Board Blog: Countdown to Fall

Last Updated on August 5, 2015 by askcbiorg

It’s just a matter of weeks or days now.

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Warren Kozireski, CBI Immediate Past President

Colleges and universities (and high schools) across the country swing open their doors for another academic year. And, as student media entities, we are all greatly anticipating a great influx of new members.

Hopefully you’re not just waiting for them to walk in the door, but instead are actively marketing and recruiting. But if you were unhappy with how recruitment went last year and you do the same thing you did last year, why would you expect anything to change?

Some of the ideas below may be old-hat to some, but feel free to use a few to enhance your recruitment efforts and, with any luck, welcome a few future Board members or even a future station manager.

• If your station only hangs posters and flyers around campus I have a question—when was the last time you stopped to read a flyer on a bulletin board? Not that you shouldn’t do them, but it can’t be the only thing you do.
• Send a recruitment flyer and email individual faculty members in related majors with recruitment meeting information—you do have the time date and place for your meeting already set don’t you? Think beyond the Communication department as well—Political Science for News, Sports Management for Sports, Theatre for Production and talent, Computer Science for Website, Engineering for engineering and behind the scenes people, etc.
• Set up a schedule for your key returners to go speak to lower division classes in the first week to target freshmen and sophomores. Email the professor in advance to ask if you can have two minutes to pitch your media and give out meeting info. Most will allow you to.
• First days of classes, meet early in the morning and chalk every classroom on campus with a “save” box with your recruitment meeting info. As students eyes wander, they’ll see it.
• Check on any campus social media site posting rules and use them if you can—most freshmen don’t yet know any better and are on them at least early in their careers.

There are lots of other recruitment ideas, but I don’t want to give away the whole CBI-Minneapolis session.

The real work starts after you get them in the door with retaining them, but that’s a whole other topic.

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