Three CUES is GDA Integrated Services' free electronic newsletter. In each edition, we focus on only three items taken from our College & University Environmental Scanning (CUES) and our GDAIS research. Unlike most higher education newsletters, Three CUES often looks beyond news about colleges and universities to review greater social and marketing trends. Produced several times during the academic year, Three CUES not only provides information, but also offers observations and recommendations concerning each topic.
Spring 2007 Edition:
Although it is less intense than 20 years ago, the age-old debate between a liberal-arts education versus an education that prepares a student for a specific career will continue to rage. "Creeping vocationalism" is the cry of the faculty and staff in the liberal-arts camp while engineering and business faculty whisper about the irrelevance of the liberal arts to their professional fields.
The Importance of Career Preparation
There is no doubt that career preparation is a public expectation of higher education. In the most recent public opinion poll GDA Integrated Services conducted for The Chronicle of Higher Education, seven of ten of the more than 1,000 randomly sampled respondents said that preparing undergraduate students for a career was a very important activity of a college education, with an additional 21% saying it was important. This response was eight percentage points higher than the next most important activity— providing education to adults so they qualify for better jobs.
The research also contained a caveat: Only 5% of the Chronicle sample strongly agreed with the statement “College graduates today are well prepared for the workforce.” Additionally, 5% strongly disagreed and 32% disagreed. The remainder agreed. This obviously does not bode well for higher education if the public expects college graduates prepared for a career. Nearly four of ten are not convinced that we do a good job.
Additionally, the Millennials, our current traditional-age group, are very focused on their education but are apprehensive about finding meaningful employment after graduation. The GDA Integrated Services research confirms this. In our national survey of college-bound students, 39% said preparation for a career was essential in their choice of any college and an additional 55% said career preparation was very important. Only a strong major in their field of interest was viewed as slightly more important with 94% saying it was essential or very important.
The picture is grim for the liberal arts crowd. Only 6% of the employers we surveyed say a liberal arts education is very important in hiring college graduates. About 8% of the college-bound students see a liberal arts education as essential in their choice of a college.
Too bad, liberal arts faculty
So it’s clear. Liberal arts is irrelevant and a focus on preparing students for specific careers is the path to success. Right? Ironically, no. The GDA Integrated Services market research on college-bound students, employers and others tells us that both preparation for specific careers and the outcomes of the liberal arts and sciences are two sides of the same coin.
“Outcomes” is the operative term here. More than three of four employers say strong thinking and reasoning skills are very important in an employee who graduated from college. Additionally, 66% of the employers seek college graduates who write and speak effectively, 63% look for college graduates who demonstrate problem-solving skills and one of three say an employee must have an interest in exploring new ideas. These are outcomes attributed to a liberal arts education.
Even college-bound students recognize one of the claims of a liberal arts education: Four of ten strongly agree with the statement “A college should provide an education for all your careers, not just your first,” with an additional 35% agreeing.
Roger Hermann, a strategic business futurist, argues that a large proportion of people in college today will hold jobs in their lifetimes that don’t even exist today. “The idea of learning a specialty and staying in one field for an entire career is passé. While we will still have specialists, the demand will be higher for adaptable generalists—agile, nimble workers who can easily move into new roles.”
The Ultimate Irony
So we are agreed that a blend of preparation for a specific career and a liberal arts education are both essential pieces of the broader definition of career preparation? True, but not completely. Much of what employers expect from a college graduate is not necessarily gained through the academic program, but rather through a combination of academic, out-of-class experiences, and the benefits of a residential college. Employers tell us that it is very important for college graduates to have these skills:
| Works well as a team member | 77% |
| Has high ethical standards | 75% |
| Comfortable with different attitudes & opinions | 63% |
| Interacts well with people of different cultures | 60% |
| Is a self-starter | 45% |
| Able to set clear goals | 43% |
| Demonstrates self-confidence | 40% |
| Has leadership skills | 31% |
As one can quickly see, there are many ways to learn to work as a team member, serve as a leader, and demonstrate high ethical standards. Colleges apparently must go beyond simply providing a credential or even offering a foundation of knowledge.
Student Expectation of their College Experience
GDA Integrated Services regularly asks college-bound students what skills they expect to gain from their college experience. Below is a “table of expectations” based on a survey of 1,000 college-bound students. We defined each skill as you will see below.
We are reporting the percentage of students who said a skill was extremely or very important to gain from their college experience. (This is only the part of the list pertaining to career preparation.)
