Spotlight Online for Employment and Recruiting Professionals, August 4, 2010 

One of the cost-saving methods considered by corporations during the unstable economy has been to cut or eliminate college recruitment efforts. As Annette Miquel, the primary college recruiter at Dewberry, points out, these cuts yield minimal short-term gains and can have major long-term consequences. 

Still, when faced with financial losses, management can be reluctant to designate funds for recruiting. That leaves those in the college recruiting function to build their case for college recruiting and help management to see not only the reasons for keeping the programs intact, but also the negative effects of cutting it.  

“The first step in dealing with management and top executives within the company is convincing them of the need to stay engaged with your critical academic pipeline institutions,” Miquel explains.  

She adds that two key factors to any successful communication of this type are 1) to know to whom to communicate your ideas and 2) to know how to present those ideas in language the decision makers will understand and appreciate.  

Often, hiring managers also handle the scopes, schedules, and budgets for multiple projects; and operational and personnel issues. 

“They may also be dealing with emotional difficulties if your organization has experienced layoffs,” Miquel says. “It’s easy for them to lose sight of college recruiting when they may not be hiring entry-level employees and are focusing on reducing costs.”

Therefore, it is essential to have support at the executive level, she says.  

“If these top decision makers believe in the company’s college recruitment program, the support will trickle down into and throughout the organization,” Miquel explains.  

She points out that, while you may not have access to your CEO or top executives, you should work up your organization’s chain of command to identify the decision maker who controls the money and time allocated.  

“In some companies, you may not need to go to the owner or CEO,” Miquel says. “It may be a department head or director.”  

Once you identify your target person, build your case and present data in the language of decision makers.  

“Show them the hard facts,” Miquel says. “Take a look at your historical data and projections for the future, as well as experiences your company or industry has faced.” 

For example, in the 1990s, Dewberry’s industry experienced an economic slowdown that resulted in students not pursuing civil engineering degrees.  

“When we came out of that period, it was impossible to find civil engineers,” she says. “Therefore, it is important that you look at your experiences and remind management about the past challenges.”  

The case Miquel built did so and included an analysis of Dewberry’s entry-level hiring over the past three years, including its 2010 data.  

“It showed a great deal of hiring in 2007 and 2008, but as workloads declined, the firm’s hiring dropped sharply,” Miquel says.  

She also created a chart showing the percentage of entry-level hires compared to company-wide terminations.  

“This chart helps us to view our data from a company-wide perspective and helps us see our future strengths and weaknesses,” Miquel says. “When our executives saw [this information], they recognized the need to make strategic hires.”    

Miquel says that when developing your case for college recruiting, you should bring up several other potential results of an economic shift. She offers two examples: 

• History shows that when the economy turns around, employees will start looking for new jobs. This is especially true in cases where employees’ hours and/or salaries were cut, they worked unpaid overtime, or they haven’t had their wages increased for an extended period of time.
• Even though this process has been delayed due to the economy, in the next five to 10 years there will be a wave of Baby Boomer retirements.
 

“Forecasting is great way to present valuable information to your executives, but you need to talk about possible workload projections,” Miquel says. “If you want to expand your business and grow your revenue, you are going to have to increase staff.”  

Miquel works intimately with managers to project future workload by monitoring the proposals they submit and developing scenarios to determine what kind of personnel the company would need if it wins each contract or project.  

“It requires a working relationship with your managers, but they appreciate it and it drives positive results,” she says.   

Once you have gotten your point across to the right people, Miquel says the next step is aligning the college recruitment efforts with the company’s goals and objectives. Doing so will help embed the college recruitment program into the company’s culture and will show management and top executives that your college recruitment program is a key part of your company and shares the same strategic values and initiatives.  

“We have been able to win the support of our senior management and our continued success shows their commitment to our program,” Miquel says. “It is a continuous cycle that requires participation from every level of the organization. Without the support of our colleagues, coworkers, and commanders, we cannot recruit, hire the best candidates, reach the top programs, foster relationships with schools, and produce an effective and efficient college recruitment program.” 

This article was adapted from Annette Miquel’s presentation titled “How to Get Support From Management in a Time of Resistance” at the NACE 2010 Annual Conference. To access the archive of this presentation and the others from the conference, go to www.softconference.com/nace/slist.asp?C=3336.