Simplifying Career Resources to Engage Students in the Job Search
Everything is digital nowadays. You likely shifted to sending out regular email campaigns to keep students informed years ago. Unfortunately, your outdated newsletters are likely going to the trash bin, and it’s unlikely students are opening the links buried in career resource pages.
Even the best intentions to engage students can fail if you’re not keeping up with the pace of technology and expectations of today’s job seekers. The good news is, you may not need to do more to grab their attention. You just need to do it differently. And sometimes less is more.
Here are a few ways you can create career resources that get through to students:
Keep it simple
Everyone is busy. Busy-ness is a major contributor to student burnout as upcoming graduates try to juggle classes, internships, jobs, family, social lives, and critical job searches. Basically, anything you do that threatens to consume more of their valuable time is going to be put on the back burner, indefinitely.
If you can make your services valuable in the simplest and most efficient way possible, you will be a major asset to students. Even more so if your hacks save them more time!
Take a look at your handouts, lengthy newsletters, and daunting lists of job seeker to-dos and determine a way to make the information consumable for busy students. For example, you can keep your email check-ins to once or twice a week with just a few quick job search tips and career resources.
Timing is everything, so try to make sure the information is relevant to what students need to do/prepare for right now. You may also want to see if you can get a pulse on the best times for students to open and react to your messages by using analytics to track your messages. Look at the times of day they open messages, how far they scroll through your content, and what they are clicking on so you can create content that engages them long enough to get the message across.
Use video technology
Quick video updates are a great way to keep connected with students in a personal way. Sending a 30-60 second video of you explaining how to use a new job search app or filling them in on registration information for a networking event ensures your message is fully received while taking up the least amount of time.
Opening your services up to virtual meetings makes you accessible and convenient as a go-to resource for students as well. Consider adding a link to your calendar so students can put themselves in for a 10-minute video session to ask questions about their resume or practice for an interview.
You can add video tutorials to your school careers page for need-to-know information students can access to strengthen their job search and interview skills at their convenience as well. You can create a full video library students can review before they schedule a meeting with you making better use of your time by focusing on answering more advanced questions.
Add calendar links/reminders
Streamline ways for students to keep track of updates and items on their job search/graduation to-dos by setting up quick links in your emails that allow tasks to be added to their calendar with one click. You can set these links up easily through tools like AddEvent or send them out with scheduled updates in easy-to-use templates in apps like MailChimp.
These prompts may be all your students need to stay engaged with career resources and events you have lined up to help them hit the ground running following graduation. It’s worth repeating, sometimes less is more.
