When you think of recruiting at your local college, do you think of all that
fresh talent, just waiting to prove themselves to the world, or do you
instead concentrate upon "no job experience, no thanks?"
Or do you think of the alumni associations, the student organizations, the
night students, the faculty who knows who the best and brightest are, the
secretaries who run the individual department jobs-available list?
Recruiting on the Internet for college students can be quite a rewarding
process. Of course, you can stick with the usual posting to college job web
sites, schedule on-campus hiring interviews, and the like. Been there, done
that, so has zillions of other firms.
Go one step beyond. Certainly, you can work with the college career center,
and indeed that will provide you with excellent candidates through the
proper channels.
Also consider student organizations. Does your local university have an
undergraduate student computer club, for example? If so, contact the
president of it. If you recruit in the IT field, you can offer to provide a
career seminar for one of their weekly or monthly meetings (club presidents
have to fill up meeting time one way or another).
Your star potential candidate doesn't have to have pulled all As in their
courses. Great problem-solving skills (as opposed to rote knowledge)
coupled with the enthusiasm to proves oneself can result in the kind of
candidate you want to represent. And providing a focal point in the form of
a club meeting might bring them in contact with you.
How do you find student organizations? Take any college (such as Rutgers at
http://www.rutgers.edu).
Look for any link that discusses Students (in this
case,
http://www.rutgers.edu/current-students.shtml).
Most likely, there
will be a link for student organizations (in this case,
http://www.rutgers.edu/menus/studorgs.shtml).
Here, you'll find the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers at
http://www.engr.rutgers.edu/asme/,
The Pharmacy Class 2000 Homepage at
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~thithi/classes.html,
the Computer Science Graduate Student Society at
http://paul.rutgers.edu/~csgss/ and more.
Find faculty pages! After all, these are the people most in contact with
your future candidates. While NEVER send out spam to everyone in a
department, pick and choose professors who are involved with the
Undergraduate or Graduate classes, and ask them for help. Who in their
classes stand out, either academically or in other career-enhancing ways?
Can they provide you with contacts to get in touch with the graduating
class? Etc. etc. etc.
Don't limit yourself to strictly organizations that deal with your
recruiting field. For example, a math major might make an excellent systems
administrator, due to her superb problem-solving abilities. Or the pre-law
society might have members who would be great for management-training
tracks. You'll never know unless you test different approaches.
Getting yourself know to the clubs and faculty of your targeted recruiting
area is a fantastic way to assure you that you'll see star students
(ideally) before others in officially-sanctioned on-campus recruiting
seminars.
What about really undergraduate undergraduates, such as freshmen? If they
see you again and again over the years, chances are you'll be the first one
contacted when graduation does loom around the corner.
Sometimes large associations will have links to their student chapters! For
example, check out the IEEE (for electrical engineers at
http://www.ieee.org ). Right there on the main page, you'll find a link to
its' student associations at
http://sandbox.ieee.org/home.html.
From there you can find a list of all chapters at
http://sandbox.ieee.org/lists/branches.html.
Want to find excellent jumping-off places? Check out ScholarStuff at
http://www.scholarstuff.com/,
Career Mosaic's Career Center directory at
http://www.careermosaic.com/cm/cc/cc8.html,
an alumni list at
http://www.halcyon.com/investor/alumni.htm,
and CollegeRecruiter.com at
http://www.CollegeRecruiter.com.
The Internet has opened a huge (and I mean huge!) opportunity for you to
find candidates before anyone else does. Take advantage of that.
Article courtesy of Barbara Ling. For more information, please go to:
RISE seminars at:
http://www.riseway.com or
The Internet Recruiting Edge at:
http://www.barbaraling.com/recruiting.html.
