Breaking Down Silos and Collaborating Between Teams

At Saint Mary’s University, we have recently transitioned the responsibility for recruitment marketing from the Recruitment and Enrollment team to External Affairs (central marketing and communications). In this new arrangement, both teams collaborate on this work in an effort to share workload and expertise. We have adopted a model resembling that of an agency-client relationship: Recruitment retains control of the budget, while External Affairs takes the lead on executing the work. In partnership with our external marketing agencies, External Affairs develops and deploys a comprehensive marketing and communications approach that aligns with Recruitment and Enrolment’s recruitment strategy.

The past year of this new relationship has been incredibly successful. Not only did we launch a bold, unprecedented recruitment marketing campaign under this new model, but we also spent the year refining how our two teams—Recruitment and External Affairs—collaborate. Additionally, we worked to better engage the wider campus community in recruitment and marketing efforts. Through cross-campus engagement sessions in the planning phases, two four-day photo shoots involving every faculty, and regular touchpoints with leadership, we successfully strengthened these collaborations.

Through the case study of the development and launch of our new recruitment campaign, this session will outline applicable strategies for breaking down silos that you can then apply to improve collaboration within your post-secondary institution or organization.