Talent professionals continually say, “Meet candidates where they are.” But what does that even mean? 

It boils down to making sure what you want candidates to see gets seen, and they can easily take action.

And I have good news: it’s never been easier to find candidates and show them your stuff—because they’re home on their computers. 

We’ve been spending more time online in our WFH environments, but this is especially true for soon-to-be college graduates (aka the next great wave of potential candidates). Students used to spend an average of 8 to 10 hours a day online pre COVID-19, and that’s skyrocketed 500% since the pandemic began. 

It’s becoming all the more essential to ensure your recruiting strategies and recruiting software are up to date. If recruiters need to meet their candidates where they are, why not meet college graduates where they spend their entire day?

Attract Talent with Today's Recruiting Strategies 

If your college recruitment strategy entails sitting at a table with branded pens and brochures at career fairs, you’re doing it wrong. Why? Because you’re only able to reach a small fraction of this talent pool. The majority of college students are looking for jobs online. 

67% of unemployed and 61% of employed internet users between 16-24 years old had visited a job website in 2019

But to create an effective recruiting strategy, employers need to understand who these college students are, what they value, what they look for in a future employer and which sites and apps they use?  

3 Ways to Upgrade Your Recruiting Strategies to Attract College Grads

1. Clean up your job posts: Make sure your job openings look nice. This means ensuring your career site and job posts include detailed descriptions of what the day-to-day job entails. You’ll also want to ensure the post has proper spacing, bullet points and easy-to-read.

Too many job posts read as one long paragraph, and you honestly can’t tell where the description ends and the requirements start. This is common on LinkedIn and Indeed, but this goes for all online content. 

Think of this as the Goldilocks strategy behind hiring. You don’t want too much information to the point that it’s overwhelming.

But on the other hand, you don’t want too little information that drives candidates away because they get frustrated endlessly searching for necessary information. 

Career Site Tip: Make your career site and job postings approachable and reflective of the open roles. If you make the requirements unattainable, expect to have a low volume of applicants. 

Example: If you’re hiring for an entry-level position, it’s best not to expect candidates to know how to use multiple software platforms and have 2-5 years of experience walking through the door. Instead, mention it’s an entry-level job, specifically for college graduates, with room for training and growth.

2. Use social media and video: Always consider adding social media to your recruitment strategy. Social recruiting is less expensive and time-consuming than traditional recruitment marketing methods. 

In a survey of HR professionals in the US, over 90% of companies use social media platforms in their hiring process. The study shows that recruiters found an immense increase in both the quality and quantity of candidates. 

Social channels like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn build employer brand awareness and credibility. College grads admit to finding companies on LinkedIn, skimming their homepage content, and viewing current employees to see if it’s a culture they can see themselves joining. 

When posting on social media, create graphics and videos that will catch the reader’s eye. Videos account for 80% of all internet traffic, and viewers retain 95% of a message when watching it in a video compared to 10% when reading it in text. 

Social Recruiting Tip: Ask your top-performing employees why they love working at your company and showcase their authentic responses in a short video clip. 

You can share the employee testimonial on your career site, talent pool campaigns, and social platforms--maybe even start an Instagram live and do a Q&A with your team. 

3. Send content to your talent pools: If you don’t already have one, create talent pools with candidate relationship software. Once create these talent pools, or if you have a talent network, send students regular content that would pertain to them. Don’t just send job openings (like 93% of the Fortune 500 does), but send content. Be part of the 7% who sends more. 

CRM Campaign Tip: Don’t just write a few bullet points on your website and call it a day. Leverage CRM campaigns to send reviews, college-specific content, employee stories, company culture stories, corporate events, recruitment events, videos, etc., to the people you know are already interested in your employer brand. Relevant, timely content helps you get in front of interested candidates and continues to nurture and communicate with them. 

College grads are eager to learn and ready to bring fresh, new ideas to your company. Tapping into this increasingly diverse talent pool is an opportunity that every employer should have a strategy for—especially to accommodate the new wave of remote-working grads. 

Graduates are coming in May, are you prepared? Learn more about how to attract talent in “3 Steps to Shape Your Future Company with Early Career Talent.”