Every year in November, job seekers get discouraged that no-one is hiring and stop their search activities until January. Is this you?

Make the last two months of the year work for you, instead of against you.

Step 1: Review all your marketing materials and update them.

Use a clear head and mind to review your resume, social media profiles, cover letters, and email signatures.
* does each portray you as the best match for the job you are seeking?
* are you demonstrating your past successes in terms of your future goals?
* would you hire you?

I have been involved in enrollment management for more than 40 years, both as an enrollment manager on campus and as a consultant for Noel-Levitz. During that time, I have seen changes in higher education that are nothing short of revolutionary. Shifts in access to higher education, the gender and ethnic composition of classes, the number of students attending college, and technological innovations are just some of the sweeping changes that have made higher education an increasing force in the social, economic, political, and cultural life of our country.

Are prospective students going mobile when they search for colleges online? According to the latest E-Expectations data, the answer is increasingly becoming “yes.”

Since the 2010 study, the E-Expectations project has tracked how many prospective students have viewed college Web sites on mobile devices. Those numbers have gone from 23 percent in 2010 and 14 percent in 2011 to 52 percent this year. With more and more students using smart phones and tablets, those numbers will surely increase in the coming years.

The things that drive change across an organization are myriad and can practically be recited in rote form, but one thing that slips to the bottom of the list (and sometimes gets left off altogether) is feedback.

There are good reasons for this as talent management, as a discipline, is growing accountable for more items almost daily and feedback, while a nice idea, can’t really be tied to anything measurable…. or can it? Here are four things that may change your mind about how powerful a strong feedback loop can be within your enterprise:

Listening to podcasts has been productive for my own professional development. I am using audio podcasts during my commute and travel time to stay up-to-date on relevant topics and important publications. I looked around and could not find anything relevant with a focus on international student enrollment and international marketing for universities. As a result, we will launch a monthly podcast series addressing larger strategic issues, country-specific information, partner and vendor information and hands-on practical recruitment questions.

Click on image to enlarge.

The graphic above shows the percentage of prospective students who are currently using each of the seven most popular social media sites, based on a national poll of 2,000 college-bound high school students conducted in the spring of 2012. The 2012 E-Recruiting Practices Report from Noel-Levitz compares these numbers to the social media practices that campuses report using, revealing some significant differences. (For more information on the use of social media by prospective college students, download the 2012 E-Expectations Report.)

As I present the findings from the latest E-Expectations research with clients and colleagues, one of the areas that generates the most discussion is the apparent interest prospective students show in using Webcams and other tools to have live conversations with current students, faculty, and admissions representatives.