What Today's Students Really Want – And How to Attract Them

Based on Brainstorm’s most recent survey of more than 24,000 Canadian students, this presentation will highlight key changes in the interests, preferences, and expectations of your target candidates and how they have evolved in recent years.

Are you still recruiting with tactics and messages from 2020? When it comes to careers, the planet has shifted and every employer needs to understand what drives students’ decisions today.

After this presentation, you’ll be far better prepared to build, or re-build, your talent attraction strategy.

Read More

The 10 Pillars of a Best-in-Class Campus Strategy

How do you build a best-in-class early talent acquisition program to ensure your organization can attract and hire the right talent? The reality today is that most organizations are trying to do more with less. This means that you must invest limited resources on the right priorities from day one.

In this interactive workshop, participants will be introduced to the Campus Talent Ecosystem Model that encompasses the 10 pillars that drive success on campus. Next, participants will use the Campus Talent Acquisition Scorecard to evaluate their current campus strategy across 63 criteria under those 10 pillars.

The impact will be immediate: participants will see both problems and opportunities that were previously hidden and have a tool to start a constructive dialogue and goal setting with colleagues. Don't miss this opportunity to fast-track improvements to your campus strategy and your success on campus.

Read More

10 Barriers to Hiring the Best on Campus (And How to Remove Them)

Many employers aren't even aware of the barriers that prevent them from maximizing their impact on campus. Others are aware of roadblocks but underestimate how these limit their ability to attract top talent.

Through Brainstorm's research, training, and consulting work with hundreds of employers – and partnerships with campuses across the continent – we see the common challenges that prevent employers from communicating clearly with the right candidates in the most effective ways.

In this interactive session, Graham will spotlight these 10 barriers and share actionable ideas for how employers of all sizes (and with any budget) can overcome them to improve hiring success and support their organization's strategy and early talent goals.

Read More

Campus Recruitment Outlook: Insights & Benchmarks in Student Hiring (Canada only)

Discover the latest insights from the 2025 Campus Recruitment Outlook Report, based on a survey of employers across Canada.

In addition to an analysis of recent hiring trends and the forecast for the year ahead, this presentation will share key student hiring benchmarks; the top challenges employers face when recruiting; preferred marketing tools and channels; and, insights into employers’ views and experiences with today’s students.

In the quickly evolving world of campus recruitment, you won’t want to write your next strategy without these insights!

Read More

The Career Interests & Experiences of Today's WIL Students

Brainstorm Strategy Group has conducted extensive research with Canadian students for two decades. Over the past five years alone, Brainstorm has surveyed more than 100,000 university and college students in Canada exploring their career and work-integrated learning (WIL) interests, intentions, and aspirations.

Join Brainstorm's president and lead researcher, Graham Donald, as he uncovers the experiences of WIL students on campus; their expectations of their post-secondary education; and, how their career plans and interests differ from non-WIL students. Further, he will discuss some of the very significant changes in students’ career goals and preferences that have developed over the past few years.

This presentation will launch conversations between you and your colleagues while also providing you with reliable data to support your understanding of today’s students.

Read More

Using the Ecosystem Model to Advance Your Employer Relations Function

Is your employer relations strategy delivering measurable results such as increased employer engagement, more job postings, higher career fair participation?

In this hands-on session, you’ll explore the Employer Relations Ecosystem Model to gain a holistic view of employer relations. Next, you’ll use the Concise Employer Relations Scorecard to assess your current employer relations operations and receive a customized summary to identify your team’s strengths and areas for improvement.

With your results in hand, you’ll discuss your strengths and challenges and seek strategies and tactics to improve your employer relations function.

Read More

Strategic Employer Relations: Driving Results with Marketing, Sales & Service

In today’s evolving recruitment landscape, building and maintaining strong employer partnerships is more critical than ever. This workshop focuses on the three core components of a successful employer relations strategy: Marketing, Sales, and Service. By examining each of these three pillars, participants will learn how to create awareness, secure employer partnerships, and provide exceptional service that leads to long-term success.

Participants will leave the session with a better understanding of how to align marketing, sales, and service to build a balanced and successful employer relations strategy that meets institutional goals.

