The news of economic uncertainty and a possible pending recession is pervasive, and many employers are left wondering if and how their business strategies and hiring plans should shift as a result. For campus recruiting teams, this uncertainty is bubbling to the surface at the same time that most teams are getting ready for the busiest time of the year. Some are even preparing for a return to in-person recruiting after a few years recruiting early talent mostly virtually.

As a result, some organizations may be facing pressure to reduce their investment in early talent or rethink their plans to resume traditional campus recruiting. However, we know that a successful early-career talent acquisition strategy is more than just executing recruiting events and interviewing candidates during the busy season. Reaching qualified and diverse Gen-Z candidates is a long game, and requires a consistent commitment to building your brand within your target audience.

Be Proactive

Hiring is cyclical – while you may have an unexpected lull this season, hiring volume will rebound and you’ll need to be prepared to fill a greater number of open roles. Recruiting teams who are proactive about building their early-career brand and getting qualified students into their pipeline even during uncertain times will see the benefits. Leaning into your virtual strategy during these times can help you continue candidate outreach; tools like WayUp offer the ability to create resume drops to capture candidate information and talent networks to build pipelines for different roles or departments. In fact, your engagement strategy should include even freshmen and sophomores to build a strong talent pipeline for the future. Additionally, virtual events are an effective way to share information about your organization and begin to create personal relationships that you can build on moving forward.

The key to being proactive is being mindful of how quickly things can change. While you may not be hiring today, you’ll feel prepared and confident when you know you have a pipeline of candidates who expressed interest whenever you do have the opportunity to hire.

Maintain Your Brand Presence

Gen-Z often responds best to what’s in front of them, making an immediate impact. They also often search for authentic experiences and brands that align with their values. As a result, they’ve developed a knack for knowing when someone or something isn’t genuine.

Keeping that in mind, it’s important to maintain a presence on campus and virtually to build relationships with the student community.  Today’s students are seeking a highly personalized experience. They want to engage with you on their terms, with a variety of touchpoints and consistent communication. Stepping back from the early career recruiting process limits your ability to connect with students, learn about what they’re looking for, and tailor your candidate experience to match.

How Yello Can Help

It can be hard to feel like you can be proactive with limited bandwidth – that’s where Yello Enterprise and WayUp come in. Our solution is a purpose-built, comprehensive platform for early career recruitment and diversity sourcing — all in one place.

As the leader in early career recruiting, we firmly believe here at Yello that it’s crucial to maintain your presence on and off campus to build your brand. As you think about your early career recruiting strategy, redefine what recruiting events mean to your organization. Yello’s customizable event management solution allows you to participate in a variety of events from large-scale career fairs to more intimate meet-and-greets and leverage multiple channels (including email and SMS text) to keep your top candidates engaged. Additionally, Yello Enterprise is the only solution that helps you manage all of the steps of the campus recruitment process. After you meet candidates, YE makes it easy to evaluate them on the spot and easily schedule them for next steps.

For organizations taking a virtual-first or hybrid approach, WayUp can help you engage with diverse candidates and build your employer brand. If you’re faced with limited bandwidth, automated sourcing from WayUp can function as an extension of your team, allowing you to engage with diverse talent without doing more work.  When you break it down, investing in automated sourcing is more cost-effective than having additional recruiters on your team. Furthermore, WayUp helps you bring your employer brand online through interactive media about your organization. Feature your content on your WayUp company profile or leverage WayUp to distribute it to potential candidates to drive millions of impressions, while working to convert viewers to applicants.

To help you make the most of Yello and WayUp, our team of world-class, consultative customer success managers is here to support you at every step. We’ll arm your team with data and analytics so that you can reflect and plan for the future. Our team works closely with you to understand your recruiting process and your goals so that we can help you strategize and be prepared for when hiring picks up again.

Investing in the Future

If we have learned anything from the ever-evolving recruiting landscape of the last few years, we know for certain that hiring will rebound. Companies who pause their early-career recruiting activities now will lose momentum and have to catch up to their talent competitors who continue to invest. The market is full of quality candidates that will be attracted to organizations that continue to invest in their early-career workforce and DEI initiatives. 

Having an internship program enables your organization to nurture potential full time employees who are “bought in” to the company’s values & culture already. When you consider your investment into talent acquisition, it’s a better investment to hire early and grow someone through your company than to hire new at a more experienced level.