Campus Hiring

How many of your kids went to College this fall…  When we prepared the tracker for college shortlisting we had various metrics – Graduation Rate , Freshman retention , Safety aspect of campus ,  distance from Home , Employment % .  Apart from  considering value for money on the Tuition / boarding  fees for your kids, whether your kid is going to pursue further studies or not, we do capture Employment %. All of us educate our kids, so they can get a job, settle down, and be independent soon.

I am going to brief you on “Campus Hiring”. There are various perspective on this topic - College /University, Students, Parent and Employer.  Let us see how employer consider this.

Campus Recruitment is a commonly used mechanism for selecting junior level associates for organization.

Campus Recruitment - Companies or corporate visit some of the most important technical or professional institutes in an attempt to hire young intelligent and smart students at the source.  In this process, the employers come to the prospective candidates with a job offer.

As your demands has to be filled in quickly and easily - employers come with the short notice and expect high results.

For this Employers need to  create a long  lasting impression on the organization with  all  the colleges and university  you  attend  - This  is  called Branding. This cannot be created in one year.

Strategic Plan is very essential - this has 4 different steps.

1)    Demand Study

2)    Tactical selection of Schools

3)    On Campus Connection

4)    Effective implementation

Demand Study : Based on  demands in  the business unit you  handle, we need to  check  with  your clients where we can place fresher’s in  a billable role.    Gather the details and send it to Campus Recruitment team in your company…. Skillset, domain, location.

Tactical selection of Schools - This means how many schools, do you need to  target  to ?

Maybe for  your demands that  you  have , you  have 4 or 5 schools that  you  can realistically  get  to. We need to focus on them only.

When we try to recruit the undergrad students, we see most of them are pursuing master or PhD degree, hence reducing your target size.

For eg , if you  are approaching a college which  has 500  students -  we know  that 40%  of going for further studies , 50%  of the students are NOT applicable  for  the demands that you  have in  your  organization.  That leave you only 10% of the students.  When you have the career fair for that school, they would have seen 100+ employers….  So you are not the only 1 employer going behind those 10% of Students. 

As we focus on the target, we need to consider a couple of pointers

On Campus Connection:  There are several points of contacts to connect to the students and faculty on the campus.  We need to identify and tap those POCs.

Most of the schools have Career Services on campus. We need to establish a relationship, with them directly. They do NOT like to be left of the equation. As we do that, we also need to capitalize your relationship with the key faculty. The alumni from that school who had joined your organization can help you to establish that relationship with the key faculty. 

Career Fairs is one of the great connection points for on campus recruitment.   In the Career fairs distribute

1)    Clear concise handouts

2)    Man the booths with recent grads from  that school and someone in position

3)    Collect the Student’s resume

4)    Need to carry some giveaways - Brick USB power chargers, Lego Key-chain with Flashlight, smart USB Car charger, Ear Buds / head Phones.

In addition to career fairs, there is one more preferred method to connect to students on campus - we can conduct info sessions. For these info sessions, we need to pick the right club/ association or class to visit. We need to send the right person as the ambassador for your company.  Info sessions, if done correctly will last for 45 minutes to 1 hour followed by Question and Answers.  If the sessions were educational and enlightening to the students, then they would ask questions, to express interest in your company.

Faculty tour is also effective….Faculty tour is another way of connecting with the campus. You invite Faculty to your company and educate more about your organization.

Another way to connect with students is internship.

Effective implementation: Each employer have their own Procedure to absorb the Students into their work force. 

• Written Test, followed by Technical /behavioral Interview
• Written Test, followed by Group discussion and then an interview.

On campus interview are very important. The person conducting this interview, should not only know about the organization, but must be adequately prepared and passionate person.  The Hiring manager or the business unit owner should also be a part of the interview panel.

Few Tips

Start Early - Career Fair season is in hot gear in September, so you plan yours in Jul / August.

Brand Early - Brand your organizations early.

Continued Communication - Make sure the details shared on Campus is Correct and Current through the proper channel.

If you do this right, you become an employer choice at the colleges and university you visit.