Squeezing Water Out of a Rock and Other Recruitment Mistakes

Well, we're in the height of fall travel season and odds are if you are an admissions counselor and reading this you are either:

• Sitting in a Panera Bread eating a sourdough bread bowl and that free cookie you got because of your rewards points
• Taking a nap in your Hampton Inn (I prefer my HHonors points ... you may also be a Starwood member. No judging!) bed before you grab your free coffee on the way to your fair tonight
• Putting eye drops in your eyes after your between high school visit naps in the parking lot (we've all been there)

It seems like just yesterday I saw all of my travel buddies celebrating the start of another fall travel season. To be honest nothing makes me happier than to see my peers expressing their joy for their work. Inevitably, though, something happens. Somewhere between "YAY! My first visit of the season" and "Bonus! Care package at the Danbury Mall Fair!" there comes the slowing of the pace ... The time when you start tweeting about silly questions at a fair, crazy parents, no shows for visits, etc.

It is my belief that the cause of all of these frustrations is not the travel itself. Sure the coffee and snacks at fairs could probably be better ... but let's be honest. This is not why we are in the game. At the end of the day our focus is on connecting the best-fit students to our school, and of course hitting our enrollment goals.

With that in mind, here are 4 things to keep in mind that may help to alleviate some of the stresses at the height of travel season:

Stop trying to squeeze water out of a rock

It happens every year like clockwork. We get our search lists, send our mailers and hope for the best. If we don't like the response rate, we repeat ... maybe twice. I even worked at a school once that would send our glossy viewbook to every search name regardless of if they had responded or not. The logic?

"They haven't responded to our search mailings because they don't know enough about us."

This assumption is categorically false.

Meanwhile, this same institution does not invest in any enrollment marketing services that find students actively researching schools across the web. Here are some key facts regarding this year's high school seniors:

• Today's high school students were born when Google began and they were in grade school when Facebook took off
• They have unlimited information at their fingertips on devices that can fit in their pocket (just be careful not to bend those iPhone 6's)
• Online search is their #1 place to start their college search process
• Nearly 90% of students report using college matching and search sites during their college search

All of these factors are clear indicators that students are actively researching you and schools like yours ... and in many cases are waiting to hear from you!

Imagine if you were in line at a sandwich shop and when you walked up to the counter the owner ignored you completely, stepped outside of the shop and started yelling and inviting other people in to the shop while you waited inside. You'd probably be pretty upset. This is essentially what we're doing when we continue to blast search names and not have a plan for focusing on students with a demonstrated interest.

That brings us to another mistake worth correcting ...

Stop Selling. Start Counseling.

One of the reasons college fairs can be so stressful is the misplaced pressure on bringing back a ton of inquiry cards. If we're truly focused on being a counselor, we're focused on having good conversations and being as informative as possible. Granted, this is not 100% the responsibility of the admissions officer. How many times have you had a student come to you just to fill out a sheet like it's an assignment or lead with "what's your average GPA?"?

Maybe we need to have a deeper discussion about the value of college fairs in our recruitment portfolio and ways we can change them for the better. This of course is a post for another time.

Focus on Activities that Matter at the Right Time

So much emphasis is placed on "first source" when we look at how our inquiry and prospect sources perform at the end of the year. The huge downside of this practice is the fact that we completely ignore how specific interactions can have a lasting impact on a student's decision to apply and enroll at our school.

A few months back I wrote an article titled "Admissions Yield Season: You're Doing it Wrong". In it I spoke in depth about ways to focus on graduating seniors come April and May. My timing was way off. The reality is that your yield season starts now by focusing on having the right interactions, at the right time, through the right communication channel.

That "first source" prospect you purchased as a sophomore name buy may have had zero interest in hearing from you at the time of your initial outreach, but after researching schools online as a junior decides he or she is a good fit. Why not look at your sources and see how students converted from inquiry to applicant and admit to enroll based on when those interactions took place?

In Conclusion

It's time we start getting back to having fun and enjoying the process of helping students discover their best-fit school ... By recruiting smarter we'll be able to not only help students achieve their goals, but also achieve our own without having to partake in too many post-fair cocktails.

GOOD LUCK THIS FALL!