Bridging the Gap Between Student Expectations and Employer Reality: Electronic Tools and College Recruiting
By Jim Case, Lisa Christensen, Rachel Moeller, and Hilles Hughes—NACE Technology Committee—NACEWeb White Papers Subcommittee (2004)
| Supporting Data |
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| White Paper Appendix A: Methodology Appendix B: Survey Questions Appendix C: Summary of Survey Responses |
Over the past 10 years college recruiting has undergone almost revolutionary changes as electronic tools such as web sites, resume data bases, job listing services, and applicant tracking systems have become imbedded throughout every aspect of the recruitment process.
In this process, there is a widening gap between employer practices that respond to the key values of productivity and efficiency, and student expectations that the recruitment process should engage them in a personalized manner consistent with their unique potential. As a result, it is critical that college career center staff and recruiters understand both current employer practice and emerging trends in electronic recruitment.
Likewise, career center staff and recruiters need to fully understand student expectations as they relate to electronic recruiting, in order to effectively engage the current generation of students.
Why?
Students' opinions of employers are greatly shaped by the treatment they receive during the application and hiring processes. These college students want personal attention that is not currently met by job-search boards or through online applications. Because of this, growing numbers of college students purposely avoid certain employers due to their negative opinions of recruitment techniques.
Career centers, in particular, have the opportunity to make a distinctive and valuable contribution to bridge the gap between employer practice and student expectations.
Current Employer Practice
The results of a web-based survey of college recruiters that was developed by the Committee (see appendix for detailed summary) strongly reinforce the central place of electronic recruiting on today's college campus.
Employers overall were most interested in using technology to promote current job openings, create an overall recruiting brand, and communicate information about typical job openings to prospective candidates.
Nationally-focused recruiters overall indicated that they thought electronic recruiting was more important to their recruitment efforts than did locally focused recruiters. Locally focused recruiters said they valued having typical job descriptions available for prospective candidates more than national recruiters did.
Overall, employers reported they had the most success in providing listings of current openings, creating an overall recruiting brand, and providing background information about their organizations to candidates with an online
The survey illustrated that several aspects of electronic recruiting have posed overall challenges to employers, including developing applicant data bases for future openings, creating applicant tracking systems, encouraging candidates to reapply for future openings, and managing their overall recruiting brand.
National recruiters were more likely to encounter brand management challenges than local recruiters, while local recruiters found developing applicant data bases for future openings and applicant tracking posed more difficulty than did the national recruiters.
Local recruiters reported having a higher level of success in managing their recruiting brand than national employers, while national recruiters reported greater success with online application systems than local recruiters.
Overall, employers reported they had the most success in providing listings of current openings, creating an overall recruiting brand, and providing background information about their organizations to candidates with an online presence.
The most often cited concerns for recruiters included:
- managing applicant volume,
- integrating electronic and overall college recruiting,
- effective and timely applicant screening, and
- personalizing the recruiting process.
Recruiters reported five challenges they had most often "effectively mastered," including three of these concerns: integrating electronic and overall college recruiting, managing applicant volume, and effective and timely applicant screening.
Two other challenges reported as "most frequently mastered" are maintaining effective communication with high potential candidates and internal applicant tracking.
Current Student Expectations
Several sources reinforce that students are increasingly concerned that electronic recruiting strategies are impersonal and do not satisfy their needs for human interaction in the initial recruiting process.
Technological advances such as online applications, video conferencing, and e-mail have changed the ways in which employers interact with students. Although millennial college students are comfortable with technology in their everyday life, one cannot assume that they want technology to rule their job search.
This is a generation that is accustomed to being told, "you're special." They have established close relationships with their parents who have encouraged their need for individual attention. According to Millenials Rising, the Next Great Generation by Neil Howe and Richard Strauss, millenials have always felt themselves to be the focus of public attention.
Many career centers have seen this issue evident in greater student demand for individual appointments. The question is, will this group be satisfied with a recruitment process that is moving toward a focus on employer productivity and efficiency?
A student survey by the Scott Resources Group, for example, rated none of the typical electronic tools with over a 50 percent rating, and singled out video conferencing, job search boards, and online application processes as particularly troubling to students, with respective negative ratings of 91 percent, 84 percent, and 72 percent. It is especially striking that the survey found that students tend to avoid employers whose recruitment processes they dislike, rather than adjust themselves to the organization's procedures.
