Despite the belief that 'print is dead' or dying, when it comes to young adults and their search for graduate jobs it is still a widely used medium, providing an alternative from the saturated online market. Despite the tremendous growth of graduate job searching via online job boards, search engines, phone apps and even social media there is still a place for print when it comes to students making those tough decisions about graduate positions and employers.
Online may be the cheap and easy route for advertising but print media provides one source of information. So rather than trawling through several company websites, graduates have all the information they need in one handy spot. Students and graduates especially love that fact that when it comes to print you have the ability to circle things, rip out pages, stick adverts on your wall and carry it around in your bag (source: Make Your Mark on Unigrad Survey 2012). It provides the convenience that graduates and students appreciate in a world dominated by the digital.
The yearly Lifelounge Urban Market Research study, found that young adults aged 16-30 are consumed more than ever by the “intense multi-tasking” of social media, mobile communications, television and radio that a new trend has emerged: the need to “pause and absorb.” They refer to “multi-minded experiences” which occur online as “all about skimming the surface, taking in as much as possible and multi-tasking” versus the "single-minded experiences" which are about “taking time out to pause and absorb”. The real challenge for marketers is getting “their brands into a ‘pause and absorb’ event”.
The study found that young people are eager to find new ways to balance out their ever-growing digital lives with more offline, real world experiences. 56% of respondents spent at least one hour a week ‘pausing’ by reading a book (and 21% read for more than 5 hours a week). This means if you want your graduate program to stand out from the array of jobs posted online everyday you need to have a carefully crafted employer brand that is communicated effectively both in the online world and in traditional media.
Multiple media is the most effective option when it comes to marketing graduate jobs to young adults. Online advertising provides a rapid response rate and the ability to update information regularly. Whereas print provides an escape from the digital realm allowing graduates to appreciate your message. Print allows you to target your message to a specific readership and it isn’t lost in the vast array of sites on the World Wide Web.
Melissa Kliese
PR and Marketing Executive / Communications Officer at Unigrad
[email protected]
