Spotlight for Recruiting Professionals

High-touch activities were not only prominent among the most highly used employer branding techniques, they also were rated among the most effective, according to results of NACE’s 2016 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey.

Employers participating in the survey reported using career/job fairs (99.4 percent), campus information sessions (90.8 percent), and building relationships with key faculty (90 percent) at high levels. (See Figure 1.)

In terms of effectiveness, employers rated career/job fairs (4.9) highest, followed by building relationships with key faculty members (4.8).

While not a high-touch method, using a corporate website as a branding tool also earned high marks from employers both in terms of use (96.8 percent) and effectiveness (4.7). Meanwhile, although employers realize the effectiveness of supporting the activities and events of student organizations (4.7), just 87 percent of employers doing so.

What do employers look for when choosing a branding platform? When employers were asked to identify the most important reason for choosing a branding platform, more than half (56.8 percent) indicated they based their selection on a platform’s capability to produce responses to job postings.

A smaller percentage of employers identified a platform’s ability to contact students (22.6 percent) and the cost of the branding activities (20.6 percent) as important capabilities.

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. Highlights from the 2016 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey are available on NACEWeb. Participating members can access the full report through MyNACE.

Figure 1: Branding Techniques: Use and Effectiveness