Inovation in #higheredmarketing means revisiting marketing talent to power groundbreaking strategies and hiring out-of-industry progressive thinkers.
A 21ST CENTURY APPROACH TO MARKETING IN HIGHER ED
THE CLIENT: CMO of a globally recognized New England urban university
MICA Consulting Group recently completed a project with a globally recognized university. The CMO of the university was tasked with restructuring and hiring ten new roles for the internal agency team. As the CMO worked through the needs of the university, MICA took on the role of being the in-sourced partner for the entire project to hire the new positions.
THE CHALLENGE
The university is recognized as a leading innovator in Higher Education. The leadership team has taken an aggressive stance in reorganizing to maximize technology, cutting-edge learning, geographic models, as well as an emphasis on scalability and quality. In order to keep pace with the university’s strategy for innovation, facilitate optimal creativity and “out of the box” thinking, the Chief Marketing Officer was particularly interested in building a team that was not entrenched in traditional Higher Ed approaches. This charge also required that we place a priority on diversity hiring.
THE APPROACH AND SOLUTION
We began by assisting the CMO with developing compelling job descriptions, choosing appropriate corresponding salary specifications and identifying the desired level of experience according to the market for each position. Because diversity was a cornerstone requirement for our client, we collaborated with the university’s HR/EEOC team to understand their specific needs and definitions on this topic to ensure those needs were woven into our recruiting strategy. The CMO also emphasized that high energy, progressive-minded personalities would optimize the culture she wanted to build. This was a critical element of the final candidate evaluation.
Once the strategy was finalized, we began the process of candidate mapping, which is identifying specific skill sets, years of experience and geographic locations. We then conducted comprehensive screening and candidate interviews for the specific needs of each role and managed the entire hiring process from interview scheduling with the CMO and her team all the way to the final offer.
“I don’t know how your team does it, but every candidate has been great. You really get this space and moreover the type of person we are looking for to fit into our team." - Chief Marketing Officer
RESULTS
We facilitated the placement of 6 positions in less than 3 months. In the process, we delivered a qualified, diverse candidate for consideration in every position. As a result, 4 out of 6 of these were hired. These include:
VP Marketing Operations
SR UX Designer
Creative Director
Director of Marketing
Marketing Manager
Digital Designer
NOTABLE OUTCOMES
A fully integrated marketing team equipped to contribute creatively and progressively to the university’s objectives for innovation.
Speed to hire: 11 weeks
Average # interviews: 3 per position
Cost per hire met industry standards for efficiency including volume, speed, and customer satisfaction.