MBA New Student Recruitment

Best Practices

New student recruitment is a crucial practice for MBA fellowships, especially given the turnover of half of the school's students yearly.

The following ideas are meant to stimulate new and fruitful approaches to New Student Recruitment. It is intended as a living document, i.e., one that is subject to constant revision and improvement.

It should also be noted that what works well on one campus may not work well on a different campus. Therefore, I have provided multiple ideas for various aspects of recruiting.

I recommend that new student leaders be selected by the end of February at the latest for several reasons, including their need to do planning for new student recruitment.

Challenges Faced

To get on student calendars before they are filled: the first month or less of the fall term.

During that same period, the second year students doing the NSO are gearing up for and doing interviews for their final job destination. They are also recruiting for other student organizations and planning events. Bottom line: the second year students have the greatest demand placed upon them at that time.

If teams fail to plan out certain elements of the fall NSO before they leave for summer internships, then it is very difficult for them to do the planning during the summer and those elements won’t happen, e.g., bringing in a big speaker.

Establishing credibility and relevance in the eyes of incoming students: Students may not be certain about the theological basis of a fellowship; they may have been taught a sacred/secular divide in previous experience; they may wonder if what the fellowship has to offer will be relevant to their MBA and future lives. (Response: make sure the IVCF connection is clear and also if there are any professors who would “endorse” the group.)

Target Audience

First year students primarily; generally overwhelmed with opportunities

Retention of non-leader second years (deserving of a whole other best practice paper)

A few second years who were not involved in the fellowship their first year may have had a chance to reflect on their need to be involved over the course of the summer and seek the group out.

Spring

Student club fairs for admit weekends: Be sure to have good presence including: 1st year students (so relationships are formed with incoming students); possibly a banner to look more official; food or give-aways (I’ve donated IV pens or plastic cups); a flyer/brochure on the club itself with items like past/future events, IV affiliation; brochures; examples of books or curriculum that will be used; videos of past speakers if possible; something that will drive them to the website; and a sign up sheet with opt ins for the club listserve, small groups, mentoring, and any other future events. Every student leaders should be able to articulate the club vision in a minute. The vision ought to be clear, short, and memorable, and everyone in the organization ought to know it by heart. A follow up contact within a week would be helpful; otherwise the prospect won’t remember who the person is.

Admit weekend events: In addition to the club fairs, some fellowships have an additional coffee or mealtime as the schedule allows. Try to get it publicized through official channels.

Website: New student leaders should update this prior to admit weekend. Although most of my fellowship attendees have never gone to the club website, the few ones that have are often the strongest Christians who were seeking it out. Pictures of the new student leaders would be helpful so prospects can ID them during admit weekend and the following fall term. Student leaders in charge of the website could visit other fellowship’s sites to glean ideas.

Ask the school administration if you can mail something out to the incoming class (this has been done at U W for the general grad group).

Have your students monitor Facebook for new incoming students.

Summer

Student leaders should periodically contact prospects from admit weekends. If the prospect ends up at a different MBA program, please encourage him/her to search for the fellowship there as well, possibly asking for permission to pass the name on to the student leaders and/or staff at their future school.

If there is a 1 year program that starts in the summer, consider asking a student leader who is in town for the summer to help catalyze a small group of them. ⮚ Ask known incoming students if they are willing to start posting to the 1st year Facebook things that will gather other believers or connect them to each other early on.

Fall

Multiple events allow for multiple points of initial contact, e.g., a speaker and a retreat and a social event.

In general, at every contact the 2nd year student ought to come away with contact info and some idea of interest of the 1st year student, and the 1st year student ought to come away with a clear picture of the vision of the group and next steps for commitment.

Host a big speaker who will draw the attention of the whole campus as soon as feasible. Primary goals would be to deliver great content and to recruit new members. A greeting system and a follow up system should be worked out in advance. Information on small groups and other future events should be communicated through announcement, written material, and/or follow up contacts. I am starting a database of such potential speakers.

Alternatively, host a kick-off event with a respected professor speaking. ⮚ Host a social gathering. Could be as simple as an ice cream social on campus or at a local restaurant. Progressive dinner in the dorms/apartments. Use a smaller space so there’s a crowding effect and feeling of closeness. Post-church designated meeting at a restaurant for lunch at 12.30 so those with late services can come (multiple Sundays in a row). Retention for many students will be relationship-based and not dependent as much upon the attractiveness of the topics/speakers.

Host a BBQ at a Christian professor’s home.

Student club fairs: same as above admit weekends in the spring.

University-sponsored student services fair: It wasn’t until my 4th year at Chicago GSB that anyone informed me that there is a fair for university services, such as health services, counseling, dean of students, international students, etc. This would be an event that the IV staff would be invited to (or seek to be invited to).

