in Boston Nov 13-15 at PIE News Live.

Let us know if you'll be joining us (info@intead.com).

But first a story. 

Ok, so you are up in front of your board of directors presenting your business growth and marketing plan. You and your team have been figuring this out for a while and last night was a late one as you worked together to put the finishing touches on your slides. There were still disagreements among your team, but you settled the issues and felt nervously ready. 

Everyone has a speaking role but some on your team are stronger than others. Some don’t have appropriate clothes to wear for the presentation so they borrow something professional looking from friends. Some sway nervously back and forth and read their slides rather than engage with the very important board members. You realize early on in the presentation that the data presented on slide 7 is wrong. It doesn’t support your final recommendation. Maybe no one will notice. 

It is your Marketing Business class final presentation to a mock board of directors and as first year undergrads, your team is anything but seasoned. Your final grade is riding on how your team performs. 

Every semester for years now, I have had the honor of judging the final marketing analysis presentations of undergraduate students in a marketing business class at Suffolk University. A good friend of mine there teaches the class and gathers a set of judges from the biz to help the students get some real world feedback. Each judging session is as different as the teams presenting. It’s a blast for us, the judges. Nerve racking for the students. 

Recently, the department asked a few of the real-world judges for additional input and it truly impressed me. They wanted to hear from us as employers to understand what we look for in candidates as we hire. What tools should their students know how to use? What business concepts and approaches are critical to us as employers so their graduates will crush the interview?  

That line of questioning is SO important for business programs that often focus so much on esoteric business theory and simplistic case studies while purporting to be all about the real world. As our Intead Advisory Board Member Hillary Dostal, global marketing advisor at Pegasystems, says: There is best practice and then there is actual practice.  

This goes for your team, too. Read on…

Your enrollment team is furtively evaluating fast-track routes students can take to achieve career growth. How can we promote a new product that clearly has growing demand when its consumer adoption will reduce demand for our primary revenue source?

With rising tuition (a 30-year drumbeat on that one), and fewer traditional aged students in the pipeline, the pressure to produce new revenue is intense. Repackaging what you already produce in new, bite-size chunks makes so much sense to everyone, right?

Credentials in new formats is not new to the scene, but student adoption is growing in large part because employers have woken up to their value. The Intead team did research on graduate level certificates six years ago for one of our top 50 US institution clients and found global employers were still evaluating whether a certificate was as valuable as a full MBA. Employers were not familiar with the new credential and what it would deliver. In 2023, employers in a highly turbulent job market and in need of talent, have decided. Certificates and stackable credentials work just fine. Let’s GO!

And you are in a position to do something about it.

Data from a relatively recent RAND Corporation report Stackable Credential Pipelines, Evidence on Programs and Earnings Outcomes gives us concrete evidence of value and the direction things are going.

In brief, RAND Corporation partnered with the Ohio Department of Higher Education to build a better understanding of how stackable credential pipelines have played a role in the education and training of individuals in Ohio, a state that has taken a leadership role in developing these types of initiatives. The report itself focuses on three fields: health care, manufacturing and engineering technology (MET), and information technology (IT). There’s a lot of good stuff to glean from the report. We were particularly keen on the ROI data (aka job growth). That is, after all, the name of the game for the vast majority of prospective students these days.

Your traditional revenue stream is taking a hit already. Demand for short-term credentials will continue to grow. If your institution does not develop strength in this educational opportunity, your competitors will (or already have).           

It’s time to align your internal team around this and convince those holding you back. Time is running out. Read on for 4 key takeaways on what the RAND Corporation report has to say about student ROI tied to shorter-term stackable credentials. (You’ll especially appreciate takeaway number 3!!!)    

Did you know that in the United States, first time graduate enrollment grew by 3.5% between fall 2013 and fall 2014? The Council of Graduate Schools’ (CGS) report Graduate Enrollment and Degrees: 2004 to 2014 provides tons of information on graduate study trends. According to the report, “from 2004 to 2014, international students accounted for over two-thirds of the growth in first-time enrollment headcounts at U.S. graduate institutions.” And that first time enrollment figure is 11.2%. So lots of new international students and the vast majority of them at the grad level. Good news for international recruiters, right? We think so!  

Bottom Line: Graduate students are an important segment of international students to target with your digital marketing and their needs are different than their younger counterparts. Their motivations to study, the programs of interest and the influences for them to choose one program over another all vary. Mostly, they want to know they will get a job with a degree from your program. Similar to undergrad motivations but perhaps iwth a finer point on it.

Importantly, even if your institution is lesser known, you can still market the strengths of a top-tier program to these highly motivated students. They pay attention to that kind of thing within their area of interest. If your marketing efforts to international graduate students are limited in time and budget (whose aren't?), you would do well to focus on these two things: your career outcomes and your highly acclaimed departments and professors. Make sure you are capturing your target audience's attention with messaging they’ll react to.

NAFSA is right around the corner! We will be co-presenting new research with FPPEDUMedia on how current global, economic and political events are impacting students’ plans to study abroad. So, while you are building your schedule for the conference, pencil us in for Wednesday, June 1 at 10AM and schedule a time to chat with us! Actually, use a pen, you really won’t want to miss this one. Trust us!

It’s that time of year again—graduation! But amidst the accomplishments and excitement there is one thing weighing heavily on your students’ minds: what happens next!?

They have put in the time and effort, secured their degree and are now looking for the next step: a job. But just because graduation only happens once a year, doesn’t mean that’s the only time you should be thinking about your university’s employability data.

Bottom Line: While your website, social media pages, brochures and emails surely highlight all of the best things about your location, campus, programs, professors and activities, are you factoring in your employability data? Students (and their families) are really looking for that bit of security.

So, how exactly does the U.S. stack up in terms of placing students in jobs post-grad? Turns out, pretty well. The U.S. is the most desirable destination for international students. Its’ universities are dominating employability rankings and it has a comparatively low youth unemployment rate. This is the kind of data that can benefit your marketing efforts, whether or not your school is highlighted in the data.

Side Note: Are you going to the NAFSA Conference in Denver? We will be co-presenting with FPPEDUMedia and sharing our latest research on how current global, economic and political events are impacting students’ plans to study abroad—you don’t want to miss this! Set up a time to chat with us while you’re there, we’d love to meet you in person.

Please read on. Emily will share our perspective on employability data and international student recruitment...