Every college and university invests heavily in attracting students. Marketing teams refine value propositions, optimize digital campaigns, and craft stories about transformation, opportunity, and belonging. Yet when it comes time to recruit employees, many institutions abandon the very principles they use so effectively in enrollment marketing.
Read almost any higher education job posting and you’ll encounter paragraphs describing the institution: its beautiful campus, vibrant student life, historic location, enrollment figures, or strategic plan. Only after several hundred words does the posting finally address the question every candidate is asking:
Why should I work here?
Too often, it never answers.
Every Job Description Is a Marketing Document
Marketing isn’t simply about attracting customers; it’s about helping people imagine a better future. Higher education understands this instinctively when recruiting students. Admissions campaigns rarely focus on the number of academic buildings or the institution’s founding date. Instead, they invite prospective students to picture who they might become through education.
Yet institutions often forget that same principle when recruiting employees.
Job seekers aren’t applying to campuses. They’re applying to futures.
A director of marketing, a dean, or an admissions counselor isn’t evaluating a campus brochure. They’re wondering whether they’ll be trusted, whether leadership welcomes new ideas, whether they’ll grow professionally, and whether their work will matter. They’re evaluating culture, opportunity, and purpose long before they worry about nearby restaurants or the beauty of the quad.
Most job descriptions answer those questions indirectly—if at all. Instead, they devote valuable space to describing the institution rather than explaining why someone should invest the next stage of their career there.
Your Greatest Recruiting Asset Is Probably Missing
Every institution has something worth joining. Leadership may genuinely collaborate across divisions. Teams may enjoy unusual autonomy. The college may be undergoing an ambitious transformation or investing in new capabilities. Employees may stay for decades because they’re supported, challenged, and trusted.
Those aren’t perks.
They’re reasons to choose an employer.
Every candidate is asking a simple question: Why should I choose your institution instead of another one? Surprisingly few job descriptions answer it directly.
The Competition Has Changed
Higher education no longer competes only with neighboring colleges for talent. Marketing professionals, IT leaders, finance executives, and student affairs administrators are also considering healthcare systems, nonprofits, technology companies, consulting firms, and remote employers. Many of those organizations invest significant effort defining their employer value proposition because they understand that talented professionals have options.
Too many colleges still write job descriptions as though institutional reputation alone will persuade exceptional candidates to apply.
Recruit Employees Like You Recruit Students
Imagine if a marketing leadership position opened this way:
You’re joining a college that’s redefining how community colleges serve today’s learners. Over the next three years, you’ll help shape institutional strategy, influence executive decision-making, and build a marketing organization that directly changes lives. If you’re energized by meaningful work, empowered teams, and leaders who welcome new ideas, we’d love to meet you.
Notice what comes first: purpose, opportunity, and impact. Information about the campus, community, and institutional history still belongs in the posting, but it should support the story rather than substitute for it.
The Missed Opportunity
Every job description communicates an employer brand, whether intentionally or not. Institutions that spend hundreds of words describing themselves before explaining why someone should want to work there are missing one of the simplest opportunities to attract stronger candidates.
Higher education has become remarkably good at helping prospective students imagine a better future. It’s time to bring that same discipline to recruiting the people who will help create it.