Stacey,
I hear you on this one. I remember similar challenges. Because career professionals rely on others (gatekeepers) to partner with us to provide us with what we need to do our jobs, relationships are essential to our ability to optimize our results. Often, when I was a Director of Career Services, we had some Registrars we frequently interacted with at other schools to get enrollment verification. These are people we would send thank you cards to or go out of our way to do something nice for them. In the event that such people are on social media platforms, leveraging social media to continue nurturing relationships is a way to strengthen those partnerships. The only way to improve results in this area when we rely on others is to get those other people on our team by nurturing relationships. Sometimes this may be sending a personalized card to that one registrar that never ever responds to break the ice, get their attention, and nurture a long-term partnership.
What ways do you intervene to overcome this challenge? I think identifying what you currently do to overcome these challenges which everyone faces could benefit the forum.
Thanks.
Robert Starks Jr.
One challenge we are seeing is related to the changing face of hiring trends. While some career fairs and interview days are still marginally effective, both student and employer participation in these types of events is decreasing, as more and more connections are being made via personal networking (including through social media).
I'd like to learn how to better help students tap into networking resources using social media, and potentially even think of innovative ways to combine social media and traditional hiring opportunities such as interview days.
Kelly,
Thank you for sharing these challenges. They are challenges many face. I'd like to share some thoughts with you and I have some questions on which I'd be interested in hearing your own thoughts:
1. Have you considered hosting networking events vs. "career fairs" and "interview days" which focus on hiring practices vs. networking?
2. How might a "networking" event be differentiated from a traditional career fair or "interview day" and in what ways might you use social media to execute such an event? Who might be potential partners in offering such an event? (I think of local chambers, small business associations, or professional associations who may appreciate you offering your space or partnering in some way. Collaboration with other groups can help both parties accomplish mutual goals and I encourage you to think of how you can leverage social media to enhance these types of partnerships).
3. Have you considered transforming your "interview day" concept from a hiring interview to an informational interview? How might you use social media to scale such an idea and designate more frequent opportunities via technology to enhance your face-to-face events?
4. How might you educate students on how to leverage social media to obtain their own informational interviews through social channels? How could you use their success stories of having achieved an informational interview using social media channels to generate more buzz about this practice?
5. Consider the concepts behind social networks like www.meetup.com and www.letslunch.com that allow people to find others with similar interests and connect offline. Perhaps this will spur more creative ideas on what you can do to leverage social media in non-traditional ways to connect students/alumni with employers for networking purposes.
I hope these comments/questions spur some ideas and I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Regards,
Robert Starks Jr.
Our career services department faces the major challenges of building strong leads with employers looking to hire and also being able to reach certain graduates that change their contact information or don't communicate back with the school. Both of these challenges make placement and placement verification difficult.
Right now it is getting the graduates to follow through on verifications. Especially the ones who become self employed in their field. Verification from our accrediting agency requires two forms of documentation; such a business license, promotional brochure, link to a website, etc.
I have contact with the grads but they just can't seem to do the paperwork. Other grads are non responsive even if I do reach out to them through social media.
Kathy,
What differentiates the individuals who do fill out paperwork and those who do not? Do you have any insight you can provide to the rest of the group based on your experience and observations? You'll always have grads who are just not responsive. Social media isn't a silver bullet. However, what strategies could you incorporate because of social media that you couldn't otherwise?
Robert Starks Jr.
Graduates who are unmotivated to work, MIA grads, uncertified graduates (this is a biggie for us), saturated markets, graduates who will not travel (45 miles)for employment, and time to network with new employers our our biggest hurdles.
Stacey,
If your graduates are taking out government loans to go to school your Financial Aid department should be able to run NSLDS reports to see if the graduate has or is attending any other schools after they leave you as a graduate. I use these quite often for Continuing Education verifications.These work for our accrediation. Now if the student was cash pay that is where you have to have strong relationships with other schools Registrar's. Oh, and always get a release of information signed by the graduate, this gives you permission to obtain all the information you need. Hope this may help!
Kathy,
Do you use The Work Number to help with verifications?
Hi Mary,
I'm not sure what you mean by "The Work Number". It sounds a bit familiar like an organization that helps with verifications that I tried a long time ago but they charge something like $15 for each verification. My company does not have that kind of resources to employ their services.
Is that what you were referring to?
Kathy
Yes, that is what I was referring too. My comapny does not pay for each individual verification though, we pay a yearly price.
In today's frenzied economy- I am eager to not only find jobs, but place them with our students. How do you recommend schools to keep the job listing as, "exclusive" to the school?
