PROBLEM

            Every year some 6,000 new students join the Warrington College of Business Administration. That means there are 6,000 more students that need to find internships before they graduate. This is because around 2009 the business school implemented a rule that for a student to graduate they need to obtain an internship or do a study abroad.

            This requirement change meant that the business school had to, in some way, assist students find internships- and so CAP Mentors were created. CAP Mentors, or career and academic peer mentors, are junior and senior business majors who have completed at least one internship. Generally, however, these students have completed multiple internships and are some of the most involved students within the college. CAP Mentors are also paid by the business school, making them part-time employees.

            The challenge is bringing in a new class of CAP Mentors every year. It’s imperative to hire the same caliber of students every year because if the students aren’t qualified for the job, then the college suffers, and fewer students are helped by the program.

            Recruitment has been done in the past, but at a bare minimum. And as the college depends more on the program for definitive results and a return on their investment, good candidates are highly sought after. Another thing to consider is that some students become mentors when they are juniors, while others become mentors as seniors. This means that there is a different target number every year.

So recruiting is a must. More people become aware of CAP Mentors every year, and last year it was found 1 in 5 business students will see a CAP Mentor before they graduate. That’s a lot of students who need help, which is why highly driven, successful students who have had internships are always targeted.  

This project aims to find new and creative ways to do recruiting come spring time. As a program we need to find highly motivated students who are approachable, have great interpersonal skills, are involved, and most importantly, who are qualified with either an internship or study abroad experience.

Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.

--Edward de Bono

Creative Thinking Strategy 1: Knowing How to See

Genius comes from finding new perspective on problems. The Fishbone Diagram, developed by Professor Kaoru Ishikawa of Tokyo University, is a creative thinking technique used to find new perspectives by visually organizing and examining both major and minor causes of a problem posed.

Results, lessons learned, identified solutions:

When doing this fishbone diagram it wasn’t too hard to come up with major causes as they relate to my overall problem; however, it wasn’t easy coming up with minor problems. I really had to think about what it was that we weren’t doing because the real problem is that there just isn’t enough recruitment and marketing being done in general. What specifically is the cause of this major problem? That’s the question I asked myself most when trying to think up specific, minor causes.

When looking at the completed fishbone diagram, it’s clear there are a number of major and minor problems associated with how CAPs recruit for getting qualified applicants. No online and little physical marketing are the two most obvious major problems as they relate to getting qualified students to apply for the job. That said, trouble targeting large quantities of qualified students, and not hosting events for potential candidates are equally important major problems.

My initial response to this diagrams results is that we need to do more of everything. I hope to find some more creative recruiting ideas in other creative thinking techniques, but this diagram was useful in that it made me think about all the problems I need to tackle when coming up with creative solutions.

Creative Thinking Strategy 2: Make Your Thoughts Visible

Often times geniuses prefer to think visually. It helps to put pen to paper in order to formulate problems and develop solutions. Using a Force Field Diagram helps to better define challenges and identify strengths and weaknesses you can maximize or mitigate. Visually, this diagram makes it easy to identify positive and negative forces associated with a given problem.  

Results, lessons learned, identified solutions:

     It doesn’t take long to interpret this force field diagram. It is clear that there are many areas of recruiting not being taken advantage of by CAPs. Look at all of those “X’s” on the right side of the diagram!

    This creative thinking technique was helpful in that it better defined the specific aspects of recruiting that need improvement. It helped to put pen to paper. And it helped to think about even more aspects of recruiting that I hadn’t thought about in the fishbone diagram.