Five Ways to Use Mobile at Your Next Career Fair or College Event

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

The end of summer is upon us, and with the changing seasons comes the time of year when recruiters pack up their branded pens, water bottles and post it notes and head to campus career fairs. It is officially college and campus recruiting season. The next few weeks and months will be filled with time spent dragging our campus career fair banners and stands while balancing the arm loads of career fair swag and candidate resumes. It’s exciting, tiring and a perfect opportunity to incorporate new tactics into your strategy.  

As technology driven as our lives are, most recruiters aren’t making great use of it in their campus and college recruiting, meaning that there’s room for improvement even in this familiar realm. Mobile can be a great way to engage college students both on and off campus, whether you are attending an in-person event or want to continue the conversation with your top college candidates afterwards.

Take a look at these five ways you can use mobile at your next career fair or college event to make life easier, engage students and grads more, and be a better campus and college recruiter.

Mobile video

Mobile video is the future of recruiting, so make use of it with an audience that is sure to be immersed in the technology already. Whether you hold live conversations and communications using Periscope, YouTube or Meerkat, video is a great way to share your employer brand and invite your candidate pool to learn more after the career fair. Invite candidates to follow you on these platforms right at your booth and then be prepared to stream shortly after.

TalentCatch

Using TalentCatch, you can have a new candidate enter their information on your mobile device, which takes less than a minute from start to finish. You’re not carrying around resumes or writing info on the back of a business card, and they can be automatically added to your talent network. This one is a no brainer.

SMS text messaging

Many football coaches working to earn commitment from their college recruits use text message as the main form of communication with them. Take a lesson from their playbook and do the same. With an average read rate of 97 percent, it’s a great way to stay in touch with your candidate pool.

Snapchat

I promise you this talent pool is using Snapchat on a daily basis, so join the party and invite your candidates to connect, share stories and learn more about you by tapping into the power of disappearing photos and video. Be sure to incorporate Instagram into your campus recruitment social channels too.

Email

If you think email is old school, you may not be considering the fact that it’s a big part of mobile use. According to Adestra, 45 percent of email opens occur on mobile, 36 percent on desktop and 19 percent in a webmail client. It’s a simple, effective way to stay in touch with your potential candidates.

TalentCircles is the most comprehensive candidate engagement platform on the market. Take a product tour or request a live demo today. 

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology anthropologist specializing in HR and recruiting. She's the Chief Blogger and Founder of Blogging4Jobs and author of The HR Technology Field Guide. You can follow her on Twitter at @jmillermerell.   

4 Campus Recruitment Strategies That Work Every Time

By Jessica Miller-Merrell

Cooler weather is in the air and not a moment too soon.  We take a break from the triple digit heat and enjoy a time filled with football, chili, knee-high boots, back packs, and sweaters. For many organizations, fall also signifies the time when recruiters begin interviewing and building relationships with university students who are graduating next spring or students interested in spring and summer internship programs.  Whatever your reason, fall is the perfect time to recruit top talent and fill your candidate pipeline. 

Candidate recruiting and building your candidate pipeline isn't easy.  It takes planning, research, and trial and error searching for methods that work on each individual college campus you recruit on.  For recruiters, who are looking for university recruiting strategies and channels that differ from the competition, here are three effective options sure to get your organization noticed by undergrads, interns, and recent grads alike.  

Out of the Box Campus Recruitment Strategies

• ·      Work with students associations.  While career services offers candidate databases and the opportunity to source and mine students directly, student associations offer a way to engage active the student population.  Recruiters can increase their prospective candidate pool by talking to students who have an interest in a certain career path but may not have the a traditional degree in business but have a work experience in marketing or graphic design. 

• ·      Target students with social media.  A 2011 Cisco World Technology report found that 81% of college students and young professionals are logging onto Facebook once a day.  Companies can run targeted ads towards these student populations and craft content that draws them in.  Connecting with young professionals on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter allows for students to learn about and engage your recruiters in unique and different ways.  Set yourself apart from your competition by using social media to stand out in your campus recruitment efforts. 

• ·      Take the hiring & selection process online.  Students have odd and unpredictable class schedules, social activities, and work.  Their busy lifestyle makes attending traditional in person campus recruiting events and job fairs a challenge, and recruiters miss out on meeting organized, qualified, and eager candidates.  By taking pieces of the hiring, candidate engagement and selection process online with a community or talent network, you are able to reach a wider student cross-section increasing the quality of the job seeker you attract.  This increases the number of touches in the candidate touch cycle and probability the young professional will research, learn about your organization, and engage with you. 

• Capture your talent, literally.  Avoid the hassle of accepting resumes or having your students fill out scraps of paper at job fairs.  Use mobile technology through the power of your iPad to capture talent in a moment's notice.  Students enter their contact information in under 30 seconds allowing you to connect with them easily after that college career fair.  Called TalentCatch, technology and tools like this make follow up and engagement a breeze especially when TalentCircles already offers these features for clients.  

Reach Qualified Candidates on Campus and Beyond

Whether it’s recent college grads or students seeking their first internship program, qualified candidates have options.  It’s important to engage and build relationships with them early and often.  Creative university recruitment strategies can help reach your target job seeker in new and different ways lowering your time to fill and making for happier hiring managers.  

Jessica Miller-Merrell, SPHR is a workplace and technology strategist specializing in social media.  She’s an author who writes at Blogging4Jobs. You can follow her on Twitter @blogging4jobs. 

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