Campus recruiting continues to evolve before our eyes. Employers are coming up with innovative solutions to the challenges they face, from inflated travel expenses and tight budgets to shrinking team sizes and the growing need to cast a wider geographic net. Whether your organization is expanding campus recruiting efforts in 2024 or maintaining previous levels, one of the smartest things you can do is use a campus recruiting playbook to organize your efforts, chart your progress and maximize your results.
Building Your Campus Recruiting Playbook
The best campus recruiting playbook is the one that works for your organization’s unique situation: your industry and hiring needs, the size and location of your TA team, your budget and your candidate pool. There are many great strategies and best practices that can help most employers with campus recruiting, but there is no one-size-fits-all playbook for every campus recruiting team.
So how do you build a playbook? Below, we’ll look at some of the key considerations and questions TA leaders need to answer in order to identify what to include in your campus recruiting playbook.
Consider Your Mix of In-Person & Virtual Campus Recruiting Events
Perhaps the most common question about campus recruiting we’ve heard from TA professionals in recent years is about the in-person/virtual split. What should the ratio be? The correct answer is the one that works for your team and your goals. Asking the right questions can help you figure out what your split might look like. Here are some examples:
- What are the costs associated with each event type?
- What are the outcomes of each event type?
- What is the primary goal of your virtual events?
- What is the primary goal of your in-person events?
With this information, you can begin to understand the value of different types of events, and that’s the first step to finding a mix that works for your organization. It’s also important to continue measuring event metrics throughout the year, so you can stay on top of what’s working for you and what might need to change. The in-person/virtual event ratio is not something you ‘set and forget.’ It’s just a guideline to help you plan – but if your split is not supporting the outcomes you want, change things up.
Example: Many campus recruiting teams are using virtual events for informational purposes and to conduct initial candidate screenings, because of the advantages of speed and efficiency that virtual hiring events provide. Then, pre-qualified candidates may be invited to smaller group virtual events for further interviewing – or they might skip right to an in-person event, where hiring managers could be prepared to make a contingent offer on the spot.
Identify the Candidate Data You Need
A key part of any hiring playbook is identifying the data you need – and how you plan to collect it. In most cases, this means starting with the stat or metric you want to measure and working backwards. For example: Acme Corp wants to know which student organizations refer the most candidates. The TA team might decide to use custom event tracking links so they can easily see, after the fact, which sources sent the most candidates. With Radancy’s Hiring Events solution, this is just as easy to pull off with registration links for in-person events as it is with links for virtual events.
Improve Candidate & Recruiter/Hiring Manager Experiences
Many college students and recent graduates are looking for their first ‘real’ job and may not have much, if any, prior experience with virtual hiring events or in-person recruiting events. This means employers recruiting from colleges and universities are in a unique position to deliver a truly amazing candidate experience that supports high engagement and satisfaction, and (hopefully) leads to better hires. Using tools that streamline the process for virtual and in-person hiring events is an effective way to create a painless, convenient experience for candidates – and hosting a variety of event types can enhance the impact even more. Also, as an added bonus, the same tools reduce the administrative load for your recruiters and hiring managers alike.
Campus Recruiting Best Practices
Leveraging the power of technology for all your campus recruiting events, whether virtual or in-person, is an effective way to collect the data you need to tell the story of your recruiting efforts. Here are a few savvy ways tech is helping employers connect with campus candidates:
- Include virtual and in-person events in your campus recruiting playbook
- Use virtual tools for in-person event registration and check-in
- Focus on providing a personalized candidate experience
- Host regular virtual “recruiter office hours” for candidates to drop in with questions or a prescreening interview
- Update future events based on insights from past event data
Capture Your Campus Recruiting Strategies
In the rapidly evolving landscape of campus recruiting, adapting to changing circumstances is crucial to compete for top talent. Crafting a campus recruiting playbook tailored to your organization’s needs remains pivotal. The blend of virtual and in-person events isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution; it’s about what works best for your team’s dynamics and objectives. Striking this balance requires strategic evaluation, considering costs, outcomes and primary goals. Leveraging a single AI-driven platform like the Radancy Talent Acquisition Cloud effectively amplifies your reach and storytelling capabilities, enriching your campus recruiting journey.
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