The Office of Career Services Northwest Missouri State University (NWMS), headed by Joan Schneider, has achieved some amazing results with the marketing and branding of their CSM system. And as a result, they are increasing the awareness and usage of their system across the board.
Results
- Increased student logins by more than 22%
- Increased students with resumes in the system by 24%
- Increased students applying to positions in the system by 164%
How?
Brand your system
- Create a system name and logo unique to your school and spread it like wildfire-at on-campus events, in dorms, in social media-everywhere!
- Stay consistent in your messaging and branding by always including the logo and other language that resonates with your audience (Tip: Templates for flyers and other handouts will help you stay consistent and easily adjust copy when needed)
- Get swag! NWMS uses “Hire a Bearcat” pins to the entire campus community, including faculty and admin, but swag options are endless-think umbrellas, earbuds, t-shirts…everyone loves free swag!
Let students be your ambassadors to employers
- NWMS also works with student organizations who take academic trips to employer sites. The students always bring boxes of cookies, “Hire a Bearcat” pins and a message that says, “Got a job opening?” This is a simple and cost-efficient way to make connections with employers and raise awareness of the system.
Partner with other departments
- NWMS also partners with different departments on campus to post job and internship widgets on their sites. This has helped them streamline efforts in marketing the opportunities to faculty and students. Since they are a modular school, they do not have the faculty module in CSM. The widgets provide a way for faculty to stay aware of opportunities, without having to log into the system. And yes, all widgets are branded with “Hire A Bearcat!”
So if you are looking for ways to increase your student and employer usage of your CSM system, take a look at some of the best practices in action at Northwest Missouri State University. Want more? A NWMS representative presented a session on best marketing strategies at the 2014 CSM Symposium in June. You can download the presentation in Neighborhood.