Robert,
Exclusive job listings result from close partnerships and these take time to develop. While there is no road map on how to develop these types of partnerships, let me share with you my experience. I found that going above and beyond with employers to understand their needs was the first initial step in developing a close partnership. This meant, I would visit their location, speak with the hiring managers, and ask for an opportunity to be seen as a free resource to do their sourcing and staffing. I would train my advisors to pre-screen candidates, to go through mock interviews with them and to have a deep understanding of their graduates and their match to positions. This helped us filter and recommend candidates who were high matches to open positions and I would request feedback on every candidate explaining that in the beginning of a relationship, the feedback helped accelerate the learning curve of the idiosyncrasies of the employer's hiring preferences. Over time, my office was able to develop extremely close partnerships with employers to the point that some only called us when they needed to hire and others would inform us before a position was publicly advertised. When we had success with employers, we would ask if they had any relationships with other businesses and if they would be willing to recommend us as a staffing solution. Word-of-mouth helped us as well in this way. I hope that provides you with some insight on how my department was able to accomplish some "exclusive" partnerships. We were able to leverage these types of partnerships in multiple ways including holding employer events and getting guest speakers. Here's an example of a large event we were able to hold with many employers being guest speakers for a conference we developed with nothing but volunteers because of the strong partnerships we had: http://youtu.be/qz3Q6-rXVtE.
Robert Starks Jr.
Looks great and your video portrayed a successful event. Seems like the mission was accomplished. Seems like your long term strategy is working. Did the current 84 Youtube views in the past 2 years meet your expectations? Do you feel the Owner of the school has the same opinion? I eager for your feedback.
Robert,
I am no longer the Director of Career Services at this particular institution. The long-term strategy is now in others' hands. To answer your question, this particular video didn't have a goal of views, subscribers, etc. - it had the goal of being used to market the event in the future to employers so they could see the event would be worth their time. We decided that Youtube wasn't the best channel to reach our target audience for this event we wanted to make annual so we actually embedded it on the server of a promotional website created solely to market the event. Thus, Youtube was not the primary marketing channel. Needless to say, this event has indeed become an annual one that attracts employers from multiple states and it has expanded to encompass more industries. So, based on the objectives set forth, everyone has been happy with the results it has produced in meeting the objective of expanding employer relations. The vent was broken into two parts:
1. A morning session of 5 different workshops similar to any conference you'd go to where they have multiple tracks and concurrent sessions and visitors decide which to attend. After the sessions, students gathered in a theatre to ask questions to the panel of employers for an hour.
2. We had a night event for employers only which was catered and had a bar. We had concurrent sessions tailored to an employer audience. The first event drew in approximately 120 employers from 3 different states and resulted in a tremendous increase in new employer contacts to further nurture relationships which has had many benefits from increased job opportunities, internship programs, new PAC members, and even faculty who have been hired because of the relationships developed. Several start-ups also attended the first event so the "exclusive" job opportunities you mentioned were also attracted this way by engaging an employer audience.
Your strategy will always depend on your stated objective. If you are using social media outlets for lead generation, your content strategy will be considerably different. Don't get caught up in views, likes, followers, etc. These metrics distract people from what they are really trying to accomplish. The question is how are you using your content to drive action? Do you just want a view, fans, followers, or likes or is it something else you are trying to achieve? Additionally, consider how all your channels work together, not independently or in a vacuum.
Robert Starks Jr.
Maintaining accurate data on employment status. Much of my time is spent on the phone following up to see what a graduate's current status or if they need further assistance.
The industry that our graduates work in is primarily freelance driven, so one of our biggest challenges is tracking and documenting their careers. This also makes staying current with contact information a difficult task.
Nathan,
This is precisely one of the reasons why building relationships prior to graduation is so important. Social networks are collaboratively developed databases of people that are user generated. The information is updated by the user and if Career Services has purposefully built relationships with graduates, it provides yet another tool to build rapport with students, stay connected, mine for data which provides insight on their employment, activities, and personal characteristics, from which to develop effective communication strategies. It's completely unlike any other strategy typically used by Career Services - it's long-term and it's continuous. Perhaps one of the reasons it is so rarely used which is unfortunate because it is so highly effective.
The graduates I worked with were primarily freelance and non-traditional employment as well and our social media strategy helped us improve employment rates as a result of the expanded and improved relationships we had with students who were more willing to disclose their employment information. Additionally, we had more opportunities to discover when students/graduates were working because of data mined on social networks. It allows you to optimize your ability to address the challenges you describe.
I am an instructor, my challenge is in the classroom. I want to know how to motivate the students interests in professional networking? How to develop a desire similiar to their personal energy used to Facebook friends and family to social networking for career and professional advancement?
LeWando,
I have personally found that students get excited about the possibilities of social media once they begin to learn about the benefits. When I speak with students, I give real-world examples of how social media has helped people with their career and business goals. I also found that being the example myself got buy-in from students. For instance, if I knew I wanted to convince students that social media provides an opportunity to meet people they would never be able to meet, I might first connect with someone from a known business and see if I could gain an informational interview via Skype or have an email exchange with them. I have actually spoken with Brian Solis, author and social media expert and I have held conversations on Twitter with authors. I use these examples and possibilities with students and it seems to get them interested. I think it all begins with educating them. Sometimes it takes an outsider to visit the classroom. I used to also get employers, alumni and other outsiders to conduct guest presentations about social media and it would interest the students. Let them know how social media can help them accomplish what they want to accomplish and they may start to see social media as tools for business vs. just being social.
Robert Starks Jr.
