ruth,
What ways are you intervening to combat these challenges? Can you share some of your most effective strategies with us?
Robert Starks Jr.
lack of soft skills and inappropriate use of social media by the students
Our top challenges in retention, job leads, community involvement and establishing an alumni.
Thank again, this information is really great in focusing on the goal of presenting the benefits social media to my students. I will continue to seek your advice concerning challenges I face.
LeWando,
I have personally found that students get excited about the possibilities of social media once they begin to learn about the benefits. When I speak with students, I give real-world examples of how social media has helped people with their career and business goals. I also found that being the example myself got buy-in from students. For instance, if I knew I wanted to convince students that social media provides an opportunity to meet people they would never be able to meet, I might first connect with someone from a known business and see if I could gain an informational interview via Skype or have an email exchange with them. I have actually spoken with Brian Solis, author and social media expert and I have held conversations on Twitter with authors. I use these examples and possibilities with students and it seems to get them interested. I think it all begins with educating them. Sometimes it takes an outsider to visit the classroom. I used to also get employers, alumni and other outsiders to conduct guest presentations about social media and it would interest the students. Let them know how social media can help them accomplish what they want to accomplish and they may start to see social media as tools for business vs. just being social.
Robert Starks Jr.
I am an instructor, my challenge is in the classroom. I want to know how to motivate the students interests in professional networking? How to develop a desire similiar to their personal energy used to Facebook friends and family to social networking for career and professional advancement?
Nathan,
This is precisely one of the reasons why building relationships prior to graduation is so important. Social networks are collaboratively developed databases of people that are user generated. The information is updated by the user and if Career Services has purposefully built relationships with graduates, it provides yet another tool to build rapport with students, stay connected, mine for data which provides insight on their employment, activities, and personal characteristics, from which to develop effective communication strategies. It's completely unlike any other strategy typically used by Career Services - it's long-term and it's continuous. Perhaps one of the reasons it is so rarely used which is unfortunate because it is so highly effective.
The graduates I worked with were primarily freelance and non-traditional employment as well and our social media strategy helped us improve employment rates as a result of the expanded and improved relationships we had with students who were more willing to disclose their employment information. Additionally, we had more opportunities to discover when students/graduates were working because of data mined on social networks. It allows you to optimize your ability to address the challenges you describe.
The industry that our graduates work in is primarily freelance driven, so one of our biggest challenges is tracking and documenting their careers. This also makes staying current with contact information a difficult task.
Maintaining accurate data on employment status. Much of my time is spent on the phone following up to see what a graduate's current status or if they need further assistance.
Robert,
I am no longer the Director of Career Services at this particular institution. The long-term strategy is now in others' hands. To answer your question, this particular video didn't have a goal of views, subscribers, etc. - it had the goal of being used to market the event in the future to employers so they could see the event would be worth their time. We decided that Youtube wasn't the best channel to reach our target audience for this event we wanted to make annual so we actually embedded it on the server of a promotional website created solely to market the event. Thus, Youtube was not the primary marketing channel. Needless to say, this event has indeed become an annual one that attracts employers from multiple states and it has expanded to encompass more industries. So, based on the objectives set forth, everyone has been happy with the results it has produced in meeting the objective of expanding employer relations. The vent was broken into two parts:
1. A morning session of 5 different workshops similar to any conference you'd go to where they have multiple tracks and concurrent sessions and visitors decide which to attend. After the sessions, students gathered in a theatre to ask questions to the panel of employers for an hour.
2. We had a night event for employers only which was catered and had a bar. We had concurrent sessions tailored to an employer audience. The first event drew in approximately 120 employers from 3 different states and resulted in a tremendous increase in new employer contacts to further nurture relationships which has had many benefits from increased job opportunities, internship programs, new PAC members, and even faculty who have been hired because of the relationships developed. Several start-ups also attended the first event so the "exclusive" job opportunities you mentioned were also attracted this way by engaging an employer audience.
