Spotlight for Recruiting Professionals
When asked what attributes are most important when selecting target schools for recruiting, employers rated majors offered, recruiting experience, quality of academic programs, and accreditation of school the highest, according to results of NACE’s 2017 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey.
This is consistent with results seen in the past. Interestingly, however, recruiting experience was “extremely important” among nearly 60 percent of employers—up from 43.2 percent of respondents who deemed that experience as such in last year’s survey. (See Figure 1.)
The quality of programs was rated as “extremely important” by 48.5 percent of employers, and more than 87 percent said this attribute was “very” to “extremely” important.
Data collection for NACE’s 2017 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey Report took place from July 19, 2017, to August 1, 2017; 301 firms participated. An executive summary is available on the NACE website. The full report is available to those at participating organizations through MyNACE > Research Reports.
Figure 1: Importance of Target School Criteria
| Criteria |
Extremely Important |
Very Important |
| Majors offered |
59.7% |
27.0% |
| Past recruiting experience at school |
59.5% |
30.2% |
| Quality of academic programs |
48.5% |
39.1% |
| Accreditation of school |
47.0% |
29.3% |
| Location of school |
40.9% |
36.2% |
| Student body diversity |
39.9% |
36.1% |
| Success of school's alumni in your organization |
33.9% |
39.5% |
| Interest of school's grads in your organization |
32.0% |
43.3% |
| Retention history with school alumni |
28.8% |
39.9% |
| Reputation of school |
28.0% |
51.3% |
| Helpfulness of career services staff |
15.5% |
39.9% |
| National rankings |
14.3% |
33.3% |
| Alumni executives |
9.9% |
20.6% |
| Salary expectations of students |
7.0% |
31.7% |
Source: 2017 Recruiting Benchmarks Survey Report, National Association of Colleges and Employers