If you're struggling to find a personal inroad to your target population, try getting a little creative. Check out an advertisement that Box.net took out in the Stanford Daily last spring before the career fair. It featured a complicated math puzzle to attract students from Stanford's elite engineering program. Those who figured out the puzzle could enter a contest for a chance to win an iPad.
The ad's purpose was to "narrowly address" a desired audience, says Levie. "It was the cheapest thing we spent on the recruiting effort but it had the highest reward," he says.
Any way to create a buzz on campus will go a long way in terms of brand recognition. Sponsoring events, guest speaking at student organizations, or participating in alumni networks are each parts of the labor-intensive method of college recruiting. "You don't need to be a household name by any stretch," Scott says. "You just need to attract students attention and get them to start thinking about what they can do for your firm."
Dig Deeper: How to Manage Your Company's Brand
Recruiting on College Campuses: Make Them Want To Come To You
At this point, almost every CEO wants to make staff happiness a top priority. But how can a scrappy start-up compete with the employee-indulgent Zappos and Googles of the world? Don't think of it as a competition: It turns out that making employees feel at home is always more personal than material.
"Culture is how you treat people, the intangible perks, the office environment, and the overall opportunity for growth," says Seth Besmertnik, CEO and co-founder of Conductor, an SEO measurement-and-technology firm based in New York. "People who are great will always have lots of options, and recognize that you need to sell them as much as they need to sell you," says Besmertnik, whose commitment to quality culture landed Conductor on Crain's New York Business' "Best Places to Work in NYC" list in 2009.
In his effort to "sell" prospective employees, Besmertnik has tried lots of tactics. He's sent surprise packages with company baseball bats; he's waited outside people's apartments. He's even sent pictures of people's seats in the office with personalized nameplates on them. Though the company's success can now speak for itself, Conductor still greets interviewees at the door with a folder containing an itinerary with pictures of whom they will be meeting with that day. "It's such an easy thing to do, but it makes people impressed with us," says Besmertnik.
Another way to expose your company's culture is through internships. Intern programs allow students and employees to sow relationships for the future. Box.net's Levie admits that this is one of the reasons larger companies have been so successful at retaining top talent, as many will hesitate to relinquish personal connections they had within a company. "You really want to attract some of the best talent before they are in a position to make a life commitment," he says. Offering the internship is only half the battle, though, as you must keep in contact with your interns to make sure they enjoyed working at your organization and want to come back.
Dig Deeper: How to Make New Employees Feel at Home
Recruiting on College Campuses: Use Social Media to Your Advantage
Common sense would lead us to believe that social media is the best way to target a student audience. The college generation spends endless amounts of hours online interacting with friends, so why shouldn't we interact with them there as well?
Unfortunately, not all students want employers entering their private space. While finding a job may be a top priority, students still want to separate that time from their social outlets. "What employers and a lot of marketing firms quite frankly don't understand is that students do not want them interacting with them on social sites," says Scott, who has conducted focus groups with students on recruiting. "I've had students tell me that they feel stalked by employers and strangely enough, consider it an unprofessional practice," she says.
In spite of such obstacles, there are appropriate ways of using social media to connect with students. LinkedIn is one of the most effective tools that companies can use to reach out and network with prospective employees. But a site like LinkedIn only works if you can get employees on board. "At Box, we encourage recent grads and more senior employees to join their college alumni groups on LinkedIn and regularly post job openings," says Levie. CEOs like Levie and Besmertnik are apt to point to their roles as the company's No. 1 evangelist, letting the excitement trickle down. "This has to happen organically, with employees getting genuinely excited about the features we're rolling out or a revenue milestone," Levie says.
Or, you can try something a little old school. Besmertnik says he thinks chivalry is back. He encourages employees to reach out to recruits with hand-written notes or e-mails to interact with them personally and make them feel important. If your employees have genuine enthusiasm about your company – enthusiasm that they are willing to share on Facebook and Twitter – it will likely translate to prospective employers as well.
Dig Deeper: How To Use Twitter as a Recruiting Tool
