Student recruitment is one of the biggest challenges in the year 2022. Unfortunately, most educational institutions have found themselves stuck in old practices of student onboarding. This adversely affects their ability to go beyond conventional norms. However, with the advent in digitization, in-person onboarding seems like a thing of the past. Recruiters now adopt a digital approach to showcasing campus facilities, stellar faculty, and extensive student programs. This opens opportunities for prospective international students to turn in and apply for their desired academic programs. For that matter, educational institutions now prefer hosting a virtual student recruitment event.
Thanks to the post-pandemic era that brought forth revolutionary changes in the event industry. It encouraged event organizers within the education field to reform their practices in hosting fairs and open houses. Partnering with a virtual platform, recruiters now gather international students online and recruit thousands of qualified candidates each year.
But, attracting the right candidates to your campus demands careful planning and effective strategies. So, let us learn how we can plan the best student recruitment event in 2022.
What is Student Recruitment?
Student recruitment is the act of hiring college or university students to fill in graduate or post-graduate programs. Now, educational institutions pivot to virtual events platforms to host online open houses, university open days or student career fairs. These events aim to gather a global student population and build high-volume candidate pipelines. It aims to replicate the on-campus student open day and create an entirely immersive virtual experience.
In fact, student hiring events educate and guide students on their possible education career options.
Breaking the previous recruitment cycles, new plans and strategies are employed to host remarkable recruitment events. Now, educational recruiters have updated their hiring strategies to attract a more diverse student base. This is a smart approach to help students enrol in all the programs offered at your institute. However, it is important to note that a custom plan is designed for each institution.
Why Virtual?
At present, educational events are organized online at a feature-packed virtual events platform. Research has indicated that around 89% of the institutions are now recruiting virtually. So investing in new recruitment tech is the need of the hour. Of course, it maximizes the efficiency of hunting, accommodating and onboarding the student pool. Although, efficiency was otherwise impossible to achieve with on-site campus open days. Its process is undeniably lengthy and tiring for everyone involved.
Besides, a virtual open day is easily accessible for students, parents and guardians from remote locations globally. Also, it offers tons of networking and engagement opportunities for student and faculty interactions. Everything is happening online in real-time, supported by a single platform. So, going virtual is the best approach to improving hiring practices. Here’s why you should choose a 3D virtual event platform.
Let us explore how virtual platforms support educational hiring managers in hunting the best student pool from around the world.
Determine the Purpose of the Event
Before digging into the process, it is important to determine the purpose of your event. Your virtual event must have a clear purpose, goals and objectives. It helps chalk out a careful plan and track the progress through the planning, organizing and execution phases. For starters, self-probing is considered a fine approach to pen down the purpose of your student hiring event.
- Are you looking forward to attracting a global student base?
- Do you want to attract individuals from diverse backgrounds?
- Are you looking for a platform that offers lots of interaction opportunities?
- Do you wish to host the entire open day online?
- What is the actual purpose of your student recruitment event?
- Do you wish to replicate your campus space?
- Are you aiming at hosting live webinars, conferences and open houses?
- Do you wish to promote the branding of your educational institution?
- Are you looking for quick student registrations and applications for the upcoming semester?
- Do you want to automate the student hiring process?
Once you have identified the purpose, it is easier to track performance and measure the results to determine event ROIs. For example, global statistics have revealed that educational institutions with a well-designed onboarding program experience 50% greater new hire retention. Also, by automating the student admission process, there is a 16% increase observed in student retention. Thus, a clear purpose and established content strategy make your event more focused. As a result, it guides you better towards the next phase in organizing the best student hiring event.
Identify Your Target Students
To ensure the success of your event, identify who should attend. One way to determine the intended audience is by classifying the scope for students. For instance, determine a quota for scholarship programs, overseas candidates, multicultural students, and program-specific recruits. This way, you market the events to the right candidates and attract them to your virtual open house. Students with various educational backgrounds would show up and apply for the programs that help them excel in their career.
Determine Your Event Type
How do you plan on winning the leads for student recruitment? The success of your event depends on the event you set up. For instance, it may be an open house for undergraduate and graduate students or, specifically a graduate careers event. Determining your event type is a wise step in the right direction.
Multiple event types might equally suit your educational institution’s recruitment needs. First, you must determine if the event is student-specific, educational, or solely held to receive global admission applications. Here’s a list of student hiring events suitable for graduate careers, university hiring and college admissions.