In the NACE 2003 Graduating Student Survey, students were asked to rate various electronic recruitment tools. On a 5 point scale, (5 = great, 3=okay and 1=don't like at all), e-mail from a specific interviewer/manager at the organization had the most favorable response with an average of 3.9. Generic e-mail, telephone screening, web-based screening, and recruitment chat rooms all had ratings below the 3.0 mark, establishing them at "less than okay" in students' eyes.
This shows that technology is appreciated by students when used in the context of a personal connection with an employer. When receiving personal e-mail from a representative of the employer, students feel valued as individuals. This kind of attention gives the student an initial positive opinion of the company culture. When students are treated in a generic way, they are concerned that this is the way the employer would treat them as employees.
Dave Lefkow of TMP Worldwide suggests that companies use technology to personalize the process. They should avoid the "go to our web site" philosophy used by some employers at career fairs. Instead, Lefkow suggests using the company web site to help establish the organization's brand and give job seekers an understanding of the work environment. The employer must then follow up with some high-touch techniques to reinforce this brand.
Insights from a Student Focus Group
To explore these issues further, the Committee conducted student focus groups with a cross section of students from Clark University, a small New England liberal arts college. Participating students represented a broad range of academic disciplines and had a variety of career interests.
While many of the undergraduate and graduate students recognized the value of information access afforded by the use of the Internet in their job searches, many also complained of the dehumanizing nature of the electronic recruitment process.
One graduate student commented: "It's so abstract. General. You feel like you're one of so many…you are basically a piece of paper!"
Students also commented about the amount of time required to complete online applications and the generic nature of the response or lack of any follow-up or feedback. Some students expressed concern that the applicant could not ever really get a good feel for the organization and that face-to-face contact with people is the best way to convey the organizations' values.
Discussions with the focus group participants did, however, elicit helpful suggestions for employers as they strategize to improve the electronic recruitment system.
One student argued that the recruitment process could be outlined on the web site so that individuals would understand when and how they would be contacted. Another participant suggested that instead of a job seeker receiving a generic e-mail automatically generated from a department, the applicant could receive a personal e-mail enabling the applicant to feel closer to the company and more in control of the selection process.
In addition, focus group participants believe companies that did not post job opportunities on their company web sites, but do offer online applications, should include a step called a "preliminary inquiry." In this inquiry, an applicant would briefly describe his or her background and goals. The employer would return an e-mail encouraging the job seeker to complete the application or tell the job seeker that his or her skills/interests weren't currently a match for the company.
The topic of web site content validity came up again and again with the focus group. Dates associated with job descriptions and openings should be revisited frequently in order to ensure that the candidates have the most up-to-date information.
The focus group participants reinforced the need that valuable time needs to be spent on both sides: applying to the jobs and responding to those who have shared their time, skills, and other personal information, etc., in the application process. Right now the perception is that the electronic recruitment process is one-sided.
Role of the Career Center
It is clear that both employers and students have solidly-formed opinions on the issue of electronic recruitment. Employers are primarily concerned with productivity and efficiency while students expect a more personalized experience. This provides the college career center with a prime opportunity to add value as they help employers and students connect with each other in the job-search process.
While traditional recruitment methods have relied heavily on career center involvement to succeed, some have suggested that the emerging recruiting technology allows for a diminished role for college career centers, with employers marketing themselves directly to students. In a recent Internet article, for example, Kevin Wheeler of Global Learning Resources Inc., suggested "a career center may offer the student useful training in interviewing or help them discuss choices, but [contact with the career center] is really not necessary for corporate recruiters."
Wheeler asserts that traditional on-campus recruiting is expensive and inefficient. He sees the role of the career center as changing from the "gatekeeper to the corporation" to a provider of career development counseling." According to Wheeler, the career center can assist students in adapting to the changing nature of recruitment by providing them with online tools and instructing them on how to conduct a job search using technology. Wheeler suggests that employers maintain a connection with career centers. He acknowledges that career centers have an influence on student opinion. He maintains a positive relationship between employer and career center can help the employer maintain a presence on campus, albeit a virtual one.