Communication skills – the ability to write and speak effectively and persuasively. |
95% |
Professional skills – the traits, skills and talents needed in all professions – ranging from time management skills to how to manage yourself in a job interview. |
91% |
Intellectual skills – such as problem solving, critical thinking, reasoning and analytical skills. |
90% |
Leadership and management skills – the ability to lead, manage, motivate and persuade people in an effective way. |
87% |
Lifelong learning skills – how to find information and how to research new areas of interest. |
86% |
Computer skills – mastering numerous software programs on a desktop computer as well as preparation for changes in technology. |
85% |
Change skills – the flexibility needed for change and the ability to identify and create opportunities. |
81% |
Multicultural skills – the ability to interact and appreciate diverse cultural and racial groups in the workplace. |
69% |
If anyone ever thought that college-bound students only expected a good academic education from a college, the table above should alter that concept. In fact, in other studies conducted by GDA Integrated Services, nine of ten college-bound students tell us that the quality of the institution is measured by the total experience, not only the academic opportunities and programs.
Articulate the Message
The short table below shows what can happen if you do not articulate how your institution contributes to preparation for a career. This shows that 92% of the surveyed current students at a liberal arts college said preparation for a career was essential or very important in their choice of this college, but only 10% were very satisfied and only 34% were very satisfied or satisfied with their college’s record in this regard.
Current Students |
Essential or Very Important |
Very satisfied |
Very satisfied or satisfied |
Preparation for a career |
92% |
10% |
34% |
Below are some questions that need to be answered and steps your institution can take to demonstrate that everything your college or university does has some relevance to career preparation:
Obviously, if you are an admissions professional, it is not your responsibility to bridge the chasm between the liberal-arts faculty and the professional-preparation faculty but, if you can at least follow the tips above, your job will be much easier.
While the web can be an excellent recruitment tool, the primary problem with utilizing the web for marketing is that it is fundamentally a passive medium. You are dependent on prospective students coming to your site to look at what you have posted, and you usually have no way of knowing who is viewing your site. While tracking web hit results can tell you roughly how many people are coming to your site and what pages they look at most, you generally find out little about who is looking at the site and why they are. There are ways, however, to make the website part of a more active marketing program.
Developing an Active Communications Strategy for the Digital Medium
Rather than relying solely on your website as a repository of all online messages for prospective students to view in no particular order, you can develop a sequence of institutional messages in the form of single-message, HTML e-mails and mini-websites that deliver a series of key messages over the course of the recruitment cycle. The use of e-mail transforms passive web content into a proactive online recruitment tool because e-mail can be sent to students when you choose and can be used to drive students to your web content.
The idea is to actually slow down and pace the flow of messages to prospective students in order to build a cohesive, persuasive case for the institution. Each message should be designed to incorporate a bounceback or response mechanism that allows students to communicate their specific interests, questions or concerns to the admissions staff, and also enables you to track who in your pool is interested and which students are reading and responding to your messages.
A bounceback mechanism can be an online form, a reply email, an electronic chat session or registration form for an event or campus visit. By collecting new information about prospective students at each step in the communication flow, you will be providing your admissions counselors with valuable information that presents an opportunity to follow-up with the hottest prospects, and to customize the rest of the conversation.
While many institutions are using technology to automate and systematize communications with prospective students, our research shows that students respond best to personal, one-to-one relationships with admissions counselors. You should strive to apply technology to help foster these relationships rather than replace them.
Driving Prospective Students to the Right Parts of Your Site
The best campaigns are those that begin with a succinct e-mail that presents a single message and entices the recipient to learn more about that topic on a specific page within the website. The e-mail essentially functions as a navigational shortcut that pushes the viewer directly to the page on which you want them to focus.
The content on your website should correspond directly to the theme of the e-mail. The page should present the rest of the story that was begun in the e-mail. It should also have a clear course of action for the user to respond (such as a link to a form). The web is about having all the information in the world at your fingertips. Paradoxically, to make the web a more effective marketing tool, we must develop better ways to slow down the pace of information. Too many prospective students will rush through a college website, lose interest before something grabs their attention, and move on.
Mini-Websites
Another way to protract the flow of communications with prospective students over the entire recruitment cycle is to use e-mail messages to drive prospective students to a series of mini-websites. Each site should focus on a different topic, such as academic distinctions, student life, a virtual tour of the campus and surrounding area, etc. The sites may be part of your institution’s main website, but each can also function as a stand-alone site that can be proactively launched to prospective students via e-mail. The value is that it enables the admissions staff to send a series of targeted messages to prospective students throughout the recruitment cycle. It also allows you to repurpose your web content and get more use out of it.
