Graduate Recruiting- Do's and Don'ts.

[Eigen]

Ok, so I'm trying to help with our departments recruiting efforts. A broader applicant pool makes life more enjoyable for everyone.

That said, I'd like to hear some opinions in what worked/would have worked/didn't work for recruiting you. I've put a nice bit of time into re-designing our posters/materials for in-person recruiting, and now we're getting ready to start with e-mail recruiting.

The big question to start off with, is what subject line to use that will help people actually *read* the recruitment e-mail without deleting it.

The next is, what would you say are the most important points to emphasize in getting people to at least consider our program? The things I think we should focus on are facilities, funding, and our strong publication record.

Any and all suggestions would be helpful. We don't want to spam people out, but we're a small program that tends to get overlooked despite really good research, funding, and a strong publication record, so we're really trying to at least get people to put us into consideration. We're in the Sciences, but all perspectives are welcome.

[Behavioral]

There's going to be a conflict of interest with your first question. People learn to ignore what they're used to seeing; a competing recruiter with a good tagline is going to try and keep that tagline as secretive as possible, no? Having something like, "PhD Program at University X wants you!", might seem eye-catching the first time until you notice that a lot of schools are using a similar subject title.

The second question depends on what type of student you typically attract, what type of student you want to attract, and their current outcomes. A student who wants to be a professor at an R1 post-doctorate is not going to care about teaching opportunities, and someone who is pursuing a PhD to teach isn't going to care so much about research facilities. If you have a segmented application pool with defined interests, then just highlight those aspects that would be most attractive. Some things like generous funding may seem like a good strategy (at least for making people consider your program), but what you will likely see are objectively strong applicants gaining admission to your university without perhaps the best fit.

My program, for example, made sure to highlight the collegiate environment and emphasized all the publications being churned out that include graduate students (and many times as first authors in top journals in my field). They also focused on targeting students who were in it only for research by emphasizing that in the prospective student page of our website, and that prior experiences (i.e., teaching, etc.) wouldn't be a negative, but those would be discounted relative to research experiences.

Something you can try is offering application fee waivers, or if you guys are masochistic, offer a pre-application (free, of course) to potential applicants so that they can be pre-screened. If you're fairly honest about your evaluations (and these prospectives know) and actually do encourage strong applicants to apply whereas you don't to 'weaker' applicants, then people may opt to pre-apply. If you can then discriminate application fee waivers to those stronger applicants, this may at least decrease their marginal cost enough to throw their application your way. I know University of Rochester did something similar to this (though via professor referrals) where they offered fee waivers to students that professors marked as 'highly competitive'. I ended up getting a waiver, but I didn't use it since it was extra work (writing another personal statement) and not a program/city I'd even attend if it were the only school that accepted me.

Some other things to note (especially for the sciences): if you do rotations first year, note it. If your program has a lower attrition rate relative to the field, definitely highlight that. Placement record, if good, note that, too. Also, if you guys tend to place into industry more, that is sometimes more attractive to applicants in the sciences and engineering disciplines, too. Some programs seem to not report non-academic placements, which makes it seem as though the program doesn't have bridges to industry.

Anyway, hope at least some of that helps!

[Behavioral]

Here's an example of the pre-application I was talking about:

Penn State's Industrial Engineering: http://www.ie.psu.edu/academics/graduate/PreApp/PreApplication.cfm

[Eigen]

We actually do have a no-fee pre-application, with a guaranteed week turn-around time. I think it's a great idea, I'm glad to see other places doing it as well. We have a pretty liberal application fee waiver policy as well.

The thoughts overall were helpful- certainly some food for thought.

I'm not so worried about the content (we've got a good group co-writing it), but the subject line. All the good content in the world is worthless if no one reads it!

I'm sure programs are secretive about their recruiting, that's actually why I was asking here- there are a lot of people who've gone through this and gotten a range of different recruiting e-mails. I don't want to steal anyone's special tagline, but it would be nice to see if there are any particular pluses or minuses that people remember- things that really turned them off or they found helpful.

[robot_hamster]

This is just my personal preference, but I am attracted to schools that appear warm and inviting. Not sure how you would portray that in a recruiting e-mail, but I think it is something worth exploring. Obviously you would have to do it in a way that wouldn't over attract applicants that aren't a good fit, as Behavioral mentioned.

[ZeChocMoose]

Is this just for the PhD? Do you survey the students who are admitted, but chose not to come -or- that start an application, but do not submit it? You can get really helpful information from student surveys assuming that you design the survey carefully and you get a good response rate.

