Back to the past! student recruitment during the 70’s and the 80’s

As student recruiters we already know how challenging it is to recruit students these days, but the reality is that today we benefit from tools that we didn’t have before, allowing us to reach more students by applying even more creative ways. But, how did this work in the 70’s and 80’s?

During these unique and picturesque decades while we were listening to rock and roll and watching Grease starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, universities from all around the world suddenly slowly began to evolve and change the way they recruited students.

According to external sources, during the 70’s and the 80’s some universities just started formally doing marketing studies to recruit students, but most of them didn’t. Only 12% of universities began to perform these studies. Today, these marketing studies are a crucial part of any attempt to recruit students, even more, if these students are international.

Another important fact to be mentioned is that, during the 70’s and 80’s, only 35% of public universities sent invitations to prospective students to visit universities campuses. Compared to back then, today it is a strategy that is almost always applied with the prospective students and should not be missing in any marketing. Some ancient practices over time have not disappeared, but only gotten better.

Since in those decades the internet was not a tool helping with the recruiting tasks, some recruiters used phone calls as a means of contacting potential students. But according to studies, only 43% of universities made frequent calls to these prospective students. Today phone calls are an even bigger part of the strategies, complemented by online strategies. Despite the internet being so dominant today I truly believe that phone calls should never disappear, calls are personalised and make students feel important.

Despite the limitations that existed in the past to recruit students, many recruitment strategies implemented by some universities were really successful. Today we have no excuses for not being successful. Yes, we know the competition is really hard out there, but, what does your college have, that the others don’t have?

Seize the advantages offered by the modern times in terms of knowledge, experience and technology to make out of your work a complet success.