5 Ideas for Early Talent Identification and Engagement

Most of us know that procrastination never pays off. So when it comes to university recruiting, proactively engaging with and identifying talent can pay dividends when it comes to hiring for your entry-level roles. 

However, there’s a difference between proactively engaging with prospective candidates and aggressively moving up your recruitment timelines. Instead of interviewing candidates before they’ve even decided on a major, early talent identification and engagement is a way to educate candidates about your company and opportunities long before they’re eligible to apply for your roles. Getting on the radar of students early on in their college careers can shape brand perception and help you stand out when those students move into job-seeking mode. 

Looking for some creative ways to market to prospective candidates early on? Here are five ideas to consider:

Host events to educate freshmen and sophomores about your industry.

If you’re already planning to connect with specific campuses, create an event to educate freshmen and sophomores about your industry and company function. While it may be a year or two before these students are ready to apply for roles at your company, educating them about your opportunities early on can be a great way to help them shape their academic goals and discover their career interests.

This is especially useful for companies that aren’t consumer-facing and are situated in industries that most students haven’t been exposed to. For example: a student who aspires to work in communications might envision themselves one day working for a large public relations firm or a national newspaper – there’s a good chance they have no idea that their skills would also equip them to be a sales development representative for a B2B software company.  

If you recruit for roles that a wide range of majors are well-suited for, you’ll enjoy a recruiting advantage by getting in front of those students and helping them understand the transferable skills they’re building in their classes and clubs. This is also a chance to collect contact information to utilize later on when students are eligible to apply for your roles. 

Invest in educational content about your industry and company.

If you don't want to host individual events, consider investing in educational content that will land in front of students exploring their career options. You could go about this a few ways – you could sponsor content in a publication that reaches younger college students, or create the content yourself and invest in either paid or organic distribution. Similar to hosting info sessions on campus, the goal here would be to expose students to a career path or industry that they didn’t know about previously. 

For example, RippleMatch’s student career advice blog frequently publishes articles that educate students on their career options after college. Creating your own “industry guide” or sponsoring placement in an article like, “12 Careers to Consider If You’ve Led a Student Organization” can be an organic way to help candidates discover the career opportunities that are out there.

Collect underclassmen contact info through your early-careers opportunity page.  

The last thing you want when an enthusiastic freshman browses your careers page is for that student to completely forget about your company when it’s time for them to apply for jobs years later. Adding a call-to-action form to collect the contact information of underclassmen is an easy way to passively grow your list of prospective candidates over the years. In addition to collecting info like name and email, ask for their university and graduation date. When it comes time to connect with that campus or hire from that graduating class, you have a list of contacts to reconnect with. 

Host a virtual conference or day-long event for underrepresented groups. 

If your industry tends to be male-dominated or otherwise lacking in diversity, hosting a mini-conference that empowers underrepresented groups can be a great way to help students envision a career path forward. 

While you can host attendees from all academic years, early engagement can be especially powerful here. Inviting underclassmen to meet and hear from female leaders and leaders of color at your company signals that they are welcome in your industry and that your company will invest in their success. The conference or event should be educational, offer opportunities for professional development (like networking or career coaching), and leave attendees with clear next steps for how they could get their start in your industry. 

To use the conference as a tool for early talent ID, source and advertise the event to potential attendees, and have them apply for a spot. Just be sure your application questions screen potential attendees for more than their academic background, as the early academic choices of underclassmen may not be reflective of their potential as a candidate. Rather than solely focusing on things like majors or test scores, ask about their extracurricular involvement, their career aspirations, and what they hope to learn from attending your conference or event. 

Invest in a high-quality internship program and be intentional and inclusive when recruiting for that program. 

Quality internships that provide interns with meaningful projects, growth opportunities, and a clear path to employment post-graduation are one of the best ways to identify talented candidates early on. Data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found that 77% of interns that received a return offer accepted that offer, making an intern program a powerful proactive tool for investing in talent. 

However, designing an internship process with the goal of full-time employment means it’s important to keep inclusion at the forefront of your recruiting efforts. For example – systemic barriers unintentionally created during internship recruitment can harm your diversity recruitment efforts later on. Offering little to no pay, only recruiting at elite schools, and only considering certain majors will shut out a large percentage of candidates that could have made great full-time hires eventually if they were given the chance. 

Broadening your search and loosening strict criteria (Ex: “CS majors only”) can help you find candidates you would not otherwise connect with in your full-time application process, making internships a great way to find and develop candidates with potential early on in their careers. 

From low-commitment strategies like content, to heavier investments like internships and large-scale events, there are effective ways to be proactive about college recruitment that don’t involve altering your hiring timelines. By focusing on education and development now, you’ll end up with more informed and engaged candidates later on.