Hi Adam, This is a very valuable message. Can you tell us how you specifically apply it to career services, employment skill building, and community and employer outreach. Thanks, Susan
The opportunity to create success begins with the creation of value.
The ability to create value begins with the identification of needs.
The identification of needs begins with listening.
Listening begins when we realize that what we have to say is NEVER as important as what miss while talking.
Taken together, this helps us to build relationships, and relationships are then the building blocks of our abilities to create a web of interaction taht can be used to support students while they are looking to be noticed.
Great that you have your employers on a data base to easily access. Hopefully all contact information is stored there as well as all the grads your school has sent them. Externships provide so many opportunities. They can function as a pre employment screening. Just have to be careful that students strike a balance between doing an extraordinary job and not being too disappointed if not hired. Great idea to pre announce potential employees to employers just before each graduating class. That service must make it easier to place students and serve as a retention tool. Sounds like you are doing everything right to get your community to view your school as THE place to go for staffing needs. Thanks, Susan
Our program has one primary industry focus, so it is vital for us to build and maintain good working relationships with a multitude of employers. We maintain a database of all companies that have contacted us regarding our placement service. Doing so allows us to keep vital company information in one place where it can be easily accessed for future use. Our students must complete an externship prior to graduation, and these opportunities often result in employment offers. In addition to serving as a networking tool, following up with externship sites allow us to gain useful insight into skills our students possess, and we use these reviews to evaluate our program. We graduate several classes per year, and letters are sent out prior to graduation, alerting employers that we have students available. These letters are followed up with calls and site visits, allowing companies to ask questions, gain additional information, and generally get to know the Placement Department. Creating a good working relationship ensures that companies will look to us as a staffing source, and will typically result is a colleague referral, which further helps to build our employer list.
Good idea, Carl. Joining local professional and community groups is a great way to connect to employers and the community. To get directly to employers, ask your grads if you can contact the companies they work for. Then you can get great feedback about how work ready your grads are. And you can develop the relationship with the employers for other projects. Then go to the other companies that could hire your grads and don't know about your school yet. Target the folks you want to meet and then set a plan to get to know them. And be sure to stay in touch! Thanks, Susan
I found the best way to develop a successful list of emoployers is via professional networking events. The chamber as well as industry specific associations are the most effective.
Good points, Mindi. We think that there should be an employer relations person on staff. Their main job is to stay in touch with employers and potential employers and the entire community. Find out all the ways that your school can be a resource for the community. Work to meet the needs of employers and they will look to your school for training and placement. It's a win-win situation. Thanks, Susan
I feel you should use the same lists you have for your externship sites. You should also send out a flier to inform sites that they can contact you for potential hires instead of paying for advertising. It would also be good to have an employer relations tab on your school website.
Hi Ivonne, All really great ideas. Bottom line is there are many ways to connect with employers and many ways to stay connected. It's important to use some kind of customer relationship management system. It will help you create and keep lots of information updated and have ways to keep track of following up. Thanks for the details. Susan
The most effective ways to build a list of employers who are likely to hire our graduates is by establishing a working relationship with sales representatives, HR directors, Managers, and instructors. Use surveys to get feedback from employers, alumni, and students. Use the information gathered to create a database with all the names, telephone numbers, fax numbers, address, and email address of the students, alumni, and employers surveyed for future use and updates. Use the data gathered to create new programs, assess strengths and weaknesses of the Career Services Department, assess the student and employer satisfaction, and report statistics to the organization and regulatory boards.
Great Glenn, There are so many ways to be involved in the community no matter what programs offered by your school. There's lots of creativity when you are a culinary school. Food does get people's attention. But there are many ways any school can be creative and attention getting. We think Alumni Associations are great for career schools. Grads are perfect for recommending their friends and family to your school. And grads can offer lots of support and ideas. Thanks, Susan
I participate in many of the professional organizations in our area so I am able to meet the many employers. We are a culinary school so we get involved in many of the food events that take place also. Plus many of my former students are now in positions to be hiring so they will look at our students because they know the training that the present students have been through.
We are developing an alumni group to also facilitate this process on a little more formal basis.
By being involved in the community we are able to get our students placed in the industry.
Hi Leonid, You are quite right about the importance of building relationships with employers. You want to know about your students on the job. Are they work ready? What skills or knowledge should they have that they don't? How should you modify or upgrade your courses? Employers can give you great feedback so you'll know. Externships are a way for a company to assess a student as a potential worker. Externships are also effective in giving students real work experience. Re job fairs - we feel students need the skills and know how about how to be successful at these events. Thanks, Susan
Building employers is the same as building trust, employers which can be on your list as well as you being on theirs takes some time. You can build this relationship through graduates who perform well with employers and who can set an example of your institution. Companies where students have their internships are also a great ways to build relationships these companies can see firsthand how student perform. Attending job fairs and being seen as well as meeting new employers based on the recommendation on old ones is a big plus.
HI Carey
Great strategies to network with grads, staff, and more for names of employers. Of course it would be nice if the employers were currently hiring. But the strategy is the same. Develop relationships with them, get their feedback, be sure they know you as a resource for staffing, get them to volunteer as mentors and coaches and send their employees to your school for training. Then keep in touch. We think all employers are listworthy. They are of value whether they hire your grads or not. Great ideas. Thanks, Susan
In addition to locating employers online, I found the graduates, staff and instructors to be a good source of employer information. Although these employers are not currently hiring, I work to establish some sort of rapport so that when they do have a hiring need, they will contact me as a person who will watch out for their interests and concerns. As names are gathered they can be added to the list. Especially "list worthy" are those employers who have hired graduates and are very happy with them.
Hi Laura
We feel building an employer list to be very important. And there are many ways to do that. Relationships with employers and prospective employers offers many opportunities as you point out. The more creative then the more opportunities develop. Thanks, Susan
I took your forum question to be about "building" your employer list. This list gives you the base to develop a marketing/job development plan that includes all kinds of media, both print and on-line as well as introductory phone calls and site visits.
Hi Laura
Really a great focus on using the internet and social networks to build a base of employers and jobs. How do you localize your search? Also Monster, etc. often includes jobs other than entry level. We think a good combination of calling on local employers plus using all the internet opportunities is a good mix. Using the internet helps those grads who will seek employment out of the area. Bottom line, you've pointed us to other opportunities using current technology. thanks, Susan
I've been using www.indeed.com for job lead generaton for a couple of years now. Indeed.com is a job board aggregate website, meaning it pulls from all the other job boards like Monster and Careerbuilder, but also from company websites, diversity job boards, you name it! The only postings I haven't seen are Craig's List--and that website is worthy of it's own job alerts (set an alert using keywords and get daily emails of new jobs posted). But only 20-30% of jobs are advertised so you need to build a passive employer list as well. If I were starting from scratch, I'd hit the industry associations and find out who their members are and what they do. From there, using the internet and some key words and/or SIC codes, I would start to build lists of potential employers. If you aren't comfortable cold calling in to get hiring manager or HR contact names, set up a profile on www.linkedin.com, make connections with heavily connected users and do a "people" search using zipcode for location and company name (check current only)to find names. If you get too big of a return, drill down by adding keywords.
I could go on forever with this--if anyone wants more info, email me!
