Strategies to Boost Your Recruitment Efforts

While the standard recruitment process is often sufficient in programs achieving their participant goals, that isn’t always the case. You can monitor mentors and mentees registration and onboarding progress in the Partner Dashboard - specifically on the Onboarding & Matching tab of the Dashboard page. This real-time data makes it easy to monitor recruitment and identify if there is a need for additional recruitment efforts for mentors and/or mentees.

If your program is not progressing at the rate we would expect due to common recruitment challenges or for some alternative reason, Mentor Collective recommends the following strategies and interventions  to help.

Expanding the Eligible Population

As mentioned previously in situations where the original number of eligible participants were lower than expected, programs can also look for opportunities to expand the eligible participants beyond your original targeted population. Need some inspiration? See below:

Provide any additional participant directory information to Partner Support (partnersupport@mentorcollective.org), and these new participants can go through the standard recruitment process.

Adjusting the Participation Model

To maximize engagement in your mentoring program, it's essential to identify and address the specific hurdles your participants face. Mentor Collective's platform offers flexible participation models for mentors and mentees, to align with your program's goals, population, and current progress.

Take a closer look at your program's data to pinpoint where participants are encountering difficulties. For example:

By identifying these key sticking points, you can strategically reduce barriers to entry and foster greater participation in your program.

Reacting Quickly

As you launch your program, close monitoring and rapid response to any concerns are vital. Why? Our data shows a clear correlation between quick action and program success:

Programs that achieve their match goal typically reach

• 50% of that goal within the first 2 weeks of matching.
• 70% of their match goal within the first 7 weeks of matching.

In addition, quick responses lead to significantly better engagement. As we've mentioned, adjusting participation models and removing barriers can be particularly effective.

It might initially feel too early to make these changes to your program, but acting fast is crucial. We consistently see 3 to 8 times higher engagement when these adjustments are made within the first 3 weeks of launching, rather than waiting until later in the program. Don't hesitate to make swift, impactful changes!

Targeted Participant Reminders 

Participants may be more receptive to more personalized messaging, from someone they recognize at your institution. Participants already know your institution, trust your institution, and are engaged with your institution. Even small efforts to optimize that existing relationship can go a long way towards impacting recruitment performance.

Targeted Messaging by Program Status

Once participants register for the program, they will automatically receive pre-match messaging to continually remind them to complete any remaining required onboarding steps. However, institutions can also message participants based on program status, in order to further encourage progress. These can include reminders to: those who haven’t registered, those who haven’t completed the matching survey, or those who haven’t completed mentor training. 

See messaging templates here.

Targeted Messaging by Population

Identify populations that could benefit from mentorship, such as first generation students, international students, or transfer students - and focus efforts on their participation. In addition, institutions can target outreach to those likely to volunteer as a mentor, such as Student Ambassadors or those in student government or volunteer organizations.

Targeted Messaging by Commonalities

Identify interests, traits, or demographics of the mentors or mentees that you have, and target recruitment efforts to similar populations. Eligible participants may resonate with more targeted messaging from your institution, when you can easily see the commonalities between them and their potential mentoring counterpart. For example, if your program has many mentees waiting to be matched who are primarily Education majors, reach out to eligible mentors with an Education major.

Please reach out to your Mentor Collective for messaging templates. 

Additional Mentor Support Request

Programs struggling to match all interested mentees can turn to their mentors already matched in the program – by requesting that they support additional mentee(s). Since matched mentors have already completed all onboarding steps, this voluntary increase in capacity provides immediate mentorship support for waiting mentees. In addition, Mentor Collective’s research shows that mentors often have a better experience when they support multiple mentees, as they are more likely to develop a strong connection.

Integrating Across Your Institution 

You are the most attuned to your mentorship population and the institution environment they already interact with. Contribute to building a culture of mentorship at your institution by engaging any relevant offices, departments, and stakeholders in targeted and continual program promotion and recruitment.

This may include but is not limited to:

• Learn how to recruit in a participant-centered, strategic, and visible way in our webinar, Boost Mentorship Recruitment Through Orientation.
• Coordinate social media promotion across multiple campus accounts.
• Promote the mentorship program at existing institutional events or meetings.
• Request student-facing offices / buildings to display and distribute recruitment flyers.
• Identify and target promotion with mission-aligned student organizations. 
• Request word-of-mouth promotion from student-facing colleagues.
• Host recruitment or informational events or tabling at your institution. 
• Request mentee or mentee nominations from student advisors or faculty.

However, you know your institution best. Mentor Collective recommends reviewing the following questions to identify additional promotional opportunities:

• How can you most effectively get the attention of potential mentors and mentees?
• What channels of communication and media could be used to promote your program?
• Who could be influential in promoting the message of mentorship at your institution?
• How can you differentiate this mentorship program from other programs or resources at your institution?

Enticing Participants with Incentives

Mentor Collective believes mentorship, alone, is a benefit enough to participate in our programs - and we know you do too. However, not all participants will understand the true transformative experience they can have in a mentorship and could benefit from an extra incentive. In addition, programs who struggle with mentor recruitment, in particular, have utilized a paid mentor model to improve participation and engagement in the program. 

Second Round of Recruitment Messaging

Perhaps the timing of the first round of messaging wasn’t ideal, or the content didn’t resonate with participants. You can still make adjustments and set up additional, automated messaging to all participants who have not registered yet. Mentor Collective recommends waiting at least a few weeks after the first round of recruitment messaging has ended before sending additional messaging, in order to avoid overcommunication and increased unsubscribe rates. 

Note: This is not an exhaustive list of recruitment interventions. Please talk with your Mentor Collective representative if you are interested in any of the above interventions, or if you would like to learn more about additional options.