Beyond the Enrollment Team – How to Engage Faculty in Recruiting Efforts
Whose Job is it to Recruit New Students?
“It’s everyone’s job on campus to recruit new students.”
We hear this a lot when we are on campus for consulting, research, or staff training and many in admissions, as well as faculty, are frustrated by this statement.
We hear the frustration from faculty who say it’s not their job to recruit students, that they are educators, not recruiters.
We hear the frustration from VPEM’s when faculty departments duplicate the work of the admissions team.
We also hear the frustration from presidents, who just want the numbers to increase and hope that more people across campus “recruiting” is the magic bullet.
So who’s right? Is there a way to alleviate the frustration and improve enrollment outcomes?
Yes, there is!
Faculty assisting with recruiting is part of any successful enrollment recruitment plan. Successful partnerships with faculty and others on campus are important assets for any admissions office. However, we recommend that a VPEM proactively manage the expectations of faculty and staff recruiting efforts.
Faculty may be frustrated because they think of recruiting as high school visits, college fairs and generating inquiries. In most cases, where faculty can help with recruiting is by:
- Meeting with students and/or families when they are on campus
- Attending open house or visitation events
- Guest teaching in a high school classroom (when coordinated with admissions and the high school teacher)
- Emailing or calling admitted students
- Connecting with colleagues at community colleges
- Sharing outcomes of recent graduates
- Sharing internship experiences from their students
The second step in engaging faculty successfully is training. Reviewing the key messages admissions wants to emphasize, discussing features, benefits, and proofs as a sales tool, and reminding everyone about open communication between offices are just a few easy ways to approach training.
So make your president, faculty, and staff on campus productive members of the recruitment effort by offering relevant training, management, and follow-up for all recruitment activities.
Yield Boot Camp is another way to improve enrollment outcomes.
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