The Communicating Careers Conference was held at Boston University’s Center for Career Development on Friday, May 8, 2015 (8:30am-4:30pm) and on Twitter at #ccMKTGconf.

Agenda

8:30am Breakfast & Check-in

9:15am Welcome & Opening Remarks

9:30am Session I Presentations
Holistic Marketing = Holistic Advising: Strategies for Successful Campaigns
Four years ago, the O’Brien Center for Student Success at Merrimack College used flyers and only flyers to advertise the Annual Spring Career fair, now marketing begins in October and leads through into post-graduation outcomes. From giveaways to news articles, the team works to create a marketing strategy around each event and service. Samantha Medina will use the Annual Spring Career Fair marketing strategy to identify: (1) materials they use to advertise and create buzz around the Career Fair for students, faculty, staff, and the community; (2) who they involve to make it happen; and (3) how they identify success and generate positive PR using outcomes. (slides, with additional examples)

Go West, Young Brand: Using Content Marketing To Entice Engagement
Convincing a target student audience (especially Millennials) to take action (and to take advantage of career development services) often requires more than simply an event’s vital statistics, an employer’s application deadline, or a reminder. Eleanor Cartelli of Boston University’s Center for Career Development will share how they are using content marketing to demonstrate expertise, raise visibility and establish trust, and in turn entice campus populations to come to them. (slides)

Face-To-Face: Using Social Media To Celebrate, Collaborate & Create Community
Amy Weinstein from Bryant University’s Amica Center for Career Education will present social media campaigns that have resulted in increased followers on their social media platforms, increased visibility with employer partners, and increased outcomes reporting. Examples include “Face Posters” to promote events, “CelebrateWithAmica” to celebrate students securing a job, and “Success Stories Blog” to highlight student success stories. Amy will provide visual images of all three campaigns and share outcomes data. (slides)

Engaging Students as Marketing Ambassadors
Does your career center want to expand your marketing reach with limited resources? Alexandra Stephens of Brandeis University will show how the Hiatt Career Center engages students as marketing ambassadors. She will describe best practices that her office has employed, including: hiring marketing interns to support social media, graphic design and other efforts, hiring student photographers to cover major events and foster increased social media engagement through online photo albums, training peer career advisors (Hiatt Advisors) as social media ambassadors, hosting a student poster contest to market major events, and more! (slides)

Job Shadowing for a New Generation
It can be difficult for students to connect directly with alumni to learn about their career paths. The Terriers @ Work Twitter Program, managed through the Boston University’s Center for Career Development and Alumni Association, allows current students and alumni to follow a day-in-the-life of a BU alum as they tweet about their day at work. Although it acts as a virtual job shadow, it also provides alumni with a forum to share advice on breaking into their field, memories of their time at BU, and how their academic and experiential education helped them get to where they are now in their careers. Jessica Fenerlis will share how this program came to fruition, its successes so far, the management process, and how it can be implemented at other universities. (slides)

11:00am Keynote Address: Sean Hennessey on Proactive and Reactive Media Relations
An award-winning journalist before joining Boston College’s Office of News & Public Affairs, Sean Hennessey will discuss dealing with incoming media requests as well as how to find great stories to pitch to campus publications. (slides)

12:00pm Lunch

1:00pm Session II Breakout Groups
Allocating Resources
How do you decide where to use resources (time, people, money, etc.)? What guides your decisions about where to focus your efforts? What makes it worthwhile to start, continue, or stop a specific marketing effort?
Five Essential Factors To Consider before You Allocate Marketing Spend (Forbes, 2013)

Beyond Email: Creative Ways To Reach Students
What creative methods (beyond email, social media) have you used to reach students for programs, workshops, career services, etc.? What has worked well and where are you currently struggling? What trends have you followed or steered clear from?
Technology and the College Generation (The New York Times, 2013)

Building an Effective Brand
Does your brand help/hurt your marketing strategy? How have you (or how can you) built/devleoped/revamped that brand?
Why Repositioning Your Brand Is Like Pushing Water Uphill (mStoner, 2014)
What’s the Goal? Brand Strategy in a World of Competing Objectives (mStoner, 2014)

Communicating with Millennials
What are the challenges of communicating with (marketing to) Millenials? In what ways is it easier? What has worked well?
As Students Scatter Online, Colleges Try To Keep Up (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 2012)

