How to Find Quality Engineers Through Campus Recruitment

Finding quality talent through campus recruitment is often a challenging task. It involves ensuring that you pick the best colleges first so that you don’t have to pick from leftovers. It is also about getting the best interview slot on campus which makes all the difference.

Normally companies with high-volume recruiting needs go in for campus recruitment. Campus recruitment involves working with university career services centre and attending career fairs to meet with college students and recent graduates. It is difficult to fill entry-level positions and globally companies are facing a shortage of talent to fill those positions. This challenge can be met with hiring talent from campuses. For any company that has high-volume recruitment needs, having a good campus recruitment strategy is very important to find potential candidates.

Recruitment from campus also offers easy access to the youngest generation of talent: Gen Z. Gen Z talent is high on digital and technological skills and are looking for meaningful work and an opportunity to develop their professional skills.

Hiring quality engineers takes a long time and effort and therefore you need to look deeper at the candidates and not just aptitude tests. An insane amount of budget and resources go into campus recruitment which include hotel expenses, travel time and time that is wasted in various rounds of interviews. Doing video interviews could be a good way to make this whole process easier.

Reduce dropouts and poor hires

When you hire close to 50 or 60 engineers on campus, you will end up with only 12 left after three months. So, while hiring, instead of focusing only on aptitude tests, you must also look for behavioral fitment, communication skills and passion. Since campus recruits are freshers, they have no work experience to showcase. You have to hire for latent skills like design-thinking capabilities, leadership qualities and look for their ability to work as a team player. Doing a simple video interview with candidates before visiting a campus can give you an edge over other recruiters. This will also save time, resources and money.  

Building a good campus recruitment team

A campus recruiter has to travel to schools across the country to meet young, energetic students and ensure that they hire top talent. They have to form good relationships with university career services centres to connect with students, plan information sessions on-campus and career fair appearances. Responsibilities of a college recruiter include recruitment marketing initiatives, building a student communication plan and on-campus employer brand. Ultimately, campus recruiters work with hiring managers, conduct interviews, evaluate candidates and make job offers.

Know your audience

Strategies used to attract the millennial generation may not work with Gen Z who have a unique expectation from their recruiter. You will need to build a talent pipeline even before you set foot on campus. You could ask for a list of students who are interested in your company and invite them to join your talent community. You could engage with the community by sending regular communication about open entry-level positions, insights about your company’s internship opportunities or details of prospective career fairs. Another good way to source high quality talent is through referrals from other college grads. Tap interns in your company and ask them to tell their friends about your talent community on campus and join it for future updates about job opportunities.

Connect with students

There are various communication channels open to connect with students on campus and technology has enabled this greatly. However, Gen Z ranks face-to-face interactions very high; so having a physical presence on campus is important. Develop a communication plan to ensure that students show up when you are on campus. Prepare the team that is going to be on campus with tools and talking points. This will ensure that your hiring event is a success. Make your employer information sessions very engaging and interesting for students.

Stay in touch

Touch base with students throughout the year irrespective of whether campus recruitment is taking place or not. Share compelling content and invest in a digital campus recruitment strategy. You could also use email marketing campaigns effectively. 

Focus on metrics

Valuable feedback can be gotten from recruitment software and help you measure the success of your recruitment strategies. For instance, it can help you measure the number of hires from a specific recruitment event or measure the number of emails opened from an email marketing campaign. These analytics can help you decide how to improve your campus recruitment strategies. A good and efficient budgeting exercise should also be undertaken to ensure that the campus recruitment plan is successful.

Conclusion

No longer do employers sit at a table at a job fair and wait for students to come by and chat. Campus recruitment is now competitive with employers making an effort to improve candidate experience. By employing the above mentioned strategies you can improve your candidate experience and find quality engineers through campus placements.