What Is Campus Recruitment? Everything You Need to Know

A company’s most important resource is its employees. And while you should always be on the lookout for experienced experts, it’s also important to bolster your roster with fresh, young talent.

The most common way to do that? Campus recruitment campaigns. And there’s a reason why around 70% of companies are doing campus recruitment.

But with almost every business doing it, how do you stand out? 

In this article, we’ll go through the whys—and, more importantly, the hows—of effective campus recruitment.

What Is Campus Recruitment?

The definition is in the very term, with campus recruitment meaning that it’s the process in which companies visit colleges and universities to look for potential recruits among the students. It can take form in many ways.

Recruiters and representatives from the companies interact and connect with interested students (often graduating ones) and look for those who fit the company’s needs and culture. Students can then get interviewed, onboarded, and hired for internships, or even full-time roles.

Why Should Companies Perform Campus Recruitment? 

But what’s the point of recruiting college students?

It’s the age-old debate: should you hire people who are young albeit inexperienced or those with time and experience under their belt? And why should companies hold campus recruitment programs instead of looking to the professional job market?

The Benefits of Hiring Graduating Students

There’s a good reason why common wisdom holds that the best employee rosters feature a mix of both.

The benefits of hiring experienced workers are obvious. Here’s why getting fresh graduates or graduating students can be value-adding hires, too:

1. Trainability

While not universal by any means, younger people tend to be more malleable. Through internships or probation programs, you can better instill in them the values and skills that you specifically need for your company. After all, more experienced people, despite this experience, may be more used to the culture and processes of their past workplaces.

2. Lower Compensation

Since fresh graduates are often eager—or even anxious—to dip themselves into the working world, many of them are thus eager to grow their skills and gain experience. Because of this, many are willing to trade lower compensation for training and more experience. Just make sure to increase their pay accordingly once they start contributing more effectively, especially since one downside of hiring younger workers is their relatively lower retention rate. 

3. Tech-Savviness

With more and more things getting more and more digital, having tech-savvy individuals is always a plus. They’ll be more aware of social media trends for marketing purposes, know how to use a VPN for cybersecurity, and will likely know how to troubleshoot IT problems by themselves.

The Benefits of Campus Recruitment

Campus recruitment serves as a bridge between talented students and top employers, ensuring a smooth transition from academics to professional careers. It allows companies to identify and nurture young talent early, fostering innovation and fresh perspectives in the workplace.

1. Access to a Diverse Talent Pool

Colleges have students from various backgrounds and with different degrees. This means that campus selection is a source of recruitment that allows companies to build a diverse workforce or fill multiple different openings.

2. Less Competition

Another reason why campus recruitment is important to a business’ hiring strategy is its cost-effective nature. With the broader job market, you’ll be competing with countless other companies for talent. However, campus recruitment offers a more focused hiring effort where you can focus on connecting with interested students.

3. Cost-Effective Hiring

Another benefit of less competition is that it eliminates the need for extended advertising and long-drawn hiring processes. This reduces overall costs.

Benefits For Students

However, campus recruitment is also beneficial for students, which will make them all more eager to get internships and jobs. 

1. Ease of Access to Opportunities

Campus recruitment bridges the gap between academia and the professional world,  making job searches less stressful. Many students look for internships or part-time jobs to help bolster their resumes once they graduate.

2. Structured Career Pathways

It also provides students with clarity about the industries they are interested in. Company recruiters and representatives can tell them what to expect when working in that field.

3. Professional Exposure

Many students are curious about the professional world as they seek to start their careers. They’re wondering what a campus interview or want to know about their dream jobs.

In helping these students, companies also get to help themselves. It’s a mutually beneficial endeavor.

How to Conduct Campus Recruitment?

So, how does campus recruitment work?

Below, we’ve outlined the general flow of the campus recruitment process. But truth be told, campus recruitment can be conducted in many ways. 

As with any process, the specifics of it, as well as the various tweaks they can and should implement, depend highly on the particular situation.

Here’s a general breakdown:

1. Comprehensive Planning

First, the company must plan its campus hiring strategy. No business campaign ever launched successfully without a careful plan. When setting up your campus hiring strategy, several factors need to be considered:

Several factors need to be considered.

• What roles need to be filled?

• What qualities are we looking for from students?

• What will our onboarding process be like?

• What will we ask them during interviews?

• What is our budget?