Communicating with Parents
Should we or shouldn’t we? Are we just enabling over-involvment? What has worked (or not) for you?
Strategies for Communicating with the Parents of College Students (Ruffalo Noel Levitz, 2014)
Communication with Parents: The Landscape in Higher Education (mStoner, 2013)

Email Marketing
Is email marketing dead? Have you utilized email marketing to promote services/events to students? Has it worked? What changes would you make?
Is Email Marketing Dead? (AddThis, 2015)
LinkedIn Group Discussion: Email Marketing Gurus (2014)

Marketing Data
How do you measure your success? What tactics do you use (if any) to review your marketing efforts to see what is working/not working?
The Five Data Management Practices B2B Marketers Are Overlooking (MarketingProfs, 2014)
At Universities, a Push for Data-Driven Career Services (The New York Times, 2015)
2014 Is the Year of Digital Marketing Analytics: What It Means for Your Company (Forbes, 2014)

Market Research
What methods have you utilized (if any) to research your target market (i.e. students)? Do you employ surveys, focus groups, a liaison group, etc? What has worked/not worked? What have you learned?
Five Tips for More Effective Market Research (mStoner, 2014)

Micro-targeting Your Marketing
How targeted should we get? Does marketing to specific student populations work better than more general marketing? At what level do you stop?
2015 Marketing Trends: Mobile, Content & Micro Targeting (GWS Media, 2015)
2015 Digital Marketing Trends (Net Atlantic Email Marketing Blog, 2015)

Social Media Engagement
What has worked for you to get engagement and interaction on your social media accounts? Where have you struggled?
Teen Social Media Use Shifts with Age (CKSyme Media Group, 2015)
The 25 Most Popular College Career Services Departments on Social Media in 2014 (JobBrander, 2014)
Social Media Discussion Notes

2:45pm Session III Presentations
Engaging Employers on Social Media
Have you tweeted at your employers while they are on campus? What do you say in your engagement calls? Learn how to engage current and prospective employers in the work of your career center. Caroline O’Shea of Brandeis University will share how she and the Hiatt Career Center optimize the use of Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as well as other methods to get the attention of employers. (slides)

Utilizing Campus Partnerships To Increase Office Utilization
Restricted resources and limited staff prove to be a challenge in promoting/marketing career centers across the United States. It is important for career professionals to be innovative and explore other methods to expand utilization of services. Integrating campus partnerships and cross-departmental stakeholders, in all areas of the student life cycle, can greatly increase the visibility and knowledge of career services areas. Keith Hassell from the University of Bridgeport will discuss on underutilized partnerships, and how the benefits of fostering positive relationships with key stakeholders, can have a favorable lasting impact on our students. (slides)

Case Study: Building a Student Ambassador Program
Engaging with a large, diverse student population about career development provides many challenges, especially when staff resources are limited and programs and services must be developed to connect with the general student population. Amy Collinsworth and Tesla Abrego will focus on how the Center for Career Development and Educational Resource Center at Boston University developed a peer-led outreach program to expand strategies beyond traditional marketing methods. Recruiting passionate & diverse students, providing deliberate & meaningful training, and leveraging student creativity & perspective in program development and implementation have led to success of this 3-year-old program. (slides)

Developing an Effective Social Media Strategy: Using Metrics to Drive Results
Often times, it can feel like our social media accounts act simply as a megaphone shouting “Jobs! Tips! Events!” but with little reciprocity. With changing algorithms for how our different channels reach our audience and with the need for quicker, bite-sized content, it’s important for career development offices to consistently evaluate the effectiveness of their social media channels. Jill Pimentel from Brown University’s CareerLAB will discuss how they structure their social media strategy, utilizes Peer Career Advisors to find and schedule meaningful and engaging content, and how they are using metrics to evaluate for future changes. (slides)

4:00pm Networking

Planning Committee

Eleanor Cartelli, Associate Director, Marketing & Communications, Boston University Center for Career Development

Jessica Fenerlis, Marketing & Communications Specialist, Boston University Center for Career Development

Rachel Greenberg, Associate Director, Boston College Career Center

Jill Pimentel, Program and Communications Coordinator,
Brown University Center for Careers and Life After Brown

Questions?

Please contact Eleanor Cartelli, Associate Director, Marketing and Communications, Boston University Center for Career Development.