B-Schools Get Creative with Recruiting
With recruiter visits to campus down an estimated 20% in the last year, business schools have gotten creative when it comes to putting students in contact with potential employers.
In a piece published Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal‘s Diana Middleton looks at how B-schools today are doing everything from comping hotel rooms for recruiters, to building video-equipped studios on campus for remote interviews, to teaming up with other schools to fly students to meet hiring managers in order to help students land jobs.
Numerous schools have adopted video technology, which ranges from free Skype, which just requires a simple Web cam, to sophisticated teleconferencing equipment that costs upward of $6,000.
Chicago Booth School of Business and the Wharton School have gotten on board in an effort to get their students seen by as many recruiters as possible by subscribing to InterviewStream, a video-streaming firm that charges $2,500 to $4,000 a year for its service, Middleton reports.
The service allows recruiters to either interview candidates live or weed out applicants using pre-programmed screening questions candidates have to answer by video, among other things.
According to WSJ, InterviewStream counts more than 50 MBA programs as clients, and sales have increased more than 200% in the past year, says Randy Bitting, chief executive officer and co-founder. “With this technology, [recruiters] don’t have to stick to local schools,” says Bitting. “They can cherry-pick without worrying about travel costs or time-zone differences.”
Meanwhile, other schools are trying out recruiting road trips. Tuck School of Business will foot the bill for 50 students to travel to Boston and San Francisco to meet with companies. Students from Washington University traveled on “cross-country road shows” between semesters in January to different U.S. cities to meet with company recruiters.
No matter which strategies B-schools employ, it’s a win-win for both students and recruiters, who call it a great way to develop their talent pipeline with candidates they may not have gotten to see in person.
Read more about non-campus recruiting here.
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