Do You Really Know What Students Want?

At the Campus Recruiting Forum in Vancouver last week, there was a great discussion about the discrepancy between what students want to know about employers and what employers want them to hear.

Experienced campus recruiters know the importance of focusing their marketing on the “What’s In It For Me?” messages, but they often work with (or report to) colleagues who have different ideas about what is most important. As a campus expert, you have to be well prepared to address this issue or risk running an ineffective campaign.

Part of the problem is that as a concept “What’s In It For Me?” can leave a bad taste in some people’s mouths. It sounds horribly self-centred – and the last thing we want to do is hire young people who care about nothing but themselves. So let’s address this first. First of all, it is important to keep in mind that today’s students are far more active in volunteering and community service than any generation before them. It’s one of the accomplishments that the helicopter parents deserve a pat on the back for. In general, today’s students also have a strong sense of equity and fairness. So, in fact, “an opportunity to do good for others” is actually a very compelling “What’s In It For Me?” message.

So if this is not about appealing to selfishness, what is it about?

Quite simply, focusing on “What’s In It For Me?” is about clearly communicating the things that are meaningful and easily understood by the specific target audience. Like it or not, candidates of all ages are looking for what the opportunity will do for them personally, but different people use different filters to interpret the information they hear. In other words, if you tell me that your company is the industry leader for HR practices, I (as an experienced candidate) will have all sorts of ideas about how that might benefit me in terms of compensation, training opportunities, and career progression. But to a new grad, “industry leader” is much less meaningful. It would be far more effective to clearly spell out exactly what this will mean for them in practice.

Even just a few years into our careers we quickly forget the perspective of a student or new grad. We simply no longer recall what it was like to know very little about the workplace. But simple and clear messaging – without any special lingo or jargon – that focuses on students’ priorities, not your company’s, will be highly effective.

As Isabelle Morin of KPMG pointed out in her presentation at last week’s Campus Recruiting Forum, doing this well requires the right research. Your peers will respect and listen to your argument if you come armed with research that shows exactly what students are most interested in.

Keep in mind that what students appear to be less interested in is not necessarily unimportant. Employers are often surprised to hear that environmental policies and social responsibility do not make the “top 10” priorities. But these things are still important to students. However, they may not be as important AND students may also be sceptical of your messaging on these fronts any way. You must be prepared to address these topics, but very few employers can build a distinctive employment brand on them.

So what do students care about? Before I give the general answer based on our research, I’d like to make it clear that we find different answers depending on the target “top students” an employer wishes to attract. The list is different for MBAs than it is for undergrad business students; it’s also different for engineers, arts grads, and computer scientists. Again, if you want to spend your marketing dollars well and maximize your chance at connecting with the candidates that best fit your organization, you need the most pertinent research.

For most students, however, we find the same priorities near the top of the list: interesting work, great people to work with, job security, and work-life balance. The list probably doesn’t surprise you, but I am always intrigued that students make “great people” such a priority when I know so many experienced workers that took decades to realize the real importance of that.

Some are surprised to see “job security” on the list and attribute it to the recession. Certainly this became a higher priority recently, but stability has been very important to graduates for many years. Yes, they may be seen as job surfers but that has a lot more to do with workplaces not measuring up than it does with young people being disloyal (and we have plenty of research to back that up). In this economy, employers have to be prepared to talk about security and stability – after all, your new hires will be buying houses and having families soon.

And finally, it’s worth understanding that “work-life balance” to a new grad may not mean the same thing as it does to you. For one thing, most students are used to working much harder in school (concurrent with a part-time job) than most readers of this article likely did. But also, their highly programmed lives mean they have many interests outside work that they will continue to pursue (including the company sports teams and fund raisers you’ll want them to lead). For them, work-life balance is first and foremost about flexibility. The majority of new grads are women who may want plenty of time to raise families one day (not to mention fathers who may want the same). They also don’t see the logic of spending an hour in rush hour traffic when they can easily work from home until the traffic clears. And they would love the flexibility to take an extended holiday (even if they have to earn the time through reduced pay or extended over-time).

Communicating on the frequency on which your target candidates are listening requires research and carefully listening. It also may mean making a convincing case to your colleagues and providing them the information they need to support you. You can learn a lot more about these subjects at the Campus Recruiting Forum coming to Toronto and Chicago next week (www.CampusRecruitingForum.com). I hope to see you there.