COVID, the Great Resignation, and now maybe a recession… a lot has happened in the last few years, and these changes have impacted academic program marketing. Fewer high school graduates are enrolling in college, and career-changers are evaluating educational programs with a curious-but-suspicious eye.
As you’re adjusting to the new demands, there’s one significant change you might not have noticed yet: Colleges, community colleges and universities alike are including something new in their marketing plans. You’ll see it on program pages, department websites, and in marketing materials—both traditional and digital.
What’s this new content we’re seeing everywhere? Information on Careers.
Salary data. Job demand statistics. Education requirements for specific positions.
In fact, the digital marketing firm OHO Interactive tells us this is one of the top changes they see in education providers’ marketing trends. Higher-ed institutions are including careers information for some very good reasons, and those that are including it are reaping rewards in attention, applications and enrollment numbers.
What’s Behind the Career Data Craze?
Many higher ed institutions are raising the bar when it comes to creating and supporting academic programs. Central in this effort is a focus on career outcomes, which need to be directly correlated with the evidence that programs adequately prepare graduates for the real world job market. In some institutions departments proposing new programs have to document proof that the program will be in demand by students that are hyper-aware of the need for career preparation. And in a similar manner, legacy programs also have to prove that majors that were once assumed untouchable still have value and deserve to continue to exist.
Higher ed institutions are now insisting on proof of equitable postsecondary value, demanding data that ensures alignment with employment demands. They are asking questions like:
- What are the career and employment outcomes for students who attended this program?
- What do graduates from this program earn at 1, 5 and 10 years out?
- What is the debt-to-earnings ratio for graduates of this program?
- How long does it take graduates at this institution to see a return on investment, or experience real value for their effort?
Simply put: Prospective students want to understand if, and how, a program will help them meet their career goals. Institutions are adapting to this demand in the program development and review processes as well as in their marketing and recruiting programs.
Why Now?
Why are we seeing careers data in just about everything related to higher ed today? It’s a trend that has its roots in previous recessions, which highlighted the connection between higher education and career success. Remember the term “Shovel-ready graduates?” Given the ever-increasing cost of education, it’s only natural that students want a return on their investment. And they need data to assess the potential ROI. And all of this has only been escalated by the pandemic, to the point where schools can’t afford to ignore career data.
Need a little more convincing? The typical college graduate from a four-year program carries a student loan debt load of $37,500, and those numbers only go up year over year. Unemployment, and even underemployment, make student loan repayment impossible.
What does all this mean?
When prospective students have return of investment and job security on their mind, they look at your academic programs through different eyes. Students want assurance that your program will deliver results. They’re not going to invest tens of thousands of dollars on education unless they are absolutely sure that investment will pay off.
They want to know, for sure, that:
- Job demand exists
- The job they can get will pay enough to justify the investment in education
- Your program delivers the credentials they need to get the job they want
In short, they want assurances of a return on their investment (ROI) if they enroll in your program. And nobody can blame them. To do a proper analysis prospective students need access to reliable data on their chosen career path, and it’s up to the institutions to provide that data.
New Students, New Job Seekers
Today’s students are vastly different from their predecessors. The Washington Post tells us that this new crop of prospective students are considering career preparation and job changes for new reasons.
A New Kind of Career Changer
Higher Ed is accustomed to catering to those seeking a second or third career, often out of dissatisfaction or hitting a wage ceiling. But today’s career changers are looking at additional education through a different lens. They aren’t changing careers just because they feel like doing something different; many have lost their jobs or discovered they can’t make the same level of salary as they did before. Others took advantage of COVID packages to see if they could find something more satisfying. These careers changers carefully scrutinize educational opportunities for evidence that this is a wise and practical investment.
Here’s what a recent survey performed by EducationDynamics concluded of these career changers: “Graduates value schools that offer lower tuition, faster time-to-completion, and free courses first, followed closely by programs tailored to their specific career goals.”
The Newly Aware
Likewise, students who began their academic careers undecided or majoring in some of the softer skills are suddenly aware of some harsh truths.
- Education isn’t free, or even cheap.
- Employers are less inclined to train new employees, preferring that they come to the job with specific knowledge and skills.
- If they’re going to invest in continuing or advanced education, there needs to be a meaningful return on that investment.
