According to Aptitude Research Partners, nearly 70% of companies are hiring new college graduates this year.

What does that mean for you and your team? More competition at career fair events, on-campus interviews and other key student hiring initiatives will likely become a bigger part of your recruiting strategy.

Why it matters

As the labor market becomes tighter, there are more opportunities than ever for companies to hire young talent, and more recruiters are looking to college students to fill internship and full-time positions. In fact, the average employer attends 41 career fair events each year.

Even companies that don’t have a physical presence at schools are still making connections with college students virtually. Yello client A.T. Kearney implemented digital recruiting events to increase candidate reach by 77%, all while cutting their number of on-campus events by more than half.

A.T. Kearney - Expanding On-Campus Reach with Virtual Campus Recruiting Powered by Recruiting Events Software

While it’s no secret that campus recruiters are used to the college hiring season hustle, external competition and internal pipeline demands are at record highs. On top of that, many teams are still forced to work with limited resources or ineffective legacy processes — which might be why 41% of companies say their entry-level positions are hardest to fill.

How you can keep up

In our 2019 Recruiting Study, we polled hundreds of recruiters and candidates to find out how companies recruit on campus and what they can do to be more effective. The first graduating class of Gen Z will join the workforce this year — and this generational shift has significant implications for campus recruitment teams.

Today’s students prefer career fairs and other in-person campus recruiting events more than ever before. Gen Z is nearly twice as likely as millennials to say that hiring events and career center resources are their most valuable job search source.

Chart showing Gen Z searches for jobs at career centers and hiring events more than millennials do

Gen Z students also prefer face-to-face communication with recruiting teams more than any other medium. They’re much more likely than previous generations to value relationships with individual recruiters — with 44% saying it has the biggest impact on their ultimate decision to accept a job.

Bottom line: In order to recruit on campus successfully, companies should empower on-the-ground recruiters with the tools they need to break through the competition and eliminate tedious administrative work so they can focus on what really matters — building stronger relationships with students as they begin their career.

Chart showing how much of an impact recruiters have on Gen Z and Millennials' decision to accept a job

Yello’s recruitment events solutions are built to streamline event logistics from planning to follow-up, so your team can engage and interview candidates, maximize ROI and hire quality candidates faster. Here’s some of our most popular campus hiring

Manage recruitment events, without the chaos

Manage key organizational relationships and preserve institutional knowledge in shared Campus Profiles.
Give all stakeholders peace of mind with a recruitment event management platform to strategize, plan and share event information across your organization — all in one place.

  • Enterprise-wide event calendar
  • Key relationship profiles
  • Event expense tracking
  • Marketing materials and notes

Modernize event experiences with a mobile recruiting app

Screenshot of mobile check-in Yello process
Eliminate paper resumes with a mobile-friendly check-in portal to capture candidate data — then empower staff to review, evaluate and follow-up in real time.

  • Branded candidate check-in
  • Evaluate candidates in mobile recruiting app
  • Instantly advance candidates to next steps
  • Personalized candidate follow-up

Accelerate event attendee engagement

Advance talent through the hiring pipeline with event scheduling software for recruiters — including promotion, pre-registration and personalized invitations to self-schedule an interview.

  • Email and text campaigns
  • Personalized communications
  • Events board & pre-registration pages
  • Automated event reminders

Ensure events are worth the investment

Supercharge your hiring event strategy with reporting, metrics and expense tracking that helps you make better decisions on candidate engagement and future investments.

  • Event ROI reporting
  • Expense tracking
  • Campus snapshot key metrics
  • Source channel tracking

What could your recruitment events look like? 

Whatever your ideal on-campus hiring process looks like, Yello has the solutions to help you make it a reality. Give your campus team the tools they need for success — ensuring you can stay ahead of the competition and grow your company more effectively. 

Find out how much Yello could save you with our Recruitment Event ROI Calculator.