How To Make Your Job Listing Appealing To College Students

By Francine Fluetsch on August 7, 2015

If you are looking for some college students to join your team, you are going to have to snag their attention with your job listing.

Now, you may be wondering how exactly you can gear your job listing to catch the eye of some college students, and this article is here to help.

image via rccgfpc.org

Here are a few suggestions on how you can spice up your job listing to get the younger crowd to pay you some notice.

Humor

While job listings do need to have a somewhat serious vibe, don’t be afraid to sprinkle some humor in there. This will definitely catch the attention of college students, and if you do it well enough, will have them encouraging their friends to apply as well. You could have something in the description like “looking for someone who won’t burn the office down” mixed in with the actual qualifications you are looking for.

If you don’t want to get too crazy with the humor, that’s okay, but even having a lame hidden joke in your job listing will make the student remember your listing and hopefully make them apply.

Hit up social media

LinkedIn is definitely a wonderful place to put up your job listing, but you should also resort to Twitter and Facebook to get the attention of a wider college audience. Most students are slowly getting on the LinkedIn train, but if they haven’t yet, they’ll be able to see your listing on your other sites.

When tweeting about your opening, keep it short, sweet, and leaving them wanting more. Something like “we are looking for a new, fun, creative member to join our team. Think you fit the bill?” and maybe throw an emoji in there if you are feeling like it.

Facebook also allows you to be more playful when looking for some new recruits, and you can post multiple times and use hashtags to get the information out there. It might help if you follow college sites on Facebook and then message them to help you spread the word of your current job openings. Students are always happy to help other students get jobs.

Show you are college friendly

A lot of students have a hard time getting jobs while still in school because of their class schedules and needing time for homework. If you put in your job listing that you are okay with a more flexible schedule to accommodate students, you will get so many more of them to apply.

Of course you still want to make it work for your company, but if you know that students are going to need to change their schedules once in a while and you are okay with that, putting it in your job listing will really work in your favor.

Image by Nazareth College via Flickr.com

Post listing in study areas

Posting listings online is a must, but that doesn’t mean you have to only stick to the web. College students spend a lot of their time in coffee shops and local libraries studying, so why not post some of your listings there? Make it pop with color and keep it short along with your contact information, so they will be intrigued to call you while waiting for their tall iced dirty Oprah chai latte.

You can also check with college campuses if they are okay with you posting your listings in their career center and on bulletin boards around campus. At UC Santa Cruz, we have bulletin boards at all of our bus stops, so while students are waiting to go to class they can read up on all the current job openings and such. Getting the word out there is really important, so hit as many places as you can.

Takes one to know one

If you have any current college students working with you, or some recent graduates, you could have them help you draw up the listing, from what it should say to how it should look. They will know what current college students will want to see, and though you will have the final approval, will probably be able to land you some more applicants.

Give them an incentive

Where will your company be able to take the student? Do you have great connections? While you don’t want your job listing to be miles long, you do want to include what they will be doing, and why your company is where they should be doing it.

Some will Google your company, but let’s face it, many students are lazy (guilty as charged), so if you don’t talk your company up and they don’t know what it is, they might not apply. Give them a reason why they’d be crazy not to submit their resume.

These are just a few things to help get your job listings out to the college crowd. Good luck!

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