Job postings should target candidates, not schools

For decades, employers wanting to hire students and recent graduates of colleges and universities had only one good channel to do so: the career service offices of those schools. Employers would send recruiters and hiring managers to various schools to participate in career fairs, on-campus interviewing, and information sessions.

The strategy of on-campus recruiting worked well in terms of enabling employers to hire students, but at a tremendous cost. According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the average cost to an employer to hire a student through such on-campus activities was $6,100. Despite these candidates all early in their careers and, therefore, typically less valuable than a similar candidate with years of experience, that was 30 percent more than the $4,700 average cost reported by the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM). Ouch.

Enter the career service office management platform. Popularized by JobTRAK (later rebranded to MonsterTRAK and then Monster Campus), these platforms are essentially private or co-branded, software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms for career service offices. Employers can use them to post jobs, schedule interviews, and interview candidates via video. Some of the leaders in this niche are Handshake, Symplicity, 12twenty, and Gradleaders. Each has its pros and cons, each reaches different schools so you have to use them all in order to even hope to reach all students, none are well used by recent graduates, and none scale for employers looking to hire dozens or even hundreds into the same roles, as so many employers of early career candidates do.

The Limitations of School-Exclusive Job Platforms

The career service office management platforms cater specifically to students of the universities with which they’re partnered. This specificity narrows the reach of your job postings significantly. These job listings are only accessible to currently enrolled students whose career service offices have approved the job post, adding an additional layer of selectivity. Unfortunately, many career service offices, despite their best intentions, are understaffed and may not approve job posts promptly, even from legitimate employers. As a result, many job advertisements on these platforms receive few to no applications due to their limited accessibility.

Even if the career service office approves the posting, jobs advertised by employers who are new to the system, who don’t have a strong consumer brand, or who are staffing companies are often ranked so low in the search results that the postings may as well not exist. Those familiar with search engine marketing (SEM) will know that the top result in just about any search will capture about 1/3 of the traffic, the second 1/3 of the remainder, the third 1/3 of the remainder, and so on. By the time you get to the bottom of the first page, the remainder is negligible. If you get to the second page, you might as well be a tree falling in a forest because there won’t be anyone to hear you.

College Recruiter: A More Efficient Approach

When reaching out to Generation Z job seekers, it’s crucial to explore platforms that offer broader accessibility and efficient pricing models, such as College Recruiter. Last year, we delivered more than 13 million candidates to the ATS and other such application pages of our customers. That’s not 13 million a year using our site. That’s 13 million to the sites of our employer, staffing agency, and other such customers.

Unlike our indirect competitors listed above, we’re also multinational, multilingual, and multicurrency. We started to accept postings outside of North America about 13 months ago and that’s already about 1/3 of our business. College Recruiter stands out as a robust, global platform. We cater to students and recent grads looking for part-time, seasonal, internship, and other early career jobs requiring 0-5 years of experience.

One of the key benefits of College Recruiter is our flexible pricing model. A small percentage of our customers prefer to advertise on a traditional, duration-basis such as $X for Y postings. Unlike the career service office management platforms, however, almost all of our employers choose to advertise on a cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-application (CPA) basis. This model ensures that employers only pay for the tangible results they receive. Such a model is especially beneficial for employers looking to hire multiple individuals for a single role, as it can deliver significantly more applications per posting compared to traditional job search platforms. If the sites you’re using do not allow you to advertise on a pay-for-performance basis, could it be that they know that they won’t perform well?

Leveraging Traditional and Digital Platforms

In addition to College Recruiter, Generation Z job seekers also frequently use Google, Indeed, LinkedIn, and various social media and job board platforms. These channels also offer more expansive reach than university-specific platforms, allowing your job posts to be seen by a wider, more diverse audience. When you advertise your job on College Recruiter, you’re also advertising it on many of these other channels. We partner with hundreds of the top college and university career service offices as well as sites like Google, Indeed, LinkedIn, and others.

In conclusion, while university career service platforms have their value, it’s essential to incorporate broader, more accessible, scalable, and cost-effective platforms like College Recruiter into your recruitment strategy. By understanding the unique limitations and benefits of each platform, employers can more effectively target Generation Z job seekers and receive a higher volume of well-qualified applications per job post. Take a step towards innovative recruitment methods, and tap into the extensive, diverse talent pool that Generation Z represents.