Recruiting college students is completely different from sourcing experienced hires. Students often possess scant knowledge of what even the largest, most well-known companies actually do, not to mention what career tracks and opportunities these companies have to offer.

Students simply lack the tools -- life experience, business contacts and acquired know-how -- that other hires routinely draw-on to size up a prospective employer. That's why companies on campus must go the extra mile to brand themselves; e.g. to build the relationships that lead to accepted offers.

Sounds simple, but campus branding is a huge challenge, even for industry leaders with household names. Pity, then, the smaller companies whose identities or products are wholly unknown to students. How can they attract notice? By being aggressive, innovative, and nimble.

At the recent NACE (National Association of Colleges and Employers) conference, several employers, large and small, talked about the challenges associated with campus recruiting and the methods they use to attract attention. Following are some of the best strategies we heard:

• Ferguson Enterprises, a distributor of electrical and plumbing supplies, holds "resume critique and job-search advice sessions" for students on campus. Students who flock to these sessions to learn job-hunting tips are inadvertently introduced to a company they otherwise wouldn't have encountered.
  
  
• Many employers work with the campus-career center to build bridges to students and academic departments. Good career centers know who's who and how things work on campus, and can help companies establish relationships that would normally take years to grow. Corning, now a high-tech optical fiber company, but still widely misperceived as a cookware company, reaches engineering majors by getting close to career centers at schools with top engineering departments.
  
  
• Faculty are important allies and potential talent scouts. Michael McNeal of Purecarbon suggests extending referral bonuses to deans and professors for each new hire they recommend. Since you give referral bonuses to your own people, why not offer them to campus faculty and staff? You can't offer cash, but research grants and equipment donations are acceptable.
  
  
• Everyone knew Andersen Consulting, but who could recognize their new name, Accenture? To introduce the name change, Accenture told their story on a special student web site and went all out to drive traffic to the site via extensive campus marketing and branded promotional giveaways.
  
  
• Unisys is a giant, but found that students had no idea what it did. To boost awareness, Unisys shifted its promotional campaign from a generic corporate-identity approach to one that emphasizes specific business and employment opportunities.

The bottom line? Students still have lots to learn, even when they're ready to graduate. Be aggressive and creative to make sure students get the right message about your organization.
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