Attracting and Developing America’s Future Talent

As the pandemic hit the world with full force in the spring of 2020, it couldn't have been worse timing for those in campus and early career recruiting. Suddenly, college recruiters found themselves scrambling to reinvent their internship programs. Let's talk about how each of our experts modified their internships that summer and how they continue to evolve. We'll share key learnings and what changes are likely to be here for years to come.

In the current environment – when it’s more difficult to meet with peers and discuss experiences – it’s easy for campus recruiters to get an isolated view. Employers are accustomed to networking and sharing ideas at campus events and conferences.

But campus career services professionals have the benefit of working with dozens or even hundreds of employers through the recruiting season – either virtually or in person.

This panel will share candid insights regarding what appears to be working best (and what is not) for their employer clients.

The panel will discuss these questions and more:

• What has changed from the first pandemic fall recruiting season (2020) to this most recent one?
• What tools appear to be working for employers and what are the limitations?
• Why do some virtual events seem to work while others don't?
• Are there some common mistakes that employers can learn from?
• What should employers consider as the transition to in-person progresses?

Learn from the broad perspectives of the panelists and add your own questions into the discussion.

For decades, employers have relied on a selection of schools as a means to “pre-qualify” student candidates. Selecting these “school partners” has allowed employers to be more targeted with their marketing dollars as well as with their time and effort.

But this approach was developed in an age where attracting and engaging students necessarily required lots of travel, many campus-specific events, and plenty of in-person interaction. Though perhaps not deliberately, it also limited the reach of employers and made many opportunities inaccessible to the majority of students.

This panel discussion will focus on a skills-based approach to student outreach that strives to reach any students with the right skills for the available opportunities. Rather than discard the schools-based approach, this approach aims to re-balance employers’ investment, broaden exposure to opportunities, and create more equitable access for students.

Join the discussion, pose your questions, and determine where your organization should be on the skills vs. schools continuum.

Many vendors, service providers, and special event producers promise to solve employers' diversity recruitment challenges. But which ones actually deliver?

This panel of employers will discuss their experiences using many of the off-campus options for engaging with, and hiring, students from target diversity groups.

The panelists will address questions, including:

• How big a role do off-campus options play in recruiting diverse students?
• Which services have they used and what were the outcomes?
• What gaps exist? What are the limitations of these options?
• How do you measure ROI with these services?

Join the discussion with your own questions so you can make more effective use of off-campus channels in your diversity recruitment strategy.

The past two years have thrown every aspect of campus recruitment into question. But it's impossible to plan without at least some sense of what’s to come. A good starting point is to better understand what is working today and what is not.

In this highly interactive session, we’ll tackle some of the most important questions on everyone’s minds:

• Are in-person career fairs dying? Can virtual ones fill the gap?
• How will virtual recruitment be impacted when your competitors go back in person?
• How dramatically has your student engagement changed?
• What is working for you now and how will that evolve in the future?
• What have we learned over the past two summers that will inform your internships in the future?
• How has the shift to work-from-home or hybrid work impacted retention? How will students want to work for you in the years ahead?

How organizations prepare now will have lasting impacts.

This session will challenge you to consider: what changes can you make now that will have a measurable impact in 2-3 years?