News
Careers Student Vacancy Database hits the 500 mark in SMU & the 200 mark in TUCC for student registration
Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:35:00 GMT
The Pnet powered Student Vacancy Database was set up in September 2009 in both SMU and TUCC as part of the SWWHEP Careers Initiative. It has increasingly attracted a substantial amount of attention from students who are viewing the database on a weekly basis.
The aim of the project is to make this service available and easily accessible to students in both institutions and to encourage employers in the UK and internationally to register and advertise their vacancies. With student registration continuously increasing, SMU has hit the 500 mark of student registrations and Trinity University has reached the 200 mark! These figures illustrate that over 8% of the students in both Institutions have registered in the last 6 months from the start of the project.
These results are significant and were achieved through a number of marketing strategies.
RSS feeds have been a key marketing tool which has been used on websites and Blackboard in both institutions and this has captured a wide audience. These feeds have been used to advertise the database by allowing students to initially view the job descriptions and if interested, encourage them to register to view the complete advert.
Steven Evans was invited by Graduate Prospects to make a presentation in Manchester University to Northern University representatives’ regarding the benefits of RSS and to demonstrate how they have helped to make this project a success. This presentation was then used by Graduate Prospects in London with the Southern Universities.
Dr Mark Watts, Head of Software Solutions at Graduate Prospects stated:
“We had an excellent demo by Steven Evans (SMU) on how using the RSS job feeds as part of your job seeker marketing can radically improve your job seeker registrations.”
A Student Registration Guide has been designed and is available on the Careers web pages at both Institutions and as screen savers on the computers in the Careers Library at SMU ( Student Registration Guide ).
Regular emails are sent alerting students to relevant jobs advertised through the link to the database provided. These strategies enforce the service offered. The statistics reveal a correlating increase in student registration figures, particularly following the emails.
Another marketing tool is the SWWHEP Postcard which explains how to access the Vacancy Database through the SWWHEP Careers webpage; its purpose being to maintain the successful rate of student registration.
These postcards are being distributed to students via lectures at SMU, TUCC and SU. It is one of a series of postcards using the 3J’s logo created by Charlotte Dix as part of the SWWHEP Careers Marketing and Employability strategy.
