Are Job Seekers Bad Mouthing You On-Campus?

This blog entry is another in the series from guest bloggers through the Recruiting.com blogswap. Today’s guest is Steven Rothberg, President and Founder of CollegeRecruiter.com, a high traffic career site used by candidates who are searching for entry level jobs and internships.

Many employers with formalized campus recruiting programs pay their former interns to act as ambassadors on their college campuses during the school year. Those interns will help drive qualified candidates to future on-campus interview dates and act as liaisons between their employers, the school administrators, faculty, students, and other stakeholders. But there are other types of ambassadors on-campus as well, and not all of them are acting in the best interests of some employers. Unofficial campus ambassadors range from students who would never work for that particular company (think environmentalists and Big Oil companies) to students who wanted to work for a particular company but weren’t selected (think MBA students with average grades and highly competitive management consulting firms) to students who worked for a particular company but weren’t retained (think interns who weren’t offered a permanent position upon graduation) to students who worked for a particular company and were retained to staff and faculty. Any of these groups can have a huge impact on the success or failure of an employer’s on-campus recruiting efforts, but many employers are completely blind to this.

One of the best movies of all time was Bambi. I know, this is a recruiting blog, but bear with me on this one. (pun intended) In that movie, kids are taught that you are to treat others as you would have them treat you. When an employer treats students, staff, or faculty with a lack of respect, those students, staff, and faculty often return the favor. But unlike a typical employer who may only visit a campus once a year, those students, staff, and faculty often live on-campus, either literally or figuratively. If you visit once a year and tick off even one stakeholder who is on-campus for 365 days a year, who do you think will be more likely to have the greatest influence on that campus?

So what is an employer to do? Well, be sure to be as inclusive as possible during your on-campus recruiting trips. If you’ve only got two dozen interview slots and want to interview only those students who meet your minimum qualifications, fine, but also host an informational meeting in the morning, during your lunch break, or after the day’s interviews have concluded. Don’t just use it as a chance to chat up students who fit your desired profile. Also spend time talking with those who don’t because chances are great that they know students who fit your profile and probably have more influence over them than you do. If you blow off a student whose GPA is 3.0 because you’re only looking for students with GPA’s of at least 3.5, then what do you think that 3.0 student is going to tell their 3.5 roommate who is considering interning for your firm? But if you treat that 3.0 student with respect and cultivate relationships with the staff and faculty on-campus, then your firm is going to enjoy a favorable image on-campus, which will make it far more likely that you will succeed in your efforts to recruit that 3.5 student and many more like her.