Is the recruitment funnel gone for good?

It has become abundantly clear over the past few months that the old ways of describing recruitment—as something linear, like a path, journey, or funnel—no longer capture the complexity of students’ college search experiences today. We know that recruitment will continue to be dominated by growing populations of stealth applicants, diminishing efficacy of typical recruitment approaches, and a discerning audience with razor-thin attention spans.

In considering these shifts, my team at EAB (and the partners we work with) have begun to describe recruitment and enrollment as an “ecosystem.” But what is an ecosystem in this context, and how can this metaphor help enrollment leaders?

At the risk of dredging up memories from high school biology: Merriam-Webster defines an ecosystem as “the complex of a community of organisms and its environment functioning as an ecological unit.” An ecosystem includes not only the way organisms and their ecosystem interact with one another, but also the internal and external forces that impact them both.

Every interaction with a prospective student can make your recruitment smarter

Here are three things enrollment leaders need to thrive in this new recruitment ecosystem.

1. A robust channel strategy

First, you need access to emerging channels and platforms to both build awareness among the students you want to reach and generate leads. Test-taker names remain an important part of your audience mix. But as the number of students taking admissions tests decline, enrollment leaders need to identify new and innovative sources of students. In addition to traditional search lists and organic interest, our Enrollment partners have had success sourcing students from a combination of virtual efforts, such as their virtual tours and digital channels, and students who raise their hand through the Cappex platform.

It’s also important your channel strategy includes a diverse range of sources. Sometimes, when using multiple sources to identify prospective students, you will come across the same student in several places. But more often than not, my EAB teammates have found there is little overlap within any school’s given campaigns—a testament to just how important it is to source students from a variety of places. We’ve also found that students who interacted with two or more sources were three to four times more likely to apply than students who interacted with only one source.

2. Responsive marketing, orchestrated seamlessly