Experts across various countries and destination markets for students agree that it’s high time to set further standards and revisit the industry’s professional engagement with agents and counselors in the best interest of international students and their families.
Recent surveys indicate a significant increase in American colleges and universities partnering with educational recruitment agencies, where 62% of institutions are currently engaged in partnerships with agencies – a notable increase from 48% reported two years ago.
A staggering 98% of institutions not currently partnered with agencies are actively considering such collaboration, according to the State of the International Student Recruitment and Enrollment Field report released by the American International Recruitment Council (AIRC) and market intelligence firm BONARD in May 2023.
Partnership benefits
These numbers, according to AIRC executive director Brian Whalen, Ph.D., indicate that agents provide a sustainable recruitment solution for institutions who are seeking to expand and diversify their international student enrollment.
“Overall, agencies provide an excellent return on investment for institutions. They have expert knowledge of the markets in which they operate. They provide hands-on guidance to students and their families. They also very often will offer powerful marketing and online matching tools that really help students to find the right fit for their educational opportunities,” Whalen told MSM Reporter.
For institutions, agency partners – AIRC has been consciously promoting the term “partner” in its verbiage and communications to demonstrate a partnership between universities and agents rather than one serving the other – can extend and enhance the institution’s recruitment capacity as they offer services in a wider breadth of geographic locations that an institution can manage on its own. Additionally, agency partnerships offer a cost-effective solution, eliminating the need for immediate staffing and resource investment.
Whalen cited the COVID-19 pandemic as an example.
“Since travel by university staff essentially came to a standstill, agencies were counted on more than ever to represent institutions in country. They did so by reassuring students and providing on-the-ground assistance with visa application support,” he said, adding the enhanced use of virtual relationship building tactics such as Zoom video conferencing and convening at virtual fairs to nurture partnerships without traveling overseas.
Toward ethical recruitment
Experts across various countries and destination markets for students, however, agree that it’s high time to set further standards and revisit the industry’s professional engagement with agents and counselors in the best interest of international students and their families.
“Some people are afraid to touch agents or perform recruitment via third parties. This is the right time for us to rethink how we do our work. It’s important to infuse ethics in every part of the student experience – not only in recruitment but also in student support,” said Joann Ng Hartmann, senior impact officer at NAFSA, the largest nonprofit serving international educators worldwide, at a December 2022 webinar hosted by edtech platform MSM Unify.
The webinar followed two major efforts in the setting and refining recruitment standards in the United Kingdom and the United States, two of the top study destinations globally.
In early December, the British Council launched the UK agent and counselor training and engagement hub, which aims to serve as a one-stop shop providing support tools, resources, and certification for agents and counselors. Jacqui Jenkins, global program lead for international students at the British Council, called the hub a “bespoke digital platform” with training modules, assessments, and other content that can empower agents and counselors in the work they do.
At the 14th annual conference of the AIRC in the US, delegates committed to improve the framework for supporting international students, with AIRC setting its sights on developing more institutional standards and best-practice guidelines for international student recruitment in 2023.
Whalen said the goal is “to train partners to practice transparency, ethical principles, and openness.”He touted AIRC’s agency certification as the global gold standard for providing quality assurance to educational recruitment agencies, saying there isn’t another process he is aware of that is “as rigorous or as adaptable” to the evolving field of international student recruitment.
HEIs’ move
Across markets, colleges and universities are also doubling down on building ethical standards into their agent agreements.
Ethical recruitment is still “very much a journey” that begins with adopting the frameworks and best practices. At the webinar, Bobby Mehta, associate pro vice-chancellor for global engagement at the University of Portsmouth, said they are reviewing and updating their agent contracts to have the national framework built into them.
“Any new relationship we form, we will have that as a mandatory expectation. It’s going to be very much intended that any student is getting the best-quality advice,” said Mehta, who also chairs the 140 UK HEI-strong British Universities’ International Liaison Association (BUILA), whose members work with over 2,000 recruitment professionals today.
Victor Tomiczek, international recruitment director at Cape Breton University in Canada, harped on the need to ensure both productivity and honesty in agent relationships.
“Working in the international education industry, whether you’re an HEI, B2B, non-government organization … The student experience is where we all live or die. In order to ensure your long-term sustainability as a business or university, all our operations need to be centered upon the assured honesty of representation across markets,” he said.
In light of widely reported agent misconduct and scams perpetrated by overpromising or fraudulent agents, Whalen emphasizes their standards development organization (SDO) designation, enabling them to help shape ethical behavior and foster quality assurance.
“You know, it’s not enough to simply develop standards and promote them; that’s one part of the process. There needs to be ongoing monitoring. We do monitor entities and they have to go through re-certification, just as institutions in the US have to go through re-accreditation. And there is a complaint process,” he said.
Partnerships mindset
What if institutions choose not to partner with agents?
“[Their] toolbox is filled with all kinds of tactics and strategies that have proven to work effectively. It’s best to think of these tools not as mutually exclusive alternatives, but rather as complementary tactics that each play an essential role in meeting overall enrollment goals,” Whalen said.
He cited examples such as virtual and in-person recruitment events, digital marketing and lead generation, alumni engagement, in-country representation with staff directly employed by the institution, special programs that help bring international student cohorts to campus, and partnerships with language schools or domestic and international high schools.
The rise of novel technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) has also emerged as a common topic in international student recruitment. AIRC’s 2023 conference, for instance, featured a keynote address from Tarek M. Sobh, Ph.D., president of Lawrence Technological University and an AI and robotics professor and expert.
University-agent ties are also increasingly geared toward a partnership rather than a short-lived, transactional relationship.
“Very often on campuses, the business office or the procurement office will look at recruitment agencies as being similar to vendors who sell Coca-Cola to the campus, and so in their mind, it’s like ‘Okay, they’re a vendor, this is transactional.’ We’re trying to change that whole identity and educate them through webinars and conference sessions,” Whalen said.
“What are these agencies? Who are they and how are they different? And so partnership is really important in that context, as well, because we don’t want those agencies to be treated the same way as vendors on a campus. They’re not the same because they’re recruiting students. They’re representing institutions overseas on behalf of the university; the stakes are so much higher.”
