Social Networking: The New Face of Recruiting

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Interview

Social Networking: The New Face of Recruiting

A Q&A with Brad Ward, electronic communication coordinator for Butler University, on new methods for reaching prospective students

3/6/2008

By Linda L Briggs

Social networking sites aren't just for fun. In what may be the future for college recruiting efforts, some 300,000 students now use a social networking site called Zinch specifically to network with colleges. On Zinch, prospective students can enter a personal profile that gives colleges in-depth information well beyond grades and test scores. From the other side, Zinch says that more than 450 colleges and universities are using Zinch as a high-powered recruiting tool.

And who better than someone fresh out of college himself to understand the power of cutting-edge tools for recruiting? In this interview, we talk with Brad Ward, electronic communication coordinator for Butler University in Indiana, which has about 3,900 undergraduates.

Ward, who graduated from the University of Illinois in 2005, talks about his successes with Zinch, which he started using in mid-2007, and other online tools he's used in recruiting efforts at Butler. He also talks about the problems social networking sites can spawn if you don't stay on top of them.

Linda Briggs: How would you describe your job as electronic communication coordinator at Butler University?

Brad Ward: It's really a new position; we're still trying to define it. I basically oversee all the e-mails for recruitment and content. I started in June.... In a way, it's nice that I'm only 24, so I can still relate to the kids. But at the same time, when I was in college there was no YouTube or Facebook until my senior year.

Briggs: Can you tell me a little bit about how Zinch works?

Ward: Kids on Zinch set up profiles ... that are more than just their names and test scores. They can list extracurricular activities. They can put if they're a first-generation student, or their ethnicity. There's a lot of depth to it.

Briggs: And how do colleges use that information for recruiting?

Ward: We can go in [to Zinch], and, if we're looking for kids in a certain state to reach out to, we can filter by the state. Then if we wanted to filter by what year they're graduating high school or what their gender is or something like that, we can really drill down.

[That makes] e-mail more than just broadcasting a message to thousands of kids. With these social networking sites, we can really narrow it down and make it more refined. We can target a lot better who we're trying to reach. That's definitely a huge benefit to social networking sites for us.

With Zinch, it's truly just kids looking for schools. Students can't add each others' friends or network in that sense. So the kids on there are definitely interested in going to college and interested in finding out more about schools.

Zinch has some forums and things like that, but, if I were a high school student joining this site, I'm not joining it to hook up with other friends--the sorts of things you would do on Facebook.