Are there non-academic factors that you can emphasize? If your program is competing against some of the top programs and people tend to chose the top program over yours you might need to highlight other factors-- such as location (is there something special about it? do people want to live there?), strong ties to industry (assuming that a good proportion of students go into non-academic jobs when they graduate), family-friend atmosphere (if you attract students that are married or have children), stipend vs. cost of living ratio (assuming that it is high), etc.

Instead of an email recruitment strategy-- you might want to think about inviting people to a webinar with current students and/or faculty or embedding a short recruitment video in an email. Those tend to be more interactive and interesting.

Does your program have a subfield that is particularly strong? Sometimes programs will try to attract applicants that are interested in that subfield and emphasize through a number of academic metrics how strong that particular subfield is especially if your program is seen as not as strong academically as some of the top programs.

You say you want to emphasize facilities, funding, and a strong publication record because those are you strengths. How do you know those are the characteristics that your applicant pool is looking for? I would want to make sure that I understood the pool before I start crafting my recruitment strategy.

Edited November 18, 2011 by ZeChocMoose

[OH YEAH]

There are two things that would attract me:

- Student profiles. Namely, give me the stats of a student currently in the program or recently graduated. If you can show me a number of students that have graduated and gone to top positions, that says something about the quality/influence of the program/professors. Likewise, if the current students are publishing in top venues consistently, that's a plus -- I would probably be publishing in the same venues if I was working with these students and their advisers. Let me know if they've won any major awards. I don't want to know about their hometown, what they like to do in their spare time, just the stats.

- A profile of a strong professor who would be willing to chat with me.

I don't know if people care about "facilities" or not (I am a theoretical computer scientist). I *surely* don't care about "funding", if you don't have "funding" then you are not even in the running. Strong publication record? Well, OK, if it is students that are putting out these publications, and they are recent, sounds good. I also don't care about no fee applications; what is most important to me is my time. If you're willing to fill out my application for me, take an SOP tailored to a different school, then you might get an application from me.

But really, there are only three things I care about when looking at a program: the reputation, the professors, and the students. You guys don't have #1, or you wouldn't be spamming people. If you have #2, then show me you are interested in recruiting me by letting me talk to the people I want to work with--that says way more than some generic mass e-mail. If you have successful #3s, then show me the mirror: implicitly tell me that I am going to be just as successful as the students you have and just graduated.

Edited November 18, 2011 by OH YEAH

[Eigen]

You say you want to emphasize facilities, funding, and a strong publication record because those are you strengths. How do you know those are the characteristics that your applicant pool is looking for? I would want to make sure that I understood the pool before I start crafting my recruitment strategy.

Helpful suggestions, most of the way around.

I'm basing the current emphasis on what we (as current students) choose the school based on, assuming we want to attract other applicants like ourselves. Realizing that we're a small sample size, I wanted to reach out to a larger community here.

Facilities are important for the lab sciences, and especially so in our case- it's necessary to show that even though we're a small program, we have the facilities to support top-tier research. When I say funding, I'm not talking about funding graduate students- that's a given- but rather the stream of NSF/NIH/DoD/DoE funding that the department gives- again, I think it's important to show that a lot of the national funding agencies have a good bit of faith in us, and that we're not hurting for money to fund our endeavors. And since in chemistry nearly all papers published are graduate student first authors, emphasizing top tier publications is, by default, emphasizing a heavy graduate student publication record.

I'm more of a fan of in-person recruiting, both through conferences and bringing prospective students to the campus to visit- but I can't deny the importance of other marketing as well. So far, I'd say our success rate at getting people to apply after personal contact is quite high- we're a solid program with a lot of positives. It's expanding that reach to other students that's important.

Thanks again for the suggestions.

[Sigaba]

The big question to start off with, is what subject line to use that will help people actually *read* the recruitment e-mail without deleting it.

Maybe a catch phrase on par with the University of Puget Sound's "How does Puget Sound?"

The next is, what would you say are the most important points to emphasize in getting people to at least consider our program? The things I think we should focus on are facilities, funding, and our strong publication record.

IMO, there's a great deal to be said for a program that is looking to move up in "the rankings" and has a good plan to achieve that goal. Find a way to communicate to potential applicants that they can get in on the ground floor (so to speak) of being an important part of the process.

Also, if your program offers a high level of collegiality, point that out.

Finally, as you're a small program, it may be worth while to do some "counter programming." That is, put something out there that will deter the types of graduate students you do not want.

My $0.02.

Edited November 19, 2011 by Sigaba

[eco_env]

I'd think that as long as they are interested in getting a chemistry grad degree, they'll pay attention to your emails. All the emails I got were from programs unrelated to my interests, so I didn't pay attention, but I certainly would look at an email if it said something like "U of A Ecology Program: List of Faculty accepting students".

