The future of international student admissions is about providing an interactive, personalized, trusted, and seamless experience for applicants to find the right study destination, university, and course for them – enabled by world-class technology.
The average age of those in the Gen Z generation is 16 years old. Gen Z has grown up with access to technology that a decade ago people could only imagine. Smartphones, the internet, and social media have never been more accessible and widely used by Gen Zers! When it comes to studying, Gen Z students are adept at exploring digital resources to understand the admission process, researching studying experiences in a country or city, and planning their tuition and living costs, but they do almost everything online. That said, when it comes to making the biggest decision of their lives (studying abroad) Gen Z students are engaging with trusted brands in education more than ever. And when it comes to trusted brands, quality technology platforms are a must for these students. User-friendly, intuitive, and fast experiences are what Gen Z students expect, and if they don’t find what they are looking for they will go elsewhere.
Globally, there is an ever-growing demand for trusted and established recruitment agents to support universities' diverse student needs. Recruitment agents with innovative education marketing, recruitment technology services, and a wide presence across multiple digital channels are already emerging from the pandemic as channels for universities and colleges when it comes to supporting international student recruitment for Gen Z.
Student recruitment in the current digital arena requires comprehensive student research to build an application platform that integrates different aspects of the complicated and sometimes convoluted student recruitment process. Technology needs to answer questions instantly and in addition to support provided by trusted counselors. Students are seeking technology platforms that must guide them through courses on offer, the admission process, program career outcomes, emerging and popular destination choices, education funding, visa fees, scholarship offers, insurance selection options, tuition fees, and living expenses. Developing platforms that provide the experiences described can take many years and millions of dollars of investment. Platforms that are now providing students a streamlined, quick, convenient, and accessible solution coupled with a personalized support system for students and universities to track the application status in real-time are a must when it comes to choosing a trusted recruitment partner.
The next era of international student recruitment is dynamic and rapidly evolving, consider whether your student recruitment partners are evolving to support your institution’s students.
Top trending education marketing technology solutions for a comprehensive student recruitment experience:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) Solutions and AI Chatbot-as-a-Service: AI has immense power to simplify the admission process and shorten application turnaround time. AI can seamlessly connect and empower high school students, counselors, parents, and university representatives digitally to create fast, reliable, and easy processing of student applications. AI solutions can quickly eliminate unqualified applicants. It can check for incomplete application forms, missing documents for visa processing and pick applications nearing submission deadline on priority. Further, having an AI-powered chatbot can support students with answers to their general queries 24x7 365 days offloading much of the time and effort of university representatives who regularly answer common questions. Another evolving area of AI application is course recommendation engines that are increasingly integrated into student application platforms to provide course choices based on online career aspiration and personality skills assessments.
Online Personality Assessment Tool: Personality skills assessment is vital in giving international students career outcome-based course selection. Many international students come from a different culture and thus have different perspectives and attitudes to program choices. One of the salient features of a personality assessment tool should be its capability to present suitable courses to international students based on their personality traits, attitudes, inter-cultural skills, and behavioral patterns.
Social Listening: Embed social listening in the student recruitment marketing plan for international students to arrive and thrive. Social media is essential for educating potential students about your university. Because the pandemic has opened the door to multiple global education models, students and families have a plethora of opportunities to explore in current times. Engaging students through informative and meaningful content on social media platforms will be crucial to successful student recruitment in the digital age.
Digital Skills Marketplace and Internship-as-a-Service: Developing a future-ready community of prospective international students for the global workplace of tomorrow can give an excellent career headstart to students looking for career-focused study program options. It can also provide a bird's eye view of the employability success of the university's alumni in the industry.
Augmented Reality (AR): Virtual campus tours through AR will define technology tools for international student recruitment. It gives a tremendous engaging experience for the prospective students to learn and know about the university's environment online.
Real-time Student Insights Dashboard: With predictive analytics, it is convenient and quick to generate real-time data insights on emerging student destination preferences, course choices, behavioral patterns, and other trends based on global economic and political changes. It can help institutions adjust their recruitment plans and look for innovative ways to address the gaps and challenges in student recruitment.
Omni-channel Digital Presence: Creating engaging digital content on multiple popular social channels such as Facebook, TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and LinkedIn help in educating and informing the prospective students and parents about the university's progress and development. Prospective students can be kept informed about the new course additions, fee waivers and financial aid, cutting-edge research expertise, rankings, alumni successes, and graduate employability score by corporates. A mobile-first approach, developing interactive student recruitment funnels, and conducting region-specific digital webinars can go a long way in creating a comprehensive digital solution to student recruitment.
What's more - after the recent re-branding of Facebook, the METAVERSE is the new buzzword. The pandemic has immersed Gen Z in digital gaming and online communication through chatting, whether compulsion or otherwise. It will be a trending topic to watch for in the coming months and could become the next game-changer in international student recruitment.
Bringing digital innovation to the forefront of international student recruitment will help institutions use data-driven strategies to identify optimal channels to reach their prospective international students at the right time.
By activating the appropriate digital touchpoints and implementing education marketing technology supported by relevant messaging at the proper time, universities can keep student attention, motivation, and engagement levels high. A well-digitized and integrated student application platform that includes real-time omnichannel engagement will be a critical differentiating factor for successful student recruitment in the future.
AECC Global: AECC Global is a leading global international education consultancy headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. We have supported the study abroad dreams of 50K+ international students, connecting them to the right study opportunities through over 750+ top educational institutions. AECC Global's EdTEch is a unified digital ecosystem that makes international education research and application a seamless self-guided process supported by expert education guidance counselors. AECC Global's strength lies in its 450+ highly committed employees across 38 branches in 14 countries and growing. Please feel free to visit our website for more details www.aeccglobal.com.