Best Practices

The American Heart Association’s approach to its internship program is to create intentionally designed experiences rather than a collection of activities.

For decades, one of the pervasive arguments in college recruiting has been the effectiveness of high-tech versus high-touch practices. According to research conducted by Mary Scott, that argument persists with the integration of AI into college recruiting.

Jeff Crume, an adjunct professor of cybersecurity who has spent more than four decades in the IT industry, provides insight into the ways companies and college students are adapting to AI’s impact on the entry-level workforce.

Because Insperity has long-used behavioral-based interviewing to identify candidates’ qualities and experience, the transition to more skills-based hiring has been a relatively smooth one.

In an effort to strengthen retention and quality of hire, Kiewit Corporation refined its college hiring strategy to place greater emphasis on career readiness skills.

Williams, a Fortune 500 energy company, bases its college recruiting and early career hiring on NACE’s Career Readiness Competencies, particularly communication, professionalism and critical thinking.

Employers looking to ensure they have a robust pool of college candidates consider several factors when selecting the schools at which they recruit.

Employers looking to maximize their campus recruiting efforts should establish and grow relationships with career services. There are several key steps they can take to do so.

In 2024, Protiviti created a PowerBI dashboard to holistically evaluate the performance of more than 300 of its interns and share the data with leadership teams to use when considering full-time offers.

Since the creation of The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center’s Buckeye Pathways Summer Internship program five years ago, career readiness has been a central priority.

Launched in 2024, “V Teamer for a Day” is an in-person experience at several key Verizon hub locations designed to immerse potential interns in the company’s culture and develop a sense of belonging.

In response to a national and extensive industry workforce shortage, Garver’s recruitment team has crafted a dedicated university recruiting program that ultimately serves as a pipeline for eventual full-time employees.

AI is creating new job opportunities for college graduates, and higher education and employers can adjust the ways they operate and interact to ensure students are prepared for these roles.

Recently, a NACE member raised recruiter safety on campus. There are many ways recruiters and career services professionals can work together to prepare for and manage tenuous situations to ease the stress level of those involved and ensure the safety of all.

A guide developed by the 2024-25 Principles for Ethical Professional Practice Committee applies the NACE principles to AI use in career services and recruitment, providing actionable recommendations to ensure responsible implementation.

Salas O’Brien clears common hurdles when trying to keep interns engaged during the academic year, such as being passive and assuming students will remember their internship experience without ongoing connection.

There are many strategies employers can use to maintain—and even strengthen—ties with their interns when they return to campus and throughout the academic year.

The Maximus Summer Internship Program is a mission-driven talent pipeline that advances workforce leadership and strategically engages with students to achieve excellent outcomes.

The goal of the LER Accelerator coalition and for the release of its recent white paper is to be a catalyst for faster growth of the adoption of learning and employment records.

The employer winner of the 2025 NACE Technology Excellence Award, GM Financial's intern social media strategy tells the authentic story of the firm’s intern experience and grows its pipeline of students for internships and early career opportunities.

Learn how to transform your early talent recruiting program into a must-have strategic partner that delivers high-impact results. (Members Only.)

The small employer winner of the 2025 NACE Recruiting Excellence Award, heritage Moss Adams’ (now Baker Tilly) Summer Internship Experience is designed to build a strong pipeline of skilled career professionals who will elevate the profession and the firm.

Third in a series of articles focused on the candidate experience, this article by Mary Scott addresses how execution, authenticity, and the candidate experience shape the employer’s campus brand.

The traditional office visit has evolved into an opportunity for an organization to give job candidates a glimpse into its culture and a vision for the candidates’ career there.

Moving to skills-based hiring opens opportunity for a broader demographic of students to access positions where they otherwise would not meet the qualifications. Many employers include skills development in their internship programs to enhance their interns’ career readiness and bolster conversion.

In the second of a two-part series, 13 NACE leaders offer their insight and guidance about what they have learned in their time in the profession.

To persist toward successful conversion of interns, organizations must not view engagement as a 10-week summer pursuit. Instead, engagement must gain momentum through recruiting and pre-internship, accelerate during the internship itself, and be maintained after interns return to campus.

The goal for employers should be to keep autistic employees from “hire to retire,” which is the ability to sustain these employees by providing them with the support they need to build their career in an organization.

When recruiting and hiring students with autism, it’s important for employers to train hiring managers so they understand how the hiring process might look different and adjust their criteria on how they evaluate candidates.

The most prominent elements of a successful partnership between an HBCU and an employer are gaining understanding of challenges, demands, and goals and changing behaviors.

In the first of a two-part series, 13 NACE leaders offer their insight and guidance about what they have learned in their time in the profession.

Hyster-Yale Materials Handling is developing a pre-onboarding program to engage and build excitement among its interns prior to their start date next summer.

Disney provides resources to the College Fund to administer the latter’s scholarship program, called the Future Native Storytellers Program. Recently, a smaller group of program scholars was selected to receive additional enhancements to increase the awareness of opportunities at Disney for Native students.

This past summer, Arup expanded its career readiness programming for summer interns by working with its internal learning and development team to implement a series of competency-focused workshops.

Liberty Mutual has found that one of the most effective ways to maintain or strengthen connections with prior interns when they are on campus is to meet them where they are, such by hosting meetups, dinners, or coffee chats on or near campus.

When done right, execution—meeting or exceeding students’ expectations throughout their candidate experience—helps drive success in early talent recruiting.

Global Atlantic Financial Group, the small employer winner of the 2024 NACE Recruiting Excellence Award, addressed a pressing need for increased diversity and innovation and a robust talent pipeline.

The employer winner of the 2024 NACE Technology Excellence Award, Freese and Nichols implemented talent acquisition platform Yello and modified its roles and processes related to its on-campus career fair strategy to significantly increase its university hiring.

Northwestern Mutual shifting the focus of its internship program to development of career readiness competencies seemed like a natural progression since the company was already focusing on themes similar to those identified by NACE’s competencies.

Providing a candidate experience that meets—or better yet, exceeds—students’ expectations is the “secret sauce” that drives successful results.

Consultant Katie Donovan offers tips for employers to eliminate the main causes of pay inequity for women, including that women are underpaid doing the same jobs as men and are underrepresented in leadership roles.

Recent studies reveal that systemic barriers continue to limit progress on achieving pay equity for all, but there are tangible, proven ways that career centers and employers can make an impact.

To foster a truly diverse and inclusive workplace, employers should expand their DEI efforts to encompass what is increasingly being referred to as DEIA—or diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.

Among the key information recruiters need to know to successfully navigate their careers is to stay informed and value relationships.

College graduates in their early professional careers report significant mental health issues and view their jobs as a contributing factor. How can employers and colleges provide support?

After witnessing the impact that the pandemic had on early undergraduate students from underrepresented groups in the tech industry, IBM scaled up its early talent ID program.

An employer looking to set up a “campus champion” program as an element in its campus recruiting efforts turned to colleagues in the NACE Community for ideas on staffing, the responsibilities and expectations of the program, and the guidelines for campus engagement.

Two critical factors for limiting bias in AI systems are building diverse AI teams and implementing an enterprise-wide trustworthy AI framework.

Eight best practices provide a foundation for organizations that are focused on recruiting and hiring new college graduates.

Developed by the NACE Tribal Colleges & Universities Affinity Group, this resources includes insights to consider in engaging Native American students and provides links to a variety of Native American organizations.