By Adam Grant
Because I help companies market products and services to college students, I get a lot of questions regarding recruitment. How can one position their brand to attract more recent graduates? For many companies, the first thing that comes to mind is career fairs. At these events, I often see larger, high brand awareness companies attract a long line. Those without product recognition usually don't do as well in comparison.
How can these smaller lines grow larger outside of career fairs? Apply these four techniques:
Have Your Interns Get Involved on Campus
According to Kissmetrics, 89 percent of millennials trust recommendations from friends and family more than brand claims.
Turn your interns into brand representatives for your HR department when they go back to school. They have experienced your brand and can be your eyes and ears on their campus. Have them speak in front of student organizations, identify top performers in the classroom, and serve as a trusted recommendation in the eyes of their peers.
Utilize Social Media
Meet your candidates where they are: on social media. Embrace the newer social media platforms. I was recently at a conference and heard a presentation from General Electric. The brand used Snapchat to set geofilters for their interns and for potential candidates. For example, it implemented a branded geofilter at various airports over the holidays so that its target audience could see that GE is involved in the transportation and aviation industry.
GE's head of social media Sydney Williams told Business Insider, "This is a generation that may one day apply for jobs at our company. We are always looking for the best engineers and it's important for us to get in front of them when they are younger and make sure the brand is relevant to them. Because eventually, these are the people who will become the future of the company."
Let your interns share their experiences on their social media pages, or set a geofilter for your employees to use as part of their Snapchat story.
Move Into the Classroom
Many universities have students in their capstone courses work with real-world clients. For example, at Michigan State University's capstone course for advertising majors, students split up into teams and act as an advertising agency. They develop and execute on specific plans for certain companies. The company has a chance to speak to students about what they are looking for and determine a winner at the end of the semester. This gives your brand great insight into how potential candidates view your brand and allows you to reach out to students who stand out for interviews. You can get involved by reaching out to professors of these classes. Most universities allow you to search for courses on their website.
Be Everywhere at Once
Make a list of key campuses where you recruit from. Incorporate digital elements so that you have a presence in places where you can't be physically to drive applications. Further target students by sending videos of your internship or entry-level programs to student organizations that contain your ideal candidates. For example, you could show an engineering internship video at a Mechanical Engineering Association meeting.
You could also send these videos to the organization's executive board (you can usually find contact information in the student organization directory online.) Make sure the video is relevant and educational, and have the executive board snap a video of the group watching it. Remember, students are looking for information on careers and figuring out what they want to do. Be sure your video addresses these elements.
Your video can extend well beyond just one student organization meeting. I counted over 20 engineering-related organizations at Michigan State University alone. Multiply this across thousands of campuses across the United States, and you can get in front of hundreds of student organizations within weeks, without even having to be in the room.
When it comes to startup recruitment, career fairs aren't necessarily the answer. Use the above channels to spread the word about your company.
Adam Grant serves as CEO of Campus Commandos, a top youth marketing agency helping you market products/services to college students.