The combination of social media and the 24-hour news cycle have opened the eyes of students, and they, like the career changers mentioned above, are adamant that they will not throw away good money on an education that is unlikely to deliver.
Do-It-Yourselfers and the Gig Economy
The pandemic fueled even more people to hang out their shingle, so to speak, and either freelance or start their own business. Social media channels are flooded with stories of successful small business owners and people who hustle from gig to gig. Gallup research tells us that in 2019, prior to the global emergence of COVID-19, 28.2% of the workforce were self-employed for at least part of the year. As of February 2023, the number of gig workers has risen to 36% of the U.S. workforce, according to Velocity Global.
Online skills-focused certificate programs like Kahn Academy are delivering specific knowledge and industry-recognized certifications at a severe discount to traditional college tuition. This feeds the idea that a formal education is no longer necessary for professional success. After all, who needs a degree when you can learn just about anything you need from YouTube?
How Higher Ed Marketing is Adapting
Marketing experts are trained to keep an ear to the ground for even slight changes in traffic and tendency. As prospective students seek answers to their questions about the career potential of a program, institutions are seeking ways to provide that data.
We’re seeing this across the board. Department websites are adding career support pages. Programs are offering job placement services. And more and more programs are adding careers content to their program pages.
More than What First Meets the Eye
The existence of career information on your program pages accomplishes more than the obvious presentation of data. Compelling careers content also enhances:
- SEO
Careers content can help get prospective students to your page because your site shows up in searches for careers-related keywords. A student searching “how to become a GIS data analyst” may find your geospatial information and technology program. This is particularly helpful when your program name isn’t intuitive for searches. - Security
Careers information also helps a prospective student feel comfortable with your program. The longer the student spends on your website reading about your program and career options, the more likely they are to feel like your program is the right fit. You become the familiar option, the program that provided helpful information and earned their trust. You become the obvious best choice. - Ad visibility
Careers data on your program pages provides the keywords on the page that you need to run effective Pay Per Click (PPC) ad campaigns. Google considers your ads to be relevant if the page content matches the keywords in your digital ads, and this is your chance to sync the two and gain the benefits that result. - Confidence that your program provides a solid ROI
Trustworthy careers information creates a compelling justification for enrollment in your program. The correlation between your program and preparation for career advancement is clear.
If Everybody is Doing It, How Can I Compete?
Of course, not every program has caught on to this new trend, but savvy higher education marketers are on it already. When considering how to add careers data to your program pages, you will want to stand out from the crowd by making sure your content is:
- Current
Today’s students are very sophisticated. They know today’s job market moves fast and want to see current information, especially when it comes to statistics about their future. Make sure your career data comes from a reliable source and is no more than a year old.
- Dynamic
Here’s the problem with adding statistics to a static website; you have to manually update it with fresh data on a regular basis or your content will quickly become irrelevant. Dynamically pulling current employment information from reliable sources such as Lightcast (formerly Emsi Burning Glass) ensures that your data is always up-to-date.
- Relevant
Students want to know if your particular program will provide the credentials they need to land a specific career. That means you don’t want to clutter your program pages with irrelevant information about careers that your program doesn’t actually prepare students to pursue.
In this day and age, you can’t take a chance with this; one misstep and your institution will be labeled as misleading. And we all know how damaging a negative review (or social media post) can be.
Conclusion
The world of Higher Education is experiencing unprecedented change. Students are quickly adapting to this new world and so must the marketers who want to reach them. Providing concrete data to illustrate the value of your programs is one way to show prospective students that you respect them and the challenges they face.
And, failure to provide this data means prospects will go somewhere else to find it. Do you really want them leaving your site for this information? No, of course not. You want to keep them on your site, building a relationship that will result in mutual success.
If you’re interested in adding careers information to your academic program website, you’ll want to check out Career Profiles Pro, a simple plugin that populates timely, reliable, relevant careers data onto your website in a searchable and engaging way.
And to take your recruiting to the next level, take a look at our companion plugin that helps you build program pages that actually recruit prospective students into your institution. Program Marketing Essentials delivers all the information a student needs to commit to your programs—in one place—perfectly optimized for SEO and instant enrollment. And when you put the two together the results are. . . amazing!