Our market research has repeatedly shown that prospective students rarely make their way through an entire college website. They use the web as an online reference or archive of information they know they can access whenever they need it, so they do not commit the majority of the content they read online to memory. By breaking your web content into shorter doses of information and delivering them to prospective students throughout the recruitment cycle, you will be able to keep your institution in the mind of prospective students throughout the college search process.
You can use e-mail messages to drive students to each successive mini-website. The idea is to drive student back repeatedly to keep your college in their minds throughout the college selection process. The reiteration of key messages helps cement institutional identity and would help students distinguish your college from other schools.
Integrating Print and Electronic Communications
By integrating your electronic and print communications, your e-mail messages, mini-websites, letters, and brochures can all function in a complementary and more effective manner. Because fifty-five percent of college bound students begin looking at colleges before their junior year of high school, you should be prepared to communicate with prospective students starting in their sophomore year of high school, if not earlier.
Therefore, one of the goals of an integrated communications plan is to pace the flow of information and tell prospective students your story one message at a time. It will provide your admissions staff with an opportunity to determine who is receiving and responding to the college’s messages and enable them to customize future communications. With print and electronic communications reinforcing each other, and providing prospective students ample opportunity to respond, your website will play a more active role in your overall marketing efforts.
For more information about online recruiting, contact Jonathan Steele at jonathan@dehne.com or 617-395-8330. You can also contact Topher Small at topher@dehne.com or 860-388-3958.
Qualifying Your Inquiry Pool with the Telephone
Since most admissions offices have limited resources and time, qualifying your prospect pool early on in the recruitment cycle is critical because it enables counselors to focus their efforts on the hottest prospects – those that are most interested and most likely to apply and enroll. But what’s the best way to determine who these prospects are?
In our experience with a wide range of colleges and universities, one of the most powerful and effective tools you can use to find out who’s most interested in your institution is the telephone. Students are usually impressed that a college is contacting them and they are very willing to talk. GDA research on this indicates that almost two-thirds of prospective students are receptive to receiving calls from colleges.
Because getting on the phone to make cold calls isn’t at the top of most admissions counselors’ list of favorite things to do, and because it’s not the most effective use of their time, it’s actually more cost effective to outsource the calls at the screening stages of the process. By outsourcing the calls, you free up the admissions staff to focus on more important tasks, you help prevent staff burnout by reducing the amount of unproductive time spent making cold calls, and shorten the amount of time needed to complete calls to several thousand prospects by a significant margin.
Coordinating your calling efforts with regular communications will increase the success of your efforts. Our experience with clients is that telephone contact works best when used in conjunction with a direct mail campaign, broadcast e-mail, or events on campus such as an open house.
Examples of a coordinated campaign might include making screening calls to prospects who did not respond to paper and/or email invitations to an open house or calling to make sure that prospects received a copy of your Viewbook and application.
A well crafted script will ensure that you get the most out of the screening calls. On the one hand, the calls can help increase attendance at open house events or remind a prospect that they received admissions materials from your institution. On the other hand, and more importantly, the calls will help you gauge interest and determine which students you should follow up with/focus your resources on.
In a short call of about five minutes, you can find out if a prospect:
If the prospect is not interested, you can ask a series of questions to find out why he or she is not interested. These answers will arm you with valuable information that may help you clear up misconceptions about your institution and help you persuade the right kids to apply.
By using the telephone to determine who’s most interested up front, you’ll make your job of recruiting students a lot easier down the road in the recruitment cycle. You’ll be able to focus your energy on those who are most likely to apply and enroll at your college or university.
GDA Integrated Services offers telescreening and telerecruiting services. Telescreeners follow a set phone script and are best utilized for gauging interest and qualifying your prospect pool. Our telerecruiters are all former admissions officers and, after becoming familiar with your institution, act as an extension of your admissions staff – answering questions and recruiting students to visit, apply and enroll. For more information, contact Bob Campagnuolo at bob@dehne.com or Topher Small at topher@dehne.com. You can reach either Bob or Topher by phone at 860-388-3959.
GDA Integrated Services is a marketing consulting, research, strategic planning and services firm specializing in customized, integrated marketing solutions that help colleges and universities compete successfully for students, funds and visibility in the twenty-first century.
We provide colleges and universities with the following services:
For a complete listing of our services, please see our website at www.gdais.com.