[StrangeLight]

give them your statistics on job placements in the last 5 years. be specific: list both the university and the job position, since getting a 1-year adjuncting gig at an ivy is not as good as a tenure-track job at a state school satellite campus and you don't want to misrepresent your placement statistics by only naming the institutions.

if you can demonstrate that everyone graduating from your program gets a TT job within 2 years of completion, people will apply there. if you can't say that about your school, well.... then i guess you shouldn't mention placement at all.

(or, if lots of people move to industry from your field, list those jobs and companies as well).

[Eigen]

give them your statistics on job placements in the last 5 years. be specific: list both the university and the job position, since getting a 1-year adjuncting gig at an ivy is not as good as a tenure-track job at a state school satellite campus and you don't want to misrepresent your placement statistics by only naming the institutions.

if you can demonstrate that everyone graduating from your program gets a TT job within 2 years of completion, people will apply there. if you can't say that about your school, well.... then i guess you shouldn't mention placement at all.

(or, if lots of people move to industry from your field, list those jobs and companies as well).

I can't think of any programs where everyone gets a TT job within two years of completion. That would be insane! The job market is too saturated for that.

[qbtacoma]

I like what eco_env suggested about the subject line: it would make me read a recruitment email if I could quickly look over it and determine basic fit. (Obviously the email should also include a sentence or two about the available prof's research.) I remember getting recruitment emails which mentioned money in the subject line, and those always seemed desperate to me, so don't lead with that. I would be happy to read about a program's funding in the text of the email itself, though.

About the University of Puget Sound: gah, is that their recruitment tagline now? That's cheesy and awful! (I'm allowed to say that because it's my alma mater.) At least it gives a nod to the fact that no one outside the Pacific Northwest knows what the Puget Sound actually is.

[Behavioral]

I can't think of any programs where everyone gets a TT job within two years of completion. That would be insane! The job market is too saturated for that.

I don't know if you were being specific to just Chemistry or to all fields, but the one program related to my field is as close to perfect as one could imagine in terms of % placed and the prestige of those respective programs:

http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/phd/fields/econ/placements.html

[Eigen]

I may be missing it on there, but I don't see either a placement percentage (although I'm assuming it's high) or a timescale.

I'd think that's probably one of the program areas (econ) that has the best job market at the moment, as well. But are there any english/history PhD programs that have a 100% TT rate within two years of graduation?

In the sciences, it's not the TT placement rate that's an issue so much as the time. Most biological sciences are pretty much strapped into ~4 year postdocs following graduation, so within two years very few people have TT positions. In chemistry, you'd just be coming on the market in two years.

I completely agree that giving placement stats is good, especially if they're good- but to my mind, a blanket "unless you're placing all graduates in TT positions within two years of graduation, don't mention placement" is a bit off.

Edited November 21, 2011 by Eigen

[Behavioral]

From 1978 through 2009 the Stanford Business School Economics and Decision Sciences program, graduated just over 70 students

If you take an average of 2-3 graduates per year (over 31 years) and look at the placement data over the past 7 years (23 placements since 2004), then I'd make a pretty confident inference that upon graduation, you'll have a professorship lined up. Even the 'worst' school (ITufts in this case) is a relatively strong placement given Tufts' research in the other social sciences and undergraduate strength. Even if there's been an increase in the number of students graduating in recent years than compared to the inception of the program, knowing that when you complete your degree you won't just have a job essentially lined up for you, but that it's a top job (100% placement to R1 universities since 2004), then that's the main selling point right there.

Just looking at the last 4 graduates in 2010 and 2011, they're all assistant professors at R1s:

http://ase.tufts.edu/econ/faculty/chiang.asp

http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/alexander.frankel/vita/cv.pdf

http://www.econ2.jhu.edu/people/Jeziorski/cv.pdf

http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/byenmez/papers/Yenmez_Bumin_CV.pdf

I'd do a search for all of them, but I'm guessing all those placements are directly after their PhD.

But I digress. Economics is much like business PhD where most graduates from credible programs forego the PostDoc and head straight to professorships. I know at my PhD program, 0 graduates in the past 9 years at least have taken a post-doc (maybe longer, but I only have data from the last 9 years) and that all graduates who went onto the academic job market got placed somewhere, though the distribution of placements is nowhere near as homogeneously strong as Stanford's EA&P program.

[StrangeLight]

I can't think of any programs where everyone gets a TT job within two years of completion. That would be insane! The job market is too saturated for that.

you're right, i shouldn't have written "everyone." in history, the top programs have placement rates in the 70%ile. and "top program" doesn't at all conform to the traditional top 10 rankings. harvard and princeton are down in the 40-50% placement range, which is why they won't publish their placements. 'cause it ain't good.

but yeah, i misspoke/miswrote when i said "everyone." should've said "almost everyone."

