Bachelor recruitment strategy
It goes without saying that recruiting new bachelor’s students is important to our university. Our recruitment efforts are focused both on schools and on the pupils themselves.
The key target groups are pupils in the final three years of VWO (‘pre-university education’) and young people with an HBO (University of Applied Sciences) qualification, but school careers advisers, teachers and parents are another important target group.
Course brochures and magazines
Every August, each bachelor’s degree programme produces a course brochure containing information about matters such as the subjects taught during the programme, the admissions criteria and how the courses prepare students for the employment market.
The more general magazines KIES and Studeren aan de Universiteit Leiden also offer information about choosing a programme, the university itself, the programmes we offer, the city and student life. The brochures can be requested and downloaded on the website, and we also take them with us to information events. A box of these brochures is sent to school careers advisers each year.
The brochures are produced and edited by the Strategic Communication and Marketing Directorate, while the faculties provide the content.
Online marketing
The most important tool in online marketing is the website https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/education/bachelors. This web page links to information about the various information events. We use website statistics (Google Analytics and Google Data Studio) to track visits to these recruitment sites. If you have a suggestion relating to your programme or faculty, you can e-mail us at wervingsite@bb.leidenuniv.nl.
We also use e-mail as a marketing tool, for example by sending prospective students newsletters about information events.
Social media
We use Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube to keep prospective students up to date on our recruitment activities.
Advertising
We regularly place banner adverts on external websites that are popular with VWO pupils. We also use a form of advertising known as ‘AdWords’: adverts that appear when people input relevant search terms, such as names of degree programmes, into Google.
Organisation
The departments that are involved in recruiting bachelor’s students include:
- the Strategic Communication and Marketing Directorate
- the faculty communication departments
- the Graduate School of Teaching’s transitional programme from pre-university to university education