Nowadays, campus recruiting isn't just for the military. More and more companies are traveling to college campuses to find candidates for their open positions. With so many companies vying for talent, well-prepared recruiters arriving on campus are better positioned to score points with this unique audience. By knowing what grads want—and what they don't want—you'll improve your chances of hiring them.
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According to a recent Society for Human Resource Management white paper, successful college recruiters are marketing complete offer packages that involve these ten key elements:
- Salary: Competitive companies offer competitive salaries.
- Lifestyle Perks: "Feel good" perks-such as generous vacation time, concierge services, pet insurance, and free massages score high with grads. This audience expects to create a balance between work and home life, and responds well to companies that offer such benefits as flexible hours, telecommuting opportunities, and day care.
- Company Culture: Younger workers say they're looking for a "cool" company culture. Defining "cool" can be tricky. Most of all, grads want to work with energetic and creative people.
- Professional Development: New recruits fear ending up without marketable skills once they leave your company, despite an average tenure of 18-24 months. Smart companies will offer continuing education to all employees.
- Challenges/Upgrades: Soon-to-be grads say that a challenging work environment is an important factor in signing with a company. They want to work for a company that will offer them opportunities to grow.
- Stocks & IPOs: This part of the package is crucial when recruiting IT. If you can't offer some sort of ownership, you're going to have to compensate new employees by heavily padding other elements of the package, particularly salary.
- Signing Bonuses: In some industries like IT, engineering, and accounting, signing bonuses are a must. In fact, no IT student will take a serious look at a company that doesn't offer one.
- Community Investment: Many students want to work for generous corporations that give back to the community. If your company has charitable programs, broadcast it. Young workers care.
- Health Benefits: For students, these benefits aren't high on their priority list. Students expect some level of coverage, but do not place much value on the kind of program offered.
- Retirement Benefits: Retirement is too far down the pike for young recruits to really care. They'll ask about a 401k, but rarely understand them and generally don't care to.