- Virtual open day
- University open day
- Virtual education fair
- Virtual student career fair
- Virtual student onboarding fair
- Virtual open house
- Virtual graduate recruitment event
- Virtual Undergraduate admissions
Replicate the Campus Environment
How would you make the open house experience worthwhile for students? Virtual platforms give educational institutions a chance to custom-design the entire virtual environment. From designing the reception to the halls, the 3D animations and graphics bring the campus building to life. For instance, the landing page welcomes students at the 3D-designed campus reception, offering them a life-like experience. Plus, the moving animated avatars enhance the overall experience of human interaction.
You can easily entice prospective students for admissions by showcasing a virtual campus tour of the building. Once the students move about the campus, they interact with the facilities such as; the library, sports complex, gardens, cafeteria, seminar rooms, classrooms, hostel and parking lot. On top, the entire event displays your campus branding with logos, themes, slogans and more. You get to design the:
- Entrance
- Reception
- Halls
- Lobbies
- Booths
- Webinar rooms
- Meeting rooms
- Conference rooms
Learn how you can show off the campus facilities with a virtual open day.
Work on Content Strategy
Unlike physical events, virtual events have a well-developed content strategy. There’s no chance of error when it comes to virtual student recruitment.
Event Theme: First, you must develop a theme for your virtual event. A defined theme helps you stay on track and follow through with the process. For instance, if you plan on promoting your e-commerce programs, literature courses or new psychology programs, you must host educational webinars. But, make sure you share informative prospectus, program guides and takeaway materials for student assistance. In fact, virtual platforms allow remote keynote speakers to address the webinar sessions to educate students. These sessions prove very effective in helping students learn about their options and decide on a career path. Thus, it is important to stick to a particular event theme.
Resource Vault: Virtual platforms also allow you to post informative content in the resource vault. You can share downloadable resource materials for the students. For instance, share your campus tour video, program guides, brochures, faculty information, student guides, alumni interviews, e-prospectus, and student success stories. So, the students can easily save the content in the virtual swag bag and access it later. The better you guide students about your campus life, faculty and student careers, the more admission applications you will receive.
Encourage Networking and Engagement
When planning your virtual student recruitment, make sure you create ample opportunities for attendee interaction. The sole reason students attend the open day is to educate themselves on the available programs and discuss career direction with the faculty. For that matter, a well-guided virtual environment helps attendees educate themselves on their options.
Each department has a separate booth to easily attend to each student. For instance, a university representative avatar attends to all student queries at the booth. If the students demand further assistance, then they are guided towards on-demand webinar sessions. However, live or recorded webinar sessions are also available to educate and guide attendees on multiple programs and courses. All in all, the platform supports educational hiring managers through
- Text, audio, and video chat tools available to engage in live chat
- Students get to schedule 1:1 meetings with department reps
- Profile matching system allows students to connect with the right recruiters
- Event alerts and navigational buttons guide attendees throughout
- Live polling and Q&A sessions designed to extract attendee’s instant feedback
- Keeps audience engaged with content shared in the resource vault
- On-demand webinar requests are accepted from attendees who wish to dig deeper into the subject
Track Live Metrics and Analytics
Virtual open houses help you track live event metrics and statistical reports to gauge the event’s success. A live dashboard is displayed where you can track student registrations, attendance, booth activity, webinar views and overall attendee behaviour. In fact, you receive post-event reports that shed light on the overall event performance. These analytic reports help cross-check if everything worked according to the plan for your student recruitment event.
Basically, virtual events offer insights into the event
- Attendee turnout
- Event performance
- Live Engagement
- Real-time conversions,
- Number of admission applications
However, it is important to note that the quality of your event matters over the numbers you scored. Your attendees will step out and talk about your event. So make sure you made their stay worthwhile.
Final Thoughts
The above discussion is aimed at guiding educational recruiters to set up the best student recruitment event. Undoubtedly, virtual events are light on the pocket and help you save precious time. The day-long process is reduced to a few hours and, on top, you attend to a global audience. Moreover, it ensures the international hiring of remote prospective students and gives them a chance to advance in their careers.
With global recognition, your educational institution wins admission applicants each year. So why not partner with a trustworthy virtual events solution company to arrange the best student recruitment event? Virtual Days holds years of experience assisting educational institutions in hosting remarkable open houses, fairs and events. Use the directions stated in the text and join us to help you execute the best student open day.
