Years removed from the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting “great resignation,” colleges and universities continue to struggle to hire qualified employees. As it appears, benefits like family tuition discounting or reimbursement can no longer offset potential drawbacks like limited remote flexibility and comparatively low salary. College admissions and recruiting roles are particularly challenging to fill.
As a 2023 Higher Ed Jobs survey found, 63% of higher education institutions are facing increased hiring demands. At the same time, 39% have seen a decrease in qualified applicants. Staff positions are among the hardest to fill.
The reasons for this challenge are plentiful. According to a 2023 study conducted by CUPA-HR (the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources), enrollment management professionals in younger age groups are among the most likely staff to look for employment elsewhere. Salary and an inability to work remotely are among the most common reasons.
Against that backdrop, fewer employees across departments must take on more responsibilities. This leads to burnout and an increased desire to seek positions elsewhere. Just as important, a lack of qualified admissions staff has the potential to negatively affect student recruitment efforts.
Unable to reach qualified recruiters for answers to their questions, potential students and their families face outdated websites, long voicemail systems, and other barriers. Instead of getting the answers they need at your institution, they’ll look for it elsewhere. Only a strategic focus on improving the student experience can help. Many institutions are realizing that focus means going beyond hiring new staff.
Student Experience Quandary
With fewer employees in enrollment management, addressing student needs and building a positive experience is becoming increasingly difficult. Staff shortages and turnover problems reduce institutional knowledge. New hires, if available, struggle to address in-depth questions on subjects ranging from financial aid to degree requirements for individual majors, fees, and more.
Prospective students and families who cannot get answers to these questions will not only get frustrated but begin to look elsewhere. They’ll look for institutions who can help with those answers—or worse. With confidence in higher education continuing to drop to new lows, more high school graduates than ever are skipping college altogether.
These external factors persist and have contributed to the well-documented college enrollment decline. As fewer students graduate high school, and fewer high school graduates choose college, competition among colleges and universities looking to fill their first-year classes is becoming more fierce than ever. If your institution can’t offer that positive experience from the start, your competitors will gladly fill the gap.
In other words, only colleges and universities that prioritize a positive student experience can remain competitive in today’s higher education landscape. That means finding solutions to the hiring challenges within the admissions and recruitment staff. After all, students who have a positive experience from the first time they contact you will become much more likely to carry that experience through to enrollment and share it with their peers. As a result, your institution reaps the benefits of positive word-of-mouth recommendations.
Opportunities of Digital Assistants in Higher Education
When human resources become challenging to obtain, the right technology alternatives can help. When technology solutions act as a virtual first touch for your institution, they create a positive first impression. As a result, the student’s entry point is a positive experience.
Digital assistants have become increasingly popular in higher education for a reason. Their growth exploded in the largely virtual environments of the COVID-19 pandemic—and has stayed consistent ever since.
In a virtual enrollment management environment, the capabilities of digital assistants have led to an easier way for students to get quick answers. They can communicate with offices without having to pick up the phone or walk into an office. But as the years since COVID-19 have shown, their benefits extend far beyond virtual-first or virtual-only environments.
Think of digital assistants as a front door to your university and admissions office. They’re an opportunity for prospective students to get quick answers to their questions, focusing on virtual channels that have become vital for Gen Z.
Digital Assistants As a Core Communications Tool
Their versatility and ease of use make digital assistants a core tool for reducing the workload of college admissions counselors and recruitment staff. Configure them the right way, and they can answer routine questions, including (but not limited to):
- The timing and details of visit days, like advice about parking, nearby hotels, and other information related to open houses and weekday campus tours.
- Information about campus support services, from tutoring availability for individual majors to information about your health center or counseling availability.
- Financial aid information, including recommendations for scholarships, deadlines for FAFSA filings, or timing of the financial aid offer letter sent to admitted students.
- Information for international students, including visa requirements and deadlines, as well as any special events or virtual visits available in different time zones.
- Information related to orientation and move-in day, from different move-in windows to parking information, nearby hotels for parents to stay, and more.
And that’s not the only benefit of digital assistants. For example, they can also address language barriers with both international students and non-native speakers in the U.S. They offer multilingual services far beyond the capabilities of any human staff. Digital assistants communicate with prospective students and families on a level they’re most comfortable with—regardless of background or culture.
The benefits of virtual assistants, in other words, are additive. Higher education no longer has to rely on human college admissions staff to answer and screen all potential questions from students and their families. These assistants can do the initial screening. Then, they can redirect only questions that are more difficult to answer to get the human touch.
Connecting Virtual Experiences With Human Relationships
Digital assistants can quickly and efficiently answer questions from prospective students and families. Therefore, they play a significant role in addressing the needs caused by staff shortages and turnover in higher education. But in an ideal world, they do not have to work in isolation. Instead, digital assistants are at their best when augmenting the capabilities of the existing college admissions staff. This is especially true in the college admissions office.
Instant Answers
Make no mistake: prospective students appreciate the instant answers that a digital assistant can provide. In fact, they like and prefer chatbot experiences over phone calls, more than any generation before them. But that doesn’t mean they’ll be satisfied never getting in touch with a human as part of their long enrollment journey.
As they go from researching colleges to deciding where to pay their tuition deposit, students will need a direct connection with an admissions counselor in their area. They’ll have in-depth questions about their high school transcripts, family financial situation, and more. Over time, they’ll also appreciate building a relationship with a counselor they get to know and trust.
In-Depth Personal Relationships
In other words, virtual assistants don’t replace human interactions. Instead, they enable a process where the technology can address the need for immediacy. As a result, admissions staff create more in-depth prospect relationships. Smaller staff can take care of more high-value interactions, without the risk of burnout due to the constant stream of more straightforward questions.
Meanwhile, AI-enabled digital assistants learn with each interaction they have. Over time, they can better understand student needs and the context of questions, creating more personalized interactions. This same feature also helps the digital assistant understand when it’s time to let an admissions counselor take over. At that point, qualified staff step in and drive the interaction toward a successful end.
That process becomes refined over time. Digital assistants build a database of answers that can be used for training new staff and preserving institutional knowledge. Even more limited admissions staff, struggling to fill open positions, can now spend their time focusing less on answering thousands of inquiries. They can shift to building relationships with prospects who have a strong likelihood of applying and enrolling.
Provide Customized Attention With Digital Assistants and AtlasRTX
Most importantly, digital assistants provide the opportunity to ensure a positive student experience—even in cases where limited recruitment staff may not be available to answer questions. Prospective students and families with questions will receive the answers they need quickly and efficiently. At the same time, the opportunity to talk to a counselor or other college admissions staff when needed is available.
While artificial intelligence plays a major role in that process, digital assistants like AtlasRTX add even further capabilities beyond AI. Consider, for example, the backing of a dedicated human team to ensure continuous optimization of the technology. Even the most limited admissions staff can now rely on the fact that a human element is always available for students and their families who need more customized attention.
In short, digital assistants can partner closely with admissions staff. The result is an environment in which even the most significant challenges in hiring new staff cannot detract from the goal of creating a more comprehensive, positive experience for your prospective students.
From quick and accurate answers to an ability to learn over time and preserve institutional knowledge, digital assistants can bring institutions into the future in even the most competitive recruitment environments.
