Nov
17
Recruiting & PR
November 17, 2008 | Tagged Auburn, recruiting, student | Leave a Comment
Many people do not link recruiting to public relations, but they have so much in common with each other. Recruiting is the act of enrolling or seeking to enroll people in a certain school or profession.
There are so many organizations and businesses that recruit players or employees. One of the most known organizations that use recruiting is in the military. The Army, Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard all go to different high schools and colleges to recruit eager men and women to sign up. They have a specialized “marketing message” they want to get out to the people. Joining the military is a big decision, so the recruiters definitely need to know what to say to persuade people to sign up. Offering men and women a paid way into college is definitely an appeal recruiters use. Another appeal is talking to people about the money they could make by joining the military. Whatever message they send out to the people, military recruiters have their work cut out for them.
Another category of recruiting is sports recruiting. Recruiting for a sport is a big responsibility. It is not hard to get people to want to join a sports team. The hardest part for sports recruiters, in my opinion, is who to choose from in the very long list of possible candidates. There are times though that recruiters, for a particular sports team, are competing for one, outstanding candidate. An example of this was when Tim Tebow was going through the recruiting process. Both Alabama and Florida wanted Tebow really bad. I remember what a big deal that was for both universities. As we all know, Florida ended up getting him. I know the recruiters for Florida were working overtime on that case. Think of the recruiters who wanted to get Michael Jordan to play for the Chicago Bulls, that was probably a tough one. Sports recruiters, just like military recruiters, have to use a specialized “marketing message” to appeal to certain sports stars.
For-profit organizations also use recruiting efforts. During a couple of my classes, a business recruiter came into the class and started talking about the different aspects of working for the company he was representing. The recruiter made the company sound so good. Even though, beforehand, I had no desire to work for this company, I started questioning if I would consider working for the company at any point in my life. The recruiter did a very good job at what he was trained to do.
Non-profit organizations are the last type I will talk about. I think non-profit organizations have it the hardest out of all the different types. Most non-profit recruiting efforts are for volunteers. A person has to have a strong, personal interest in an organization to volunteer to work for them.
Even though there are differences in recruiting and public relations, there are so many similarities. Both want to raise awareness for the product, service or organization they represent. Public relations and recruiting can definitely be classified as two related actions.