Five Things I've Learned From Leading Multiple China Student Recruitment Trips
Five Things I've Learned From Leading Multiple China Student Recruitment Trips
In the fall of 2019 (October and November), we organized our most successful China recruitment tours yet! For two of the tours, we traveled to Qingdao, Ningbo, Nanjing, Wuhan, Guiyang, Zhengzhou, Xi’an, Chengdu, Chongqing, Lanzhou, Hangzhou, and Suzhou. We visited and had fairs at 34 schools with more than 3,000 eager students. The past tour season is a record for us, the largest scale ever. While I’m excited about this accomplishment, I’ve certainly learned more about the Chinese international education market - specifically about how it’s developing and what international recruiters should be mindful of.
Face to face communication is the most preferable way among parents and students. At fairs, we have randomly talked with students and some parents, and all the feedback is they love the fair. Due to multiple reasons, the chances are rare for Chinese students, especially parents, to obtain direct and correct information from a school before decision-making, which is also why the agents have played a critical role all these years. Unfortunately, for school information, the more hands it passes, the more biased it becomes. This underscores the importance for colleges and universities to directly engage prospective Chinese students via in-person events.
Unbalanced development among different areas. Among all the 12 cities we went to, we noticed a very unbalanced development regarding international schools and institutions among different cities. The factors behind this are not the topic today, what we’d like to suggest from an international recruiter perspective is that it’s better to start to focus on 3rd or even 4th tier cities. Big chain international schools like Dulwich, CIS, Maple Leave, haven’t touched these cities yet, while local brands like BIBA has marched into Guiyang, in the meanwhile, small-scaled private local institutions have also invested a lot of international departments and tracks in these cities. It’s certain that these markets are thriving but not mature and saturated. So the time has come to enter smaller markets. Take the leap and you’ll get a head start.
The language barrier is still one of the most challenging obstacles. When thinking of traveling in China as a foreigner who speaks zero Chinese, the most difficult thing must be the language. It’s impossible to learn Chinese overnight, but there are certain things you can do to help improve your communication and connection. First, prepare your materials in Chinese - flyers, brochures, etc. Sometimes, most of the students and parents come to the fairs just to ‘collect materials’. They are just as nervous as you are speaking another language so they feel safer just ‘reading materials’. Second, bring a promotion video. Videos can show your school more comprehensively and create a powerful experience for your prospective students. Even better, If you can have your videos in VR format, it will be more fun and attractive. For most students from emerging first-tier cities, it’s daunting to plan a school visit overseas (time, expense, travel) so this is the next best thing in order to bring your campus to life.
Chinese students and parents need more “education”. During the tours, I’ve met so many students. Some of them are well-prepared about their future fate studying and have made up their mind early enough. But, a greater portion of students feels pretty lost. Thus, as an international recruiter, it’s more important sometimes just to ‘educate’ them, especially with parents. Take Community College as an example -- CC is a totally new concept for the Chinese audience, this kind of system doesn’t exist in China. It will take more effort to finally let Chinese students and parents accept it and gradually to consider it as a valuable option when choosing future target schools. Informing and educating is a crucial part of the responsibility of an international recruiter when visiting China.
Find your target area through market analysis before making your China strategy. Like selling any product, we must find the right target market and target consumers before we spend all the budget. China is huge, which means it has various segmented markets. Beijing has the most elite students but it probably is not the best fit for your schools. So to evaluate and analyze your school and China is a very essential step before making your strategy. There are a lot of organizations and institutions that release market reports and insights. For instance, Sunrise has published multiple white papers on different trends in China such as Gaokao, Digital Marketing, etc. and they are open and free for downloading. Let these reports help!
I’ve led 12 recruitment tours so far at Sunrise. I’ve felt the rapid development of Chinese international education markets and seen the flaws that need correction. I believe with the efforts of everyone in this industry, the experience of traveling to China will continue to improve and be worthwhile for all.