How to run a campus hiring drive.

Campus hiring packs a year’s worth of recruiting into a few weeks. You deal with hundreds of students and several colleges. The colleges set the dates, and other companies visit the same campus the same week. The companies that do it well decide almost everything before they arrive, and reply to students faster than anyone else. This guide covers three stages: before, during and after the drive.

Six to eight weeks before: decide what you’re hiring for

Graduates don’t have much work history, so sorting them by résumé mostly tells you which college they went to. Instead, decide what a strong new graduate should be able to do in their first three months.

• Pick three or four skills you can judge from a conversation. For a graduate trainee job, that might be organized thinking, explaining clearly, learning quickly and taking responsibility.
• Set the expected level to beginner or intermediate. You’re hiring for potential. If you judge students by the standard you’d use for experienced hires, nobody passes.
• Write questions that don’t need experience to answer. “Explain a project from your course to someone outside your field” works for everyone. “Tell me about a time you managed a client” doesn’t.
• Settle the numbers. Decide how many offers, which jobs, what pay and which start date. Placement cells will ask, and students decide based on these.

Then choose your colleges. A few colleges, visited properly, usually work better than a long list where you send a slide deck and never follow up.

Working with placement cells

A placement cell is the college office that arranges company visits and job offers for students. The placement officer decides your time slot, your access to students and how your company is introduced. Work with them as a partner, not as an obstacle.

Send them one short document at least three weeks ahead. It should cover:

1. The jobs, locations, pay and start date.
2. Who can apply (branches, graduation year, any must-have requirements).
3. Your process step by step, with dates.
4. How students take the first interview: a link they can open on a phone or laptop, when it opens and when it closes.
5. When students will hear back, and from whom.

Ask the placement officer how they prefer to share links with students, and whether they need a list of who applied. Many colleges closely track how many students get placed. A clear timeline and a promise to share results make you easier to work with next year.

One invite-only link per college

If every college uses the same public link, it’s hard to see which campus is working well. The link can also spread to students you didn’t mean to reach. A separate invite-only link for each college, which only the students you invite can use, solves both problems.

• Copy the same interview for each college. Use the same questions, skills and standard, so students from different campuses are compared fairly.
• Add only that college’s student emails. The placement cell usually provides the list of eligible, registered students.
• Send invitations from your own inbox or through the placement cell. Students trust a message from someone they recognize.
• Check each college’s numbers separately. If many students at one campus open the link but few start, the problem is probably the timing or how it was introduced there, not the students.

Set a closing date for each link that fits that college’s calendar, and say it in the invitation.

During the drive

A drive week involves a lot of people and tasks. A simple schedule helps.

Day one: the talk. Keep the pre-placement talk (your presentation to students) short. Explain the job, show what a real week looks like, and go through the process and dates. Put the first-interview link on the last slide and leave time for questions.

Days one to three: the first interview. Students take the first interview in their own time, on their own device, before the closing date you set. Remind them once, halfway through.

Day four: review. Your team reviews everyone who finished. For each student, they read the reasons behind each score and move the student to next interview, on hold or not this time. Also look at some of the students who were set aside. Nervous graduates sometimes give short answers that make them seem weaker than they are.

Day five: final interviews on campus. Hold them at fixed times. Give interviewers the notes from the first interview, so they can build on it instead of asking the same questions again.

After the drive: offer fast, then keep in touch

Make offers within a few days of the final interview, not a few weeks. Students often accept the first good offer that arrives, and the placement cell may have rules about students holding more than one offer.

Then:

• Tell every student who took part where they stand. Send it through the placement cell if that’s what they prefer. Leaving students guessing hurts your reputation on campus.
• Keep a ranked backup list. Some students will turn down offers. Go to your backup list before running another drive.
• Stay in touch until they start. Graduates who accept in December and join in July have months to change their mind. A short message every month or two, and an invitation to meet the team, helps keep them.
• Share results with the placement cell. Tell them how many offers you made, how many were accepted and how many students joined. It helps your relationship with the college next year.

Common mistakes

• Choosing on grades alone. Grades are easy to sort by, but they say little about how someone works. Use them only as a minimum requirement, then assess the skills you chose.
• Scoring polished English instead of good thinking. Unless the job needs polished English, let students answer in the language they think in. That can be Hindi, English or a mix.
• Long gaps between interviews. Every week you stay silent gives another company a week to make an offer.

Where AI interviews fit

The first interview is where campus hiring teams run out of hours. With LessRounds, each college gets its own invite-only link. Students take the same AI interview, in English or Hindi, whenever suits them before the link closes. Your team then reviews each student’s score for each skill, measured against the beginner or intermediate level you set. Students never see scores, and nobody gets an automatic rejection email. You decide what each student hears.