How the global pandemic (and the past 3 years in general) has changed campus recruiting, from a campus recruiter
It's February 2020 and I'm in the middle of my paternity leave with my beautiful daughter. I'm in full dad mode, relishing in the time at home with my family and not thinking about an impending global pandemic that will shut down so many aspects of daily life across the globe within the next 4 weeks.- including my little corner of campus recruiting. March 2020 - in fact - literally the Monday after my 40th surprise birthday party - would bring total economic shutdowns, changing some industries forever. We saw so many areas of opportunity (mild corporate speak) in our healthcare systems, global financial markets, social safety nets, supply chain and infrastructure stability. Also, during that time and seemingly escalated in recent months, we have collectively experienced so much civil unrest due to racism, "culture wars," politics, climate change. It's fine, right? Everything is fine.
As I write this three years later, we are still reckoning with all these issues. In what seems like an afterthought given everything that has happened, we are currently experiencing dramatic shifts in the campus recruiting landscape. Prior to the pandemic, organizations that have significant college to entry level pipelines tended to have a regular cadence of recruiting cycles or busy seasons. We'd plan and execute our campus event calendars, along with certain milestone events and were very comfortable in the way we'd interact and build relationships with students. It was fun, fast-paced, and challenging; but fairly easy peazy, lemons making lemonade and all that. Sure, there were challenges but pipeline was plentiful, students were beating down our doors, and giving us the hard sell.
Those who began the pandemic either entering or attending college have now entered the workforce. The learning gap in remote work is legit. The students/candidates/jobseekers -otherwise known as people - that went into the pandemic with an expectation that they might be part of a somewhat rinse/repeat process as it relates to school and their future job search are now driving change due to values, beliefs, and ideas about what their future can and should hold. In some cases, due to economic ping-pong effects, those driving change are also hitting some speed bumps (see: RTO policies). With all that has happened over past 3+ years, here we sit, ready to hire these folks! Not so fast . . .
The circumstances set by the pandemic forced seismic shifts in students' mindsets around mental health, work/life balance, and what exactly they're willing to do for how much their paycheck is. Moreover, survey after survey will tell you that workers value culture, values, and purpose over compensation. If you're a recruiter and getting offers declined due to comp, you know there's more to it. The thing is, it's BOTH. Employees want to work for organizations they can be proud of, fulfilled in, and whose values they believe in; AND ALSO be fairly paid so they can afford to live. It's not that complicated.
Campus recruiting can be a pressure cooker for both recruiters and candidates and even prior to the pandemic, it was increasingly competitive among large firms. Organizations are recruiting students earlier, more frequently, and way more agile. In my view, this has started to cause some friction between how organizations can best adjust to the changing workforce demographic and what "these kids today" are actually looking for. Old approaches are. . . . fine. Campus swag is still fun, showing up on campus with yummy treats is a solid draw and there's still something to be said for big, splashy events. Students still seem into this, but much more on their own terms. And I have to say, it doesn't quite seem like we were all as ready as we might like to have been for this shift.
All that said, this is really an interesting time to be a campus recruiter and it has the really interesting and fun opportunity to make some significant adjustments in strategy that best meet current students in the job market where they are. I think the job market was trending this direction in 2019 but pandemic recovery gave us a shot of adrenaline (and a solid reality check). Based on what I've observed over the past couple of years, students are prioritizing a few items in emphatic ways they haven't in the past (not in any particular order, because nuance):
Work/Life balance in ways that are more thoughtful than a catch phrase
An employer's stance on social justice issues
Compensation - and they are absolutely shopping their offers around
AND (let me clutch my pearls) - they want all 3. And they're letting us know.
I'll leave the above for the other HR folks and business leaders to solve. But in campus recruiting, I think we can work to improve the student jobseekers experience while holding high standards and producing quality hires. There's more obviously more that can be done from a programming and career development standpoint, but in terms of attraction and engagement, I've outlined a few pillars below.
Make it easy and intuitive to interact with our organizations digitally. All the information about roles, careers, the recruiting process, applications, and programs should be no more than a couple of clicks away from their fingertips. Firms might do well to invest in both solid social media recruiting presence and grassroots marketing efforts.
Create connection. Students want to learn about an organizations people and culture. Put them on display during the attraction phase through loosely structured networking events and personalized outreach and connection. Social and digital marketing should reinforce these efforts. The key is that the engagements and interactions need to be more organic than forced.
Operationally flawless. Interactions with HRIS systems should be efficient, without redundancies, and communication should be timely. From initial application to onboarding, the whole process should leave no questions to be asked.
Turns out that "uncertain and unprecedented times" from Covid aren't over. They are just different. There might be some difficult challenges ahead in campus recruiting, but it's also a cool opportunity to be disruptive in this space.
I'd love to hear thoughts from other folks in the hashtag#campusrecruiting to understand what your experience has been like recently! Feel free to comment or reach out directly.
Good luck out there!
Disclaimer: these thoughts are my own and not a reflection of my employer or any other entity.
