Spotlight for Career Services Professionals
How can your career center strengthen its relationships with employers? One of the most effective ways is to support employers in areas they deem most important to their recruiting success.
For employers responding to NACE’s 2016 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey, these aspects included branding their organizations—both on campus and to the career center. (See Figure 1.)
Among the other aspects of their recruiting programs that employers rate as important and that offer opportunities for career centers to provide support include identifying talent early, diversity, and developing relationships with faculty members.
NACE’s 2016 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey was conducted from May 24, 2016, to August 31, 2016, among NACE employer members; 233, or 24.6 percent, responded. The survey report will be available in early 2017.
Figure 1: Employers Rate Importance of Recruiting Program Aspects
| Aspect |
Not at all important |
Not very important |
Somewhat important |
Very important |
Extremely important |
| Branding organization to campuses |
0.0% |
0.0% |
9.2% |
32.5% |
58.3% |
| Identifying talent early |
0.6% |
1.2% |
8.0% |
24.7% |
65.4% |
| Measuring results |
0.6% |
3.1% |
15.4% |
37.0% |
43.8% |
| Diversity |
0.6% |
4.3% |
18.4% |
28.2% |
48.5% |
| Developing relationships with faculty |
0.6% |
4.3% |
21.0% |
45.1% |
29.0% |
| Branding organization to career center |
0.0% |
2.5% |
23.3% |
41.1% |
33.1% |
| Demonstrating the value of college relations |
0.6% |
4.9% |
22.2% |
32.1% |
40.1% |
| Managing campus relations with HR |
3.7% |
11.2% |
32.3% |
36.0% |
16.8% |
| Social media |
3.1% |
14.1% |
30.1% |
37.4% |
15.3% |
| Accessing training |
2.5% |
15.5% |
42.2% |
30.4% |
9.3% |
Source: 2016 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey, National Association of Colleges and Employers