3 Tips on Recruiting Recent College Grads to Your Organization

School’s out for summer — and, for many college grads, it’s out forever. While these same college grads are out searching for jobs, there’s a good chance that your organization is conducting its own intersecting search for fresh talent. Why not head straight to the source, then, and look into recruiting some new college grads to fill your open reqs?

To that end, we’d like to share three tips on recruiting recent college grads from Carmela Krantz, vice president of talent and HR at ClearSlide, a sales engagement platform. While my conversation with Krantz focused specifically on recruiting for sales roles, I believe any employer can leverage Krantz’s tactics to hire new graduates for whatever positions they need to fill.

1. Develop Relationships with Colleges and Universities

Don’t wait for grads to find your job postings; take the initiative before they’re even in the job market by building strong relationships with colleges and universities.

“Our philosophy focuses on connecting early and often,” Krantz says. “We come at the college connection from multiple perspectives.”

ClearSlide has built relationships with multiple colleges, including Santa Clara University and the University of Washington. Krantz says that ClearSlide-college partnerships arise from a number of starting points, both organic and concerted.

“Some of it has been geography, some of it has been the programs that a particular university is offering, and some if it is driven by alumni who work here,” Krantz says. “Alumni will say, ‘My school is great at X, and ClearSlide should be involved.'”

ClearSlide makes it a point to get involved with on-campus activities like career fairs and events held by student organizations and business departments. ClearSlide also volunteers to host events for schools and related organizations at the company’s offices.

Another notable tactic: ClearSlide will identify schools with sales majors and, on occasion, offer students in these majors free trials of ClearSlide’s software. This is a good way to introduce students to exactly what ClearSlide does.

2. Make Career Paths a Priority

We’ve all heard how interested millennials are in clear career paths and advancement opportunities.  Rather than simply providing these opportunities, ClearSlide introduces prospects to their potential career paths during the recruitment process itself.

“We have career paths that we can walk the recent grads through, so that they understand what kind of skills they can build, what kind of jobs they can obtain, and what their earning potential is if they join in X role,” Krantz says.

For example, if a recent college grad is interested in a sales development rep (SDR) role, ClearSlide will clearly set out the path from SDR to quota-carrying sales rep.

“In the recruiting process, we’ll talk about … the opportunity to build some very specific sales skills [in an SDR role], like outbound calling and confidence,” Krantz says.

3. Make Recruiting Into a Social Experience

Millennials are also big fans of the social aspects of life — not just social media. To that end, Krantz suggests building social components, such as open houses and happy hours, directly into the recruiting process.

Another way to build social bonds between recent grads and an organization: involve alumni from the grads’ schools in the recruiting process.

“We have a nice relationship with Santa Clara University, and we probably have five or six alumni from the university here at ClearSlide. We invite those alumni to go on campus with us, whether it be for a career fair or to speak at some event we are participating in,” Krantz says. “Any time we have a university-related event, we always bring an alumni if we have an alumni.”

By bringing alumni into the recruiting process, ClearSlide helps to solidify social connections between candidates and the organization — making the organization that much more attractive in the candidates’ eyes.

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There are plenty of ways to engage with recent college grads. These are but three tools in a vast arsenal available to employers. That being said, if your organization is struggling to connect with fresh talent, these three tips provide great starting points.