SAS empowers and inspires customers around the world to transform data into intelligence through innovative software and services. As a leader in data analytics, the company boasts 92 of the Fortune 100 as customers and 14,000 employees in 59 countries across the globe. The SAS university recruiting team has scaled quickly since it was established in 2015 and is projecting almost 450 early talent hires globally for the 2018/2019 academic year, split evenly between interns and full-time employees.
Even with such large intern hiring goals, the company was only focusing its presence on a few core schools in early 2018. As the number of early talent hires continued to grow, the recruiting team knew they needed to expand their reach beyond the company’s traditional list of schools. Furthermore, to ensure that the number of early talent applicants would grow with the company’s hiring needs, the team needed to increase students’ awareness and product knowledge of SAS software as part of their recruiting strategy.
“There’s excellent talent at every single university across the United States. How do we make sure that every student knows who SAS is and sees us as an employer of choice? Tools like Handshake allow us to do that.”
Kayla Woitkowski, Sr. Manager, University Outreach & Recruitment, SAS
The team of 7 university recruiters knew they only had the capacity to physically visit 8 schools per year. How could they expand their reach quickly and efficiently, driving awareness for their product and open positions simultaneously? The SAS On-Campus Student Leader program was established, with goals to expand students’ SAS skills and job awareness at universities in which the company had little or no presence on campus historically.
By the time budget was approved for the program in June 2018, the SAS university recruiting team only had two months to hire and onboard 20+ ambassadors at 10 schools across the nation. They knew they would have a difficult time hiring so quickly over the summer at universities where they had never recruited before. However, the SAS team had a tool in their chest that would get their program across the finish line – Handshake’s Talent Engagement Suite. SAS utilized the Handshake platform to connect with students at net new schools to hire for their ambassador program. More than 25% of program applicants were sourced through Handshake, and more than 50% of hires were driven by Handshake or proactive student outreach.
“I truly believe that we would not have been able to hire for the SAS On-Campus program without Handshake.”
Kayla Woitkowski, Sr. Manager, University Outreach & Recruitment, SAS
Key hiring problems solved with Handshake:
- Hiring in a short amount of time during a historically low recruiting season
- Recruiting at universities where SAS had little or no on-campus presence
- Virtual employer brand engagement
As a result of the first semester of the SAS On-Campus program, the company saw a 164% increase in student applications year over year and a 9.8 times increase in applications from a top Ivy League university. What a success!
Looking forward, the SAS university recruiting team is discussing the possibility of expanding the student ambassador program within the U.S. and even globally in the future. Going into the 2019/2020 academic year, the team will be focused on increasing their virtual engagement and proactive recruiting efforts with Handshake’s Talent Engagement Suite.