Your strategy will always depend on your stated objective. If you are using social media outlets for lead generation, your content strategy will be considerably different. Don't get caught up in views, likes, followers, etc. These metrics distract people from what they are really trying to accomplish. The question is how are you using your content to drive action? Do you just want a view, fans, followers, or likes or is it something else you are trying to achieve? Additionally, consider how all your channels work together, not independently or in a vacuum.
Robert Starks Jr.
Looks great and your video portrayed a successful event. Seems like the mission was accomplished. Seems like your long term strategy is working. Did the current 84 Youtube views in the past 2 years meet your expectations? Do you feel the Owner of the school has the same opinion? I eager for your feedback.
Robert,
Exclusive job listings result from close partnerships and these take time to develop. While there is no road map on how to develop these types of partnerships, let me share with you my experience. I found that going above and beyond with employers to understand their needs was the first initial step in developing a close partnership. This meant, I would visit their location, speak with the hiring managers, and ask for an opportunity to be seen as a free resource to do their sourcing and staffing. I would train my advisors to pre-screen candidates, to go through mock interviews with them and to have a deep understanding of their graduates and their match to positions. This helped us filter and recommend candidates who were high matches to open positions and I would request feedback on every candidate explaining that in the beginning of a relationship, the feedback helped accelerate the learning curve of the idiosyncrasies of the employer's hiring preferences. Over time, my office was able to develop extremely close partnerships with employers to the point that some only called us when they needed to hire and others would inform us before a position was publicly advertised. When we had success with employers, we would ask if they had any relationships with other businesses and if they would be willing to recommend us as a staffing solution. Word-of-mouth helped us as well in this way. I hope that provides you with some insight on how my department was able to accomplish some "exclusive" partnerships. We were able to leverage these types of partnerships in multiple ways including holding employer events and getting guest speakers. Here's an example of a large event we were able to hold with many employers being guest speakers for a conference we developed with nothing but volunteers because of the strong partnerships we had: http://youtu.be/qz3Q6-rXVtE.
Robert Starks Jr.
In today's frenzied economy- I am eager to not only find jobs, but place them with our students. How do you recommend schools to keep the job listing as, "exclusive" to the school?
Yes, that is what I was referring too. My comapny does not pay for each individual verification though, we pay a yearly price.
Hi Mary,
I'm not sure what you mean by "The Work Number". It sounds a bit familiar like an organization that helps with verifications that I tried a long time ago but they charge something like $15 for each verification. My company does not have that kind of resources to employ their services.
Is that what you were referring to?
Kathy
Kathy,
Do you use The Work Number to help with verifications?
Stacey,
If your graduates are taking out government loans to go to school your Financial Aid department should be able to run NSLDS reports to see if the graduate has or is attending any other schools after they leave you as a graduate. I use these quite often for Continuing Education verifications.These work for our accrediation. Now if the student was cash pay that is where you have to have strong relationships with other schools Registrar's. Oh, and always get a release of information signed by the graduate, this gives you permission to obtain all the information you need. Hope this may help!
Graduates who are unmotivated to work, MIA grads, uncertified graduates (this is a biggie for us), saturated markets, graduates who will not travel (45 miles)for employment, and time to network with new employers our our biggest hurdles.
Kathy,
What differentiates the individuals who do fill out paperwork and those who do not? Do you have any insight you can provide to the rest of the group based on your experience and observations? You'll always have grads who are just not responsive. Social media isn't a silver bullet. However, what strategies could you incorporate because of social media that you couldn't otherwise?
Robert Starks Jr.
Right now it is getting the graduates to follow through on verifications. Especially the ones who become self employed in their field. Verification from our accrediting agency requires two forms of documentation; such a business license, promotional brochure, link to a website, etc.
I have contact with the grads but they just can't seem to do the paperwork. Other grads are non responsive even if I do reach out to them through social media.
