From September to November and January to April, you’re hard at work attending career fairs to recruit the best and brightest college students for internships and entry-level opportunities with your company. Career fairs facilitate connections with a high volume of students in a few short hours, to build a pipeline of potential employees. But what happens over the summer months, when many college students go back to their hometowns or start their internships? Below are five ways to keep in touch with undergrads during the summer.
Develop a summer internship program
Make sure you’re in the game! Consider improving your internship program as an investment in your company’s next generation of talent. Implement a rigorous interview process, assign projects to interns with quantitative goals and conduct regular check-ins to monitor their progress. Interns who have had a positive experience at your company have a greater chance of becoming ambassadors for your organization, helping to build your talent pipeline.
Partner with student organizations and clubs
Partner with Greek organizations, honor societies, or professional groups to sponsor their summer recruitment efforts, while providing insight into career paths with your organization. Work closely with the leaders of these organizations and recruit them to serve as campus brand ambassadors for your company, and to raise your recruitment brand’s profile on campus.
Create a casual information session “roadshow” for students
If your company has multiple office locations, host information sessions in those cities to meet with students in a more casual setting. This type of setting can be a lower stress environment than a campus-wide career fair. Students will gain a deeper understanding of your company and have the ability to further hone their skills during their remaining school years.
Communicate with students you met at spring career fairs
Maintain communication with students you met the previous spring. Send a monthly email to inform them about developments within your company, including summer company events to showcase culture, stories of career development within your organization and your fall career fair schedule.
Organize your communication with undergraduates using a TRM
Use a talent relationship management (TRM) system to keep in touch with college undergraduates. Send all communications and track all summer campaigns through one click. Easily update all candidate data, in case a student moves, changes majors, or transfers to a different school. Collaborate and share candidate information with employees in other departments to help improve recruiting efforts.
How can you better stay in touch with candidates during the summer? Learn how recruiting software can help you achieve your goals.
