Competition moulds recruitment plan

By Chris Hunt

hunt0265@algonquincollege.com

Algonquin has made changes to better compete against private colleges in the recruitment of laid-off people looking to retrain in other careers.

Joe Ranieri, the director of corporate and business development at Algonquin 90 per cent of students enrolled in the program where taking their courses at private colleges, as opposed to community colleges like Algonquin. 

He asked himself what private colleges were doing to recruit so many students.  They tended to be more expensive, so why would a student prefer a private college over a community college?

To answer that Ranieri had to think like a student.

“Put yourself in the shoes of a recently unemployed person and ask yourself what your expectations of second career solutions at Algonquin are and that’s exactly what we have to,” said Ranieri. “No less.”

What do students want?

They want to get back into the workforce as quickly as possible.

David Koetsier, the director of admissions for Everest College, says that private colleges like Everest have the advantage of condensed programs.  This means longer study hours and no summer break, but also that the student will be re-entering the workforce quickly.

“If you’re 35 and have been laid-off and looking to retrain in another career, do you want those two months off?” he asks. “Or do you want to get back into the workforce as quickly as possible?”

In a private college setting a prospective student will deal with just one person from the outset.  This person will help the prospective student through most aspects of enrolment.

“We need to have that level of service to capture that market,” said Ranieri, adding that Algonquin needs to, “become part of the 21st century of education delivery.”

“As a starting point, programs will start more than once per year,” said Ranieri.  “Flexibility is key here.”

In January B102 became the second career drop-in centre.  Ranieri compared the way it is set up to hospital triage.  A prospective student comes in, is assessed and then physically brought to the department that they need to visit, much like an ER nurse would do to a patient.

“We believe that having a prospective student come in and deal with one person will improve our intake, as opposed to bouncing them around,” said Ranieri. “Ultimately, every student would benefit from a one-touch stop.”

Everest, which boasts around 800 students in two Ottawa campuses, has programs that start on a monthly basis.  Algonquin has 16,000 full-time students and 39,000 part-time students in three campuses. A typical program starts on a yearly basis.

Algonquin and Everest both offer a computer programmer course.  According to an Algonquin brochure the two year program would cost around $4,220 in tuition and another roughly $1,700 in books and supplies. A student would spend 1,200 hours in class.

According to a service Ontario website run by the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities, the computer programmer course at Everest would cost you about twice as much.  The tuition is $9,875 with an estimated additional $777 in books.  But it would take the student only 765 class hours to graduate.

“It’s all about what the student wants,” said Koetsier. 

As of March, the percentage of second career students enrolled in community colleges as opposed to private has risen to 51 per cent.