As I heard through a variety of posts and emails, informal ways to recruit on campus don’t seem to appeal to everyone.  Very understandable since there is no such thing in recruiting as a one size fits all solution to a situation.

“Great – Colleges have all of these options, but how does it help me?”  In a lot of ways – do a little online research and you will be able to develop a drill down list of organizations that you want to target for interns or employees.

Once you have that information here are a few ways you can start the relationship going:

1.  Be a Group Speaker.

Every single one of the organizations that I was a part of had a person whose elected role was to be a “professional development chair”.  What that means is that they struggled each semester to bring in 2-3 companies to talk to their group about their company and what they do.  It is usually a requirement of the group to attend at least 1 of these each semester.  Here you are basically getting a captive audience to talk up your organization (without them thinking that is what you are doing – it?s an art) you also have the chance to see the students when they are in a more social/relaxed setting than a job fair.  It will also offer you some one on one time with some students and many of the smart ones bring a resume with just in case.

2.  Co-Sponsor an event

If you have a few extra dollars in your recruiting budget – sponsor an event.  Something like a resume workshop or online job hunt or???.  Let any of the associations or Greek orgs that you talk to know that you would love to help defer some of the costs if they were interested in doing this.  Generally, this is less than a $100 investment and goes towards the costs of signs, newspaper ads, etc.  The small picture benefit is that if you work closely with the students you may find a few for your own org. The bigger picture benefit is the large amount of publicity you will have on campus from people who don’t even attend.

3.  Hold a “Get to Know us” night.

Want to make it really successful?  Feed them.  College students are broke and hungry.  We have a supermarket chain that used to come to campus each semester and have a get to know us night.  While we ate dinner, they gave a speech on the company and career paths available.  At the end, they gave everyone a box or two of macaroni and cheese to take home.  The jobs they had were awful, long hours, high travel, but people wanted to work there.  Why?  Because if they treated a dumb college student so well they must treat their employees great.

4.  Offer to hold interviews during their regular meeting time.

While this may at first sound like a negative to the organization, it is actually the opposite.  Many of the students miss events such as job fairs and on campus interviews because of their schedules.  This gives good students the chance to meet with you when they have already set aside time out of their busy day.

5.  Use interns for referrals

If you have had interns before – give them incentives to spread the work about your company.  What a student hears from their friends carries a lot further than any other form of advertising.

Take the Greek route or the organization route – no matter what you do – don’t by pass those informal on campus recruiting opportunities.  Next up Part 3: On Campus Recruiting – The formal process.