Now that the competition for university talent is again on the rise, many organizations are fighting the familiar fight—investing more in their university employment brands, broadening their job marketing efforts on campuses, and casting a wider net to reach evermore prospective student hires.

University recruiters across the globe face difficulties in hiring top student talent, as colleges and universities struggle to equip students with the skills that today’s fast-moving economy requires. This fierce competition for a limited supply of work-ready graduates is not new, and unfortunately neither are the approaches that many university or campus recruiting teams use to address the challenge. Our research reveals that too many university recruiting programs are managed as familiar routines to be replicated each year.

The best campus recruiting teams approach their work as more than just a routine process—they center their efforts on the strategic rationale behind their “go-to-campus” decisions. They use sound business judgment to dynamically guide university recruiting decisions, target branding and communication more than most, and coach students to make the right job decisions instead of just trying to convert them.

When campus recruiting teams focus on the strategic rationale and not the programmatic routine of their efforts on campus, they focus more time on higher-value potential student hires, reduce time to fill by up to 45%, and reduce time to productivity by 78%.

The good news is that making this shift is well within university recruiters’ grasp. Stay tuned to learn how the best companies have rethought their university recruiting.