The gap between the efficiency demands on employers and the personalization expectations of students suggests a better alternative to Wheeler's recommendations. Electronic recruitment tools promise greater efficiency in executing the large number of transactions imbedded in the recruiting process, and thus provide effective ways to collect and disseminate resumes, post information related to current openings, provide background information on employers, and schedule interviews. The emergence of sophisticated tools in these areas over the past 10 years does not replace the need to build long-term recruiting relationships between employers and schools, since these relationships are critical to success in the highly competitive market that all demographic predictions describe in the upcoming decade.
Bridging the Gap
As electronic recruiting tools have become standard, career centers are challenged to help students understand how employers are using these tools. It is especially important to address students' inaccurate or counterproductive assumptions that could lead to unnecessary barriers in their job-search process.
This also includes addressing the privacy issues (the subject of another white paper written by this committee). Likewise, career centers should help employers understand how their electronic recruiting practices potentially function to create such barriers, including developing partnerships with employers to minimize such barriers and to take advantage of the network of faculty, staff, and alumni resources that can be so critical in an effectively operating recruiting program.
For example, both employers and students are concerned about using electronic recruiting to personalize rather than depersonalize the recruiting process. This offers a key opportunity for career centers to develop concrete, clear interventions that help both of these key constituents understand each other's perspectives and communicate effectively across this gap. This is likely to be one of the greatest ongoing challenges as electronic recruiting technology expands, and presents the best opportunity for colleges to work with key recruiters to help them understand, manage, and respond to student expectations.
It is interesting to note that in the committee's survey of employers, recruiters who indicated success in their online application process specifically stated that they have a "strict online philosophy" and they "don't accept resumes."
Conversely, a recruiter who indicated her organization was experiencing challenges with its online applications process stated that because, "all applicants do not apply online, we still must maintain a file of paper resumes, which are not so easily sorted." These examples emphasize the challenges implicit in moving to an electronic application process. Although the process can be more effective when employers solely use an online application system, recruiters noted the applicants' desire for a more personal approach indicating that, "Many candidates reply to a personal e-mail but fail to submit to our online employment data base" and "The most difficult thing is getting people to the web site to apply. They want to send resumes, not search for jobs."
Opportunities for the Profession
Several opportunities have emerged from this effort that may provide ways for NACE and the regional ACES to address the many issues imbedded in the growth of electronic recruiting. For example:
- Three of the challenges identified in the employer survey were
on the top of both the concerns list and the master list:
- "Integrating electronic recruiting technology in overall college recruiting effort,"
- "Managing the volume of applications and potential candidates," and
- "Effective and timely screening of candidates based on electronically submitted applications."
The overlap suggests that these challenges may define a shared space where best practices are both critical and emerging. It may be particularly fruitful to focus on these challenges in conference presentations, networking activities, and future research.
- The reported differences between nationally—and locally—focused
employers in their use of electronic recruiting technology suggest
that the two groups have something to learn from each other and
that their challenges and responses are distinctive. Perhaps this
topic should be explored further at upcoming conferences in both
the national and regional settings.
- Even given the limitations of self-reported success, it is
clear that there are a number of successful examples (and a few
less than successful ventures) related to most of the aspects
examined in the employer survey. It is critical for NACE and the
regional ACEs to facilitate and support an ongoing dialogue to
identify and share best practices in order for employers, colleges,
and students to benefit in the future from this technological
investment.
- Some colleges may be responding to the expansion of electronic
recruiting by de-emphasizing employer relations activities and
responsibilities, while others may be returning to older "placement"
models that de-emphasize student development services. While there
is no universal model, it is clear that a dialogue among college
members reflecting upon the appropriate balance between these
activities may be important to assert appropriate influence in
institutional decision-making processes.
- It is also clear that NACE and the regional ACEs should provide an ongoing forum to discuss several issues raised in this white paper, particularly as they relate to the issues of recruiting efficiency versus personalized communications. Ideally our practices will develop in a way that integrates both rather than these being in opposition.
In any case, there is no doubt that a continuing dialogue concerning the issues and opportunities raised by electronic recruiting is essential. One way to facilitate this dialogue could be to initiate regional round tables to bring together students, employers, career center professionals, and leaders in higher education.
The first step to improving electronic recruitment for all parties lies in communication and strategic planning. It is the hope of The NACE Technology Committee that this white paper supports this effort.
8/2004
