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Recruitment & Retention

 

Enterprise Rent-A-Car: Ahead of the Curve With Personalized Recruitment

Lindsay Edmonds Wickman

 

Recruitment strategies need to connect with students on many different platforms to be successful. Enterprise Rent-A-Car has done just that, only they are ahead of the game — their diversified, high-touch recruitment model has been in place for the past decade.

“We’re meeting our hiring goals, and it fits with the culture and the model of our business,” said Marie Artim, assistant vice president of recruiting. “As long as we are meeting our goals, then we want to stay focused on [what] mirrors and matches our culture.”

In 2007, the company hired approximately 8,000 recent graduates, and Artim said the company’s strategy is to be in as many places as possible. Recruiters are on campus participating in job fairs, information sessions, interviews and meetings with student organizations. In addition, the company has developed its Web site and augmented its internship program.

“It’s a combined approach,” she said. “I think that none of those specific areas of recruiting really work well in a vacuum. Whereas career fairs are great for branding and meeting people, on-campus interviews in and of themselves wouldn’t be successful if you didn’t have all the outreach prior.”

Enterprise uses a decentralized recruiting method in which approximately 225 recruiters actively visit 800 to 1,000 campuses to recruit for the company’s management training program. It has been recognized as the largest recruiter of college graduates in the country and the best place to launch a career, Artim said.

The company’s recruitment method has evolved to meet students’ technological needs. As a result, they have created an extensive, interactive company career Web site that provides information and videos about the Enterprise culture.

“We have video clips throughout the Web site,” she said. “If we’re on the page about our diversity, there’s a clip that speaks to that. It helps to build who we are as a culture, and people can see our personality a bit.”

While Enterprise has added technology to its approach, it still is strongly committed to the personal side of recruitment.

“From a college recruiting strategy, we’re seeing a few things with this generation,” Artim said. “They have access to a lot of information and a lot of technology, so they’re pretty well educated in their job search. But what we’ve found is they also are a group that really values the high-touch side as well as the high-tech side. So, we’ve almost gone back to the basics of picking up the phone and calling people and having a personal touch to our recruitment versus it being real high tech and online driven.”

Another trademark of the new generation is a preference for teamwork. Enterprise incorporates a team environment into its recruitment activities on campus by visiting student groups and organizations, and making sure the students understand how teamwork fits into the Enterprise brand.

Artim said the most important thing when cultivating a recruitment strategy is understanding your client, the student.

“I think with any organization, if you are going down the path of college recruiting, it’s best to start small and really build a process and build a plan,” Artim said. “Take advantage of relationships and then really do your homework as far as knowing who your candidates are, what’s important to them [and] what you need to be communicating.&rdq 

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