How to Create a Successful College Recruiting Program – Identify External and Internal Factors (Part 2 of 14)

The purpose of this series of CollegeRecruiter.com Blog entries is to define and describe the basic steps to create a successful college recruiting program. In the first entry, we defined success and laid out the steps to the program. In this second entry, we’ll discuss how and why it is important that you identify the critical external and internal factors that will impact your program.
Affecting Your Program
This first step in building your college recruiting program may sound entirely self-evident, but it is frequently overlooked in the rush to get out into schools and hire recruits. Typically, employers run programs in the fall (September through December) and the winter (January through March). Months before employers visit schools, recruiting personnel look at certain factors which may impact upcoming programs.

Internal or Organizational Factors
It is helpful to your recruiting program in general and the college recruiting program in particular, to identify what organizational factors will impact the programs. Here are a number of questions you can ask to isolate these factors:

1. What reorganizations have/will take place?
2. After the reorganizations, will new leaders be required or will managers be eliminated?
3. What businesses have been bought or sold? Will these changes require new skill sets?
4. What leaders have left the business or retired?
5. What business units will need new leaders and in what time frame?
6. What business units will need support from interns?
7. What has happened to requests for college hires? Have they increased or decreased?
8. What is the financial health of the company?

Corporate Culture
An internal factor frequently overlooked is the corporate culture. But without defining and describing this factor, it becomes difficult to identify qualified college candidates, both as recruits and as interns. For example, a candidate who is a thoughtful cerebral type may not fit in a freewheeling environment where self-starters thrive.
When considering the corporate culture factor, use as many words as possible to describe your culture. Think about your culture and how things generally operate, and write as many descriptors as you can come up with in 30 seconds. Each time a new college recruiting program is created, check this list to see if any descriptors are off the mark. For example, the culture at one global company traditionally led by scientists has been described as follows: fiercely independent, flexible, savvy, quick to fire, slow to hire, empowering, liberal. Should bean counters become company leaders, over time the word‚ liberal‚ used to describe the culture may change to‚ conservative.
External Factors
Because the non-work world continually changes, so must your college recruiting program because external factors play a role in the development of successful college recruiting programs. Several examples are as follows:

1. Economic Factors. Suppose the economy has turned negative. Instead of a growing, robust economy where jobs are plentiful, a recession is on the horizon, stock markets are depressed, and the unemployment rate is headed for double digits. This situation affects college students about to graduate because unless they are in a field where demand is endless and supply is limited, they know job hunting may be a long, difficult process.
2. Competition. What are your main competitors up to in the college recruiting arena? If your contacts in competing organizations are non-existent or if you believe them to be non-existent, then surf the net. The web sites of your competitors may reveal hiring trends of which you were not aware.