Church connections: Some years the most popular question asked at the fair was about local churches. Besides publishing a list of local churches, student leaders can host new students at their churches. One method is to have a ‘church-of-the-week’ hosted by a 2nd year student who regularly attends both that church and the fellowship. No more than four such Sundays are probably needed. Additionally, note the above idea of having a designated post-church lunch spot for everyone.

Ask local congregations to announce the fellowship’s existence and contact info so attendees might take interest.

A retreat in the first half of the term may attract a few additional students and will certainly cement relationships for all who attend.

Mentoring by 2nd years: Have a signup at all kick off events and www for a mentoring relationship with a 2nd year student. Variations include: not using the word mentoring but connecting (depending upon the culture of the school); having it be 2 on 2 instead of 1 on 1. At Chicago GSB they had an overwhelming number of 1st year students sign up last year for the “2 X 2’s.” For this, each student leader recruited another 2nd year student (non-leader) to meet with two 1st years. Thus, this helped with retention of 2nd years and created some connections between the two 1st years.

Connecting with the IV staff: Some staff make it a point to invite out every single 1st year they meet for coffee. Alternatively, have a “Meet the IV advisor” time where they can sit in the lounge for designated time frames to be available for drop ins.

Move-in help: Fellowship members hang out at the dorm and help new students move in for free.

Place ads in the student newspaper.

Winter

Some 1st year students will return from Christmas break realizing that they were wind-blown leaves the fall term and that they don’t want to repeat that pattern in the winter. Providing easy entry points into the life of the fellowship could result in a few more students.

Checking back with students who seemed too busy in the fall term is advisable.

Other Notes to consider:

1. Good to have Missional Clarity: What is the purpose of the club? Could graph out with a BCG grid of developing believers/community and outreach to non-believers. Can every leadership team member (and 2nd year member) give the elevator speech to a 1st year student who asks, "What's the purpose of the club?" or "Why should I join the club?"

2. The Pitch: In presenting benefits (not just features) of the club to 1st years, there's a balance between talking about benefits to the student vs. fostering a consumer mentality.

3. Various strategies exist for Reaching out to students

Celebrity speaker (ie, bring in athletes, CEO, etc.)
BBQ at popular professor’s house who is an open Christian
Ask a 1st year to be bold and put something out on the 1st year FaceBook or other social platform (recently got 10+ responses at Booth)
Church visits: as a group, go to a new church for several weekends, with a centrally located brunch for everyone who wants to gather irrespective of what church was attended
Marketing shows that the message/offer often needs to be presented 8-9 times before a customer buys: don't put all your marketing efforts into one basket
Having multiple options for next steps will engage more new students, e.g., a weekly Bible study, a wo/men's prayer group, a social event, a retreat, etc.

4. Attraction and Retention of 1st years: Initially, the concept of a fellowship and the content of the programming will be important for many new students, but over time the quality of the relationships will become the main reason people stick with the fellowship.

5. 2nd Year Retention: Unless 2nd years are on leadership team, generally hard for them to be as involved. Can ask them to show up to initial meetings for 1st years to connect with them, plus can ask them to mentor 1st years to keep them involved.

6. Failure to put concerted effort into recruiting new students will result not only in a smaller group this year, but also a smaller pool of candidates for next year's leadership team. In fact, new students should be discreetly assessed for club leadership potential from the beginning since the new leader selection process is ideally finished no later than Feb for quarter schools, and perhaps Dec for semester schools. IV recommends 48 hour follow up with every new contact, offering a next step such as a one-on-one coffee chat, a social event, etc. Generally, there is a 3 week window in the fall to get on people’s calendar

7. Fellowship Positioning/Reputation: Having leaders who are actively involved in other campus leadership positions and a club that contributes to school goals (like a service month at Georgetown) creates credibility to both believers and non-believers. Being seen as an asset by the administration, rather than an insular, resource-sucker, is one potential good goal and makes joining more attractive to 1st years.

8. Overcoming obstacles: time is the most precious commodity for most MBA's. Set a standard from the start – make it regular occurrence & get on people’s calendar early – so people know and can schedule around it.

Curriculum

Most schools are looking for studies that are interactive, relevant to b-school and work, and don't require lots of prep time. A generic Bible study is not value added for MBA's who can get that at church, plus misses the opportunity to go deeper into the experience of being an MBA. A few examples discussed:

About anything by Tim Keller, but especially Every Good Endeavor and Counterfeit Gods. Search for study guides or discussion question online.
IV has a running list of studies, attached. Please contact Mark if you have additions to make for future generations.