Virtual recruiting strategies for higher education

Virtual Recruiting Strategies: Higher Education

To say that the current global pandemic has been a challenge for all of us is, at this point, probably a bit of an understatement. But one vertical that has been vastly impacted in more ways than one is the higher education space.

All of the age-old “best practices” regarding college recruitment strategies have essentially been thrown out the window, with so many schools either fully or partially virtual for the foreseeable future. There are a lot of strict regulations in place involving who is allowed to visit college campuses at all – leading people to wonder how to recruit students virtually during pandemic lockdowns with conditions that change on a daily basis.

How to recruit students virtually

As a result of the pandemic, innovative campus recruitment strategies have become no longer a recommendation, but a requirement. However, even beyond 2020, knowing how to recruit students virtually will be essential. The virtual strategies learned during this time will be adapted into their normal routine, and will allow for teams to recruit students virtually across the nation. Virtual college recruiting is essentially the new norm. How are students supposed to know what life is like on a campus if they’re not actually allowed to visit it? Questions like that change the space big time, as students may decide on taking online classes for less expensive tuition, or decide to attend a school close to home rather than across the country, or opt out all together.

One quality that companies with best college recruiting programs share is their reliance on personalized video messaging in order to get the job done. Schools need to do everything they can to connect with high school students and personalized video messaging solutions like Covideo are a big part of how they’re doing it. Covideo is a one-stop solution that allows you to record and send one-off videos to prospective students, all in a more intimate and personalized way than ever before. It makes virtual recruiting an absolute breeze by allowing a student to feel recognized and by also allowing a school to stand out against its competition. It’s a great virtual recruiting tactic that allows you to still get that face time with students, all without having to carve out the time for a live session or video conference.

If virtual college recruiting is the new norm, best practices for recruiting college students like video messaging will only get even more important as time goes on. Start your virtual recruiting strategies in higher education through   Start a free trial. No credit card required.

Virtual Admissions Strategies

Of course, these best practices in college admissions recruiting extend far beyond simple personalized video messages, too. A lot of college admissions recruitment strategies 2020 take things even further by offering virtual tours of campuses, for example. This is a great opportunity for how to recruit undergraduate students in a way that lets them experience what life will be like once everything thankfully returns to normal.

Likewise, information sessions and virtual events are perfect college recruiting ideas because they’re your opportunity to show kids how seriously you’re taking everything and to outline the steps you’re putting in place to keep them safe, no matter what.

Regardless, video messaging should be a top priority as you develop your own campus recruiting strategy template because it lets you connect with prospective students in a meaningful way. Choosing a college is always an emotional decision and virtual recruiting strategies excel when a medium like video is used. Not only does it connect with people in a way that plain text cannot, it also really resonates with the younger generation and audience as well. If you were looking for a way to reinvigorate your efforts as you try to determine how to recruit college students for your campus, video is absolutely a big part of it.

Request a demo to ask a Covideo expert about creating a video strategy for your virtual recruiting efforts.

Virtual Recruiting Ideas

Indeed, digital campus recruiting is a great way to enhance your outreach and draw in more prospective students via a medium that will continue to serve you well long after the pandemic has finally left us behind. Incorporating video into your best practices for recruiting high school students or best practices for recruiting college students not only lets people know what to expect from your university, but it also differentiates yourself from other schools and leaves a lasting impression. All of this doesn’t just increase recognition – it builds loyalty as well.

Just a few of the techniques you can use for your virtual campus recruiting efforts include:

• Recording introduction videos. A tool like Covideo will let you send personalized introductions to familiarize students with their counselors and explain those critical next steps of the admission process.
• Create informational sessions. This would let you respond to real questions about the application process, financial aid and more – all in the most straightforward and concise manner that you can.
• Virtual events. You can invite and remind students about upcoming events, all while showing off your enthusiasm.
• Connecting with your community. This is a great way to introduce faculty members, coaches and more – all in a way that relates to a student’s specific major, their athletic aspirations or their extracurricular interests.

The key thing to understand is that with video messaging, your virtual college recruitment ideas are actually very similar to what they would have been before. The message isn’t changing – only the medium is, along with how that message is being delivered. Keep in mind that everyone will soon be transforming their student recruitment ideas into virtual and digital efforts – so it’s just a matter of standing out from the rest and continuing to do what you do best.

Not only will video help you accomplish all that in an enormously effective way, but students will also feel that intimate, personal connection to your school. This is true even if they’re not on campus, and even if you do not currently know when they’ll be back on campus at all.

Virtual Campus Recruiting Events

Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that another major component to virtual recruiting involves putting those campus recruiting event ideas to good use. You could create information sessions to help answer questions and address concerns that a student might have, for example. You could hold one on one meetings, provide virtual tours and more – the choice is truly yours. Yes, this will take a fair amount of creativity on your part, but with the right piece of software by your side like Covideo, you can easily learn how to make a virtual tour with phone or tablet devices in a matter of minutes.

Ultimately, video messaging is another great platform to use to either send reminders about upcoming events, to introduce yourself before those events take place, to send video recaps after they’re finished and much, much more. It doesn’t matter how big or how small your school is, or how many students you’re trying to attract. It’s a technique that can be bent to your specific needs in a lot of different ways.

Even with virtual tours, remember that colleges are often having to use virtual tour software in order to create the most compelling online experience possible. Far too often, these tours are very generic and are just slapped on their website without much thought. This can be a HUGE personalization point and a way to use video messaging under the right circumstances, however.

Let’s say you have a prospective student that is particularly interested in working out, or that has questions about the dining halls on campus. You could easily record a video of the gym and fitness facilities and show them around. You could do the same with the dining hall, too! Clearly, this is the type of personalization opportunity that is far too important to pass up.

This helps tailor the experience to each student and gives them a little taste of what it’s like to walk around campus – even if that day isn’t necessarily going to come in the near future. It’s a raw, real experience – and it’s something that only virtual tour creator software like Covideo can provide. You’re making the best of an admittedly bad situation but are going out of your way to show prospective students that you care, which will absolutely make the type of positive impact you need to remain competitive after COVID-19 is over.

Start Making An Impact – Virtual Student Recruitment Strategies

With Covideo, you also don’t have to worry about trying to figure out how to send large files, dealing with storage space issues, or finding the time to meet with the student live. These are the types of issues you’ll often run into if you’re trying to manage your college recruiting campaigns with video, but Covideo is built from the top down to help you mitigate risk from every single one of them. This can all be done on your own time and on your own schedule in a way that you can then send out to the student via email, so that they can watch your virtual information session or other content at their convenience.

If all of this sounds like exactly what you’ve been looking for to take your virtual campus recruiting ideas to the next level, terrific – we want that for you, too. At this point, you should get in touch with one of our team members at Covideo so that we can show you up close and personal how other colleges and universities are already putting our innovative and industry leading solution to good use. Or, you can see for yourself by taking advantage of your totally free, no obligation  start a free trial .

Contact us or start a free trial , no credit card required!