Brainstorm trains employers, academic marketing and recruitment and career education professionals to effectively engage Generation Y and manage generational differences.

Workshop topics include understanding Generation Y, marketing, strategy development, best practices in campus recruitment, career services management, and the evolving nature of today’s students and our future workforce.

Becoming Your Best: Keys to Developing a Truly Strategic Campus Recruitment Plan

What does it really take to build a best-in-class campus recruiting program?
How do you secure the necessary resources and identify clear priorities?

In this presentation, you will get a look “under the hood” at the nuts and bolts required to develop a strategic campus recruiting program. This includes key elements such as: building a solid business case and securing executive-level buy-in; engaging key stakeholders both inside and outside your organization; and, involving all areas of your organization that influence campus recruiting.

You will also be introduced to a process for effectively evaluating your existing programs and initiatives. This process will enable you to identify roadblocks that need to be addressed and opportunities that can be capitlized on in order to develop solid strategies for the future.

Whether you are ready to re-invent your program from scratch or are just looking for a nudge ahead of your closest competitor, this presentation will provide you with the tools you need to take a more strategic approach to your campus recruiting.

Why You Need a New Strategic Plan Now! (And How to Make it Happen.)

When change is happening all around you, there’s nothing more comforting than a solid plan with a clear mission, precise goals, and concrete objectives for you and each member of your team. Add to that a good and adaptive process that allows you to re-focus resources and expectations with the changing marketplace and you will be well positioned to stake your claim in the competition for your institution’s shrinking budget.

If your current strategic plan isn’t up to that challenge, then you may find your colleagues are feeling overly stressed, less able to make decisions, and generally less productive – even though they may be working harder than ever. If there was ever a time to throw more tasks on the “stop doing” bonfire to make room for higher priorities, that time is now. But what if those priorities aren’t 100% clear?

Whether you are ready for a complete overhaul of your strategic plan or simply need a little “mission statement therapy,” now is the time to gather your colleagues to revisit your shared objectives, re-assess the marketplace, and gain clarity about your stakeholders’ expectations. Building a strategic plan can help transform your ability to meet your objectives, enhance morale, simplify your communications, reduce your “busy” work, and make your whole office more productive.

Four Generations on the Team: Winning Strategies for New Players

(Presentation for Gen Y candidates or employees)
It is a fact that different people communicate and interact differently in the workplace. Often this is a result of diversity in age and experience. The career success of our newest generation of workers, Gen Y, depends on an understanding of these variations and how to work effectively with colleagues of all ages. This workshop uncovers today’s unique challenge of having many generations in the workplace and provides strategies for learning to work productively and collegially with others. Gen Y has a lot to contribute – and the more they understand their colleagues, the more they will ensure their future success.

10 Key’s to Campus Recruiting in a Recession (and 5 Reasons to Increase Your Recruiting Now!)
Is your organization reducing its investment in recruiting?
Are you looking for more effective ways to hire on campus with less money?

Now is the time to increase your campus recruiting, but how do you do so if your budget has been slashed? The first step is to build a solid business case for boosting your campus hiring, including a plan to do so at a lower cost.
During this presentation, you will learn the 5 reasons your organization should be augmenting campus hiring programs so that you can build the support you need internally. With a solid plan in place, you will be ready to utilize the 10 keys to better recruiting during the current recession, including numerous cost-effective (and even no-cost) ways to recruit on campus. This session will help you attract the best candidates to your organization on a shoestring budget.

Marketing to Students: Twice the Effectiveness with Half the Effort

Why do so many students feel they don’t need help from their career centres or co-op offices? You know that your team delivers valuable services, but many students are not convinced. Why are so many missing out?

This workshop explores some of the fundamentals of marketing your programs and services to students with a goal of reducing the amount of time and resources you invest in that marketing. Before leaping into social media strategies, creating new print materials, or re-writing your website, you need to start here.

You will re-visit some of the essentials that every member of your staff should know, including a simple method for developing your marketing message and the credibility issues that affect all career educators. In the end you will learn how to dramatically increase the effectiveness of your marketing.

Beyond Marketing: 12 Keys to Dramatically Increase Student Engagement in Career Development

Whether your goal is getting students more deeply involved in their career development or simply getting them through your door in the first place, the challenge you face is well beyond the basics of marketing. And it’s a challenge faced by most career centers. While clear messaging, attention-grabbing promotions, and great programming will help, successfully reaching your students starts much earlier. It begins with focusing your team on your purpose and priorities and it culminates with demonstrating leadership in career education throughout your institution. In between, there are simple steps like working on your credibility and addressing the questions students want answered before they will give you their time. Participate in this workshop and learn 12 key strategies to maximize your student reach. You will come away with the tools you need to dramatically increase your student engagement.