[Eigen]

Makes more sense :-D I was wondering if History was doing a heck of a lot better in placement than I thought it was!

Thanks again for all the suggestions- I'm going to try to use them to modify what I used at the last conference into some document that might be actually useful to receive as a potential applicant.

[isobel_a]

I know what I'd like to see, as someone who is being recruited:

1) Evidence that there's a collegial environment at your school. After some of the experiences I've had in my recent department, I want to be damn sure I'm not going to walk into a political nightmare that's going to sabotage my ability to learn and enjoy the program's offerings.

2) Something resembling evidence that females aren't singled out or treated like 2nd class citizens within the program.

3) Stats on current students. Profiles of current students. Videos made by current students promoting their research. That sort of thing.

[Safferz]

you're right, i shouldn't have written "everyone." in history, the top programs have placement rates in the 70%ile. and "top program" doesn't at all conform to the traditional top 10 rankings. harvard and princeton are down in the 40-50% placement range, which is why they won't publish their placements. 'cause it ain't good.

but yeah, i misspoke/miswrote when i said "everyone." should've said "almost everyone."

Wow. I wouldn't have guessed Harvard and Princeton had such low placement rates. Any idea why?

[eco_env]

2) Something resembling evidence that females aren't singled out or treated like 2nd class citizens within the program.

seems more reasonable to look for evidence to the contrary- why would you assume that they single females out?

[ktel]

seems more reasonable to look for evidence to the contrary- why would you assume that they single females out?

Rhetorical question? She's obviously bitter about a past experience

[StrangeLight]

Wow. I wouldn't have guessed Harvard and Princeton had such low placement rates. Any idea why?

numerous reasons. the job market isn't good, and that doesn't exempt the ivies. many graduates probably aren't applying for every job available because they think their degrees mean they don't have to work at community colleges or as adjuncts or they don't want 4/4 teaching loads. speaking of 4/4 teaching loads, most entry-level professorships have high teaching loads and they want candidates with actual teaching experience. students at ivies may teach only once during their years, may only serve as a grader, may never teach a stand-alone course, etc. schools want some evidence of teaching ability, and not all ivy grads have that experience. some programs/subfields within programs push their students into very conservative arguments in their research, but a lot of research-oriented professorships are looking for someone with more cutting edge work. so, the lack of teaching experience (from any school, not just princeton or harvard) can kill a job applicant and if the only research you have going for you pursues a very intellectually conservative line, the research-oriented jobs will pass over you as well.

there's other stuff, too. many professors (at any school, but especially at the "top" programs) think it isn't their job to mentor graduate students through the job application process. many of them never get the chance to give mock job talks and mock interviews, they're never told how to network, how to redirect interview questions in the best possible way, they're never told explicitly what NOT to say. without that guidance through the job market, students from any school, even "the best," will fail, but a lot of profs at the big programs assume the degree name will be enough so they never really prepare students for the market.

also, just because a prof is at an ivy or top program doesn't necessarily mean they're the best or most well-connected scholar in their field. a lot of the top scholars are at state schools, semi-private schools, non-ivy privates, and their networking connections go a long way towards getting students into the job interview stage.

so, big name programs' low placement rates are due to a multitude of factors. it doesn't make them terrible. it just means that, right now, they don't seem to be producing the most hirable job candidates. i think it's unfortunate, because it seems like both professor and applicants to their grad schools believe that school name and reputation will carry them onto some sort of tenure-track employment, but it doesn't, and remedying that requires "top" programs to swallow their pride and groom their PhDs for the job market.

[isobel_a]

@eco_env

I wouldn't assume that a program is full of sexism/sexists/discrimination/harassment - but I would want to be sure before I jumped into a program and got 3 years and thousands of dollars deep.

Most women applying to grad programs in STEM fields are strongly advised to watch out for potential problems with ambient sexism when visiting/interviewing at prospective programs. I'm surprised that you take umbrage at my comment, frankly, since it's such a common concern.

[Eigen]

Just as a note, you mention STEM fields as a general thing, but in this case they really don't fit together. Not all of the STEM fields are male-dominated, with many microbiology/molecular biology/neuroscience/psychology programs being more heavily weighted towards female faculty and grad students. Also, since you're talking STEM fields, you probably won't be going thousands of dollars into anything, since the pervasive wisdom (outside of a narrow selection of MS programs) is to not go if you aren't funded.

I think it's a good idea to keep an eye out for it, but it seems a negative assumption to assume it's there in the absence of evidence to the contrary (what you seem to be suggesting).

Edited December 31, 2011 by Eigen