• How do we market our company to the students?

All these and other hiring needs of the company must be spelled out and documented in a comprehensive plan. 

You will, of course, also likely need to coordinate with the ther departments in your company (finance departments for budget, marketing department for ads, etc.)

2. Selecting and Coordinating with Universities

The next step is selecting colleges and universities to recruit from. There are a lot of things to consider when choosing, such as:

• The college’s geographical location
  • Unless you’re conducting a purely online recruitment campaign, you’ll need to choose one in your area. 
• The school’s reputation
  • You’d want to work with a college that produces quality graduates!
• The degrees the school offers or is known for 
  • Choose colleges that are known for degrees that are relevant to the positions you want to fill. So if you’re a tech company, for example, you’ll want a college known for its IT, programming, and engineering degrees.

Although truth be told, it’s not uncommon for colleges to reach out to you first. (Given, of course, that you’re a reputable company yourself!).

3. Forms of Campus Recruitment

You can, for example, take part in university job fairs. Universities will often invite or call for companies who want to participate. Here, you will set up a booth at the university’s event and connect and interact with interested students.

You can also host your own solo event or booth at the school, even if there isn’t a wider job fair. 

The university will most likely ask companies to share things like job descriptions, eligibility criteria, and interview/assessment/hiring processes with the university. If they are amenable to these things, the university will allow you a booth. The university will then disseminate such information to students and ask students to create resumes and prepare for interviews.

Things can also be done remotely. Companies can share what they’re looking for, then universities call for interested students and then send back the resumes of these students to the company. The company can then contact these students privately for interviews and assessments.

Pro Tip

Many companies compete for talent at career fairs, but you can stand out by organizing hackathons, business challenges, or guest lectures. These initiatives not only showcase your company’s expertise but also allow you to identify high-potential candidates.

Additional Tips to Optimize Campus Recruitment

Since campus recruitment campaigns can be done in so many ways, there’s really no standard rulebook on it. However, here are a few critical tips to help you make the most out of your campaign.

1. Have Robust Assessment Methods

The end goal is to get a hire—and every hire must be worth it.

Most companies will stick to the usual resume review and basic interview process during campus recruitment. This is somewhat understandable, given that there isn’t the most time and space during job fairs and other campus recruitment events.

But, as much as possible, employ other assessment methodologies such as:

• Aptitude tests
  These tests measure cognitive, analytical, and verbal abilities.
• Technical tests
  For specialized roles where technical know-how is essential.
• Portfolio reviewing
  For creative fields, like graphic design or copywriting.
• Group discussions (GDs)
  In GDs, you’ll see how these students communicate and work in a team to solve problems.

2. Enhance Employer Branding

While I’ve said above that marketing isn’t as essential when it comes to campus recruitment, that doesn’t mean that it can’t be of massive help—especially with the current generation of young workers.

Perhaps more than ever, it’s critical to present and market your organization as an attractive workplace. After all, Gen Z is more critical and selective of their workplaces compared to other generations.

In addition to traditional marketing, you can do this by holding things like pre-placement talks and workshops to showcase your company’s culture more tangibly.

3. Leverage Technology

Recruitment campaigns have a lot of moving parts. Marketing the campaign to designing testing methods, and coordinating with campuses—it can be quite hectic.

To be more efficient with the different processes involved in the program, look into using some of the best recruiting software in the market. They take care of the busy work, like scheduling interviews, communicating with candidates, and organizing resumes. 

This frees up your recruiters’ mental energy for things that require more critical thinking—such as, of course, carefully evaluating each candidate. In fact, some of these tools go one step further and even use AI to help with candidate analysis!

Conclusion

The world and the workplace are evolving more rapidly than ever. Because of this, it’s become more and more important to have a steady influx of young talent who bring in their fresh perspectives.

While recruiting young, inexperienced students straight from colleges brings their own fair share of risks, these young people also bring with them a wealth of potential. 

And if you don’t bring them in and train them to create value for your company, then your competitors just might!

Omesh Makhija

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Omesh Makhija is an experienced HR and payroll specialist with a wealth of knowledge in optimizing payroll operations and streamlining HR procedures. Omesh has a track record of successfully putting cutting-edge HR technology solutions into practice and making sure labor laws are followed. Omesh is committed to assisting companies in increasing employee happiness and HR efficiency as a fervent supporter of HR automation.