How to Increase Student Recruitment in 2019

 

Student recruitment can be a very exciting and lively thing, but this component of college admission can face lot of challenges. Being able to help and advice a student when searching for a university and/or academic degree is very important, since this choice may mark this person’s future life. But recruiters are facing lot of difficulties these days. The competition to recruit students both nationally and internationally has increased in the last couple of years, and therefore, institutions of all kind are starting to take new actions to get the attention of prospect students.

 

What is Student Recruitment?

We can sum up student recruitment as the actions an institution execute in order to find and bring new students. Recruit new students it’s essential for any higher education professional, since students are the vital key for any university. But how do colleges recruit students? How to increase student recruitment? How important is to recruit international students? We are going to answer all these questions for you, as well as show you the necessary skills, tools, and marketing strategies that will improve your process of recruiting students.

 

 

How do colleges and universities recruit students? 

There are many ways to recruit students. Let’s review some of the strategies used by higher education professionals. Traditional ways to attract students such as attending university fairs, visiting and contacting High Schools, or travelling nationally and internationally, have been very successful in the past. But, are they still effective? What are the new ways to recruit students for your university?

The following strategies have been used by many universities around the globe to recruit new students, let’s analyze them:

 

University Fairs

One of the most traditional forms and where many universities invest large amounts of time and money is to attend university fairs where, in most cases, the results obtained are much lower than expected in relation to the resources invested.

In many of these university fairs, potential students attend with their schools, as a compulsory or extra-school activity, and most of these students are not properly informed about the event. Students go from stand to stand with their friends and leaving their contact details, usually, without really being interested. Universities face the challenge to get qualified leads at these fairs but in most of the cases students attend alone without their parents, who are in the end the decision makers.

But is not all bad news about these kind of fairs, there are many organizations that fully trust in this type of events and obtain great results. These face-to-face fairs and events will never disappear and will continue to be held, but without a digital accompaniment, organizations will never get the most out of it.

 

High School Visits

Many universities have organized, in their annual calendar, visits to different High Schools where they carry out different activities and provide personalized information to the students of these centers. These universities and organizations carry out studies and create segmented lists of schools where their future students may be according to different factors such as the geographical area where the center is located or its annual cost. These two factors indicate to the university if its students will be able to assume both the requirements of academic access and if they will be able to afford the costs of attendance.

 

 

National and International Trips

There are many students who start their university studies in cities and/or countries different from their place of origin. Mobility at both national and international level is growing every year and students are aware and informed of all the academic opportunities available to them, but how to increase the process of attracting these types of students?

Universities spent a large percentage of their marketing budget on international travel to visit events and meet potential clients. Each university has different trips scheduled annually, both nationally and internationally. Students have gone from being informed on posters or flyers to being informed on websites and digital platforms, they have now all the information needed on their computers, tablets or mobile devices, regardless of the geographical area where they are.

 

Website

The website of each university is essential to be able to attract students. There are different types of websites depending on the objective of each organization. There are websites whose objective is simply branding and other websites that are great generators of leads or requests for information. In this last case, it is very important to have a clear and simple registration form, and encourage users to fill it out. When a student enters the website of any organization this should be as visual as possible, informing the user of the entire academic offer, but at the same time the most concise to achieve our goal, which is none other than to get that request of information so that our admissions team can contact the student immediately. Contacting those leads in the shortest possible time after the student made the request can mean anticipating our competition and convincing our potential student that our university is the best possible choice.

 

Digital Media and Platforms

We have to identify where our potential customers are, which social networks they use, where they spend most of their time, what are they interested in, and why they use those platforms. Content is very important here, without content, there is no offer and academic organizations will not be able to capture the attention of their students. After all, the content we publish is about the same topic, the difference is the way we communicate it. Determining which is the best channel to connect with our potential students will make the difference when it comes to achieving the objectives.

 

 

How is the student’s recruitment process changing?

We all know in which era we are living: The Digital Era. Things has changed a lot, and they will keep doing it, this is why the ability to adapt to these changes it’s the key to success. And the education industry is not an exception, new technologies are banging at our doors every day, and is here where innovation plays an important role in the process of recruiting students.

We are not saying that traditional ways are not working, but we have experienced that they are not the most effective ones. According to different studies, technology and digital media have become today, in the best way to attract students to universities and academic institutions.

There are many platforms out there that help universities and other academic institutions to recruit new students, but there is something in common with most of them: the academic institution doesn’t have control to generate those leads. We want to go further, we want a student recruiter to take actions to attract their potential students. In Mooxye, we believe that recruiting a student shouldn’t be a “cold” process, instead, should be a process in which the university shares its values, its mission, and their identity with the students. It’s the moment to engage with them, know them, and understand what they need and want.

 

 

Mooxye was launched to be part of this student recruitment process, allowing colleges, universities, and any other academic institution to create a university profile on their own. Once registered, the recruiter is able to build a profile of the institution, using relevant information, videos, and photos from the organization to share with the students. The university will be able to share all their academic degrees and scholarships available as well. Universities and academic organizations are also able to post on their wall the last news from their organization, share the experience from other students or the best events that are taking place at their facilities with the students using Mooxye. The more complete the profile, the more attention the institution will generate, and as a result, more qualified leads will receive. Students in Mooxye are constantly searching for universities, academic degrees, and scholarships to request more information about them. We have created an online platform where universities and students connect, and learn from each other, making the whole student recruiting process simpler, faster, and more accurate. If you or your institution haven’t created an account yet, we encourage you to do register for free and start using your university profile!

 

How to increase student recruitment?

As mentioned before, there are different ways to recruit students, any of them is viable and has its pros and cons. These days, the strategy that would increase student recruitment with lower costs, it’s the digital one. Another way to increase students, is to recruit internationally. There are a lot of international students looking forward to study abroad that will bring your organization lot of benefits. Here is why you should recruit international students:

• International students foster diversity and prepares all students to think globally.
• Attract the most talented students. Expanding your audience internationally, helps you to find the best students, improving then, the reputation of your school.
• International students bring significant income. According to NAFSA’s latest analysis, international students studying at U.S. universities contributed $39 billion to the U.S. economy during the 2017-2018 academic year.

 

 

How to recruit International Students?

In order to recruit international students, you should either travel abroad or investing online. As we mentioned before, the process of recruiting students has developed in the last couple of years, from traditional ways to new ones based on technology. In Mooxye, you will be able to find students from all over the world who are looking for an international higher education. You will eventually be able to choose the type of leads you want to receive, regarding the country of the students, their area of interest of studies, their english level or their intended date to start college.