Read More

Why a Sales Mindset is the Key to Happiness (and Success) in Employer Relations

A sales mindset in employer relations is not about being pushy, short-sighted, or transactional – it’s the opposite. It’s about aligning your motivation with your mission to support your students; clearly communicating your value proposition; deeply understanding your employer clients’ needs and interests; and investing in long-term relationships.

As an employer relations professional, it’s your job to be a great listener, behave ethically and authentically, address your clients’ concerns directly, and provide solutions to their challenges. It’s also your job to focus on numbers – leads, conversions and re-engagements, among others – and enjoy watching your numbers grow while accolades from your employer partners flow in.

Join us for this workshop as we discuss reframing employer relations from a sales mindset and explore how that can not only improve your results, but also your career fulfillment.

Read More

Campus Recruiters’ Biggest Challenges in 2025 (And How to Solve Them)

How many students and grads employers hire is often more closely related to how successful they are at hiring than it is to things such as business growth or expansion. The easier it is for them to recruit your students – and the more impactful those students are once hired – the more hiring they will do.

The message is clear: we have to make successful hiring as easy as possible.

This presentation will focus on employers “Top 10” barriers to success and facilitate the development of solutions and advice that can be delivered via a consultative approach on campus.

Participants in this session will become better prepared to respond to employers’ concerns and issues and provide creative solutions to help employers find the right match on their campus.

Read More

Elevating Your Office's Performance: Defining Your Strengths & Challenges

Is your office operating at its full potential? This session invites post-secondary leaders to conduct a brief “audit” of their office and its functions, helping you prioritize efforts for maximum impact and align your team behind shared goals.

You’ll explore key questions such as:

• How clear is the focus of your work?
• Are you leveraging your strengths as a leader?
• How effective is communication within your office?
• Do you have documented, repeatable processes in place?
• Are your tools and resources enabling success?
• Are you creating space for innovation and new initiatives?
• Are you using internal partnerships to expand your reach and achieve more?

This session provides a framework to evaluate your office’s performance, identify areas for growth, and set priorities that align with strategic goals.

Read More

Strategic Planning: Redefining Your Mission

Graham Donald has successfully facilitated the strategic planning process for dozens career and student services offices at colleges and universities across North America.

Whether you are needing a full redevelopment of your strategic plan or simply want an expert to lead a half-day strategy refresh session, we can build a customized plan for your team.

Read More

24,000 Voices: New Insights into the Canadian Student Experience

The annual Brainstorm Student Interests Survey collected opinions and insights from 24,700 current university and college students in 2024.

This massive research study includes students across all disciplines and levels of study. It explores students’ decision-making when choosing an institution, a major, and a career; it provides a deep-dive into their experiences, influencers, and expectations for the future.

For 2024, the research dives deeper than ever into the student experience; their use of (and thoughts about) AI; and, their plans for after they graduate.

Whether your focus is recruitment and enrolment, marketing and communications, teaching and learning, or ensuring student success, you'll find invaluable current insights in this feature presentation.

Read More

What is Strategic Enrolment Management and Why Does It Matter to Me?

Wondering what SEM is or need a quick refresher? Not sure how SEM is relevant to your role? Wishing you could have a bigger impact on student success?

Just about everyone working in post-secondary is passionate about seeing students thrive at their school.

SEM-thinking can make this happen. But to be successful, it’s essential that everyone who works with students (behind the scenes or on the front line) gets involved.

In this workshop, you’ll gain a better understanding of what Strategic Enrolment Management is all about – and why everyone has a role to play.

We’ll get you oriented with a simple explanation of SEM and outline why it’s so important for everyone in your institution to understand how their role fits in the SEM puzzle.

You’ll also learn about the benefits of a SEM mindset as well as some of the potential challenges institutions may face as they try to become more strategic in their attraction, recruitment, and retention of students.

Responsibility for SEM does not belong to any individual or team – it belongs to everyone on campus. This workshop provides an introduction and entry-point for all members of faculty and staff to become contributors to your enrolment success – for the sake of your students.

Read More