How Slate is used for recruitment
Learn more about the various uses of GradSlate for graduate recruitment in the sections below.
How the Office of Recruitment & Diversity Initiatives Uses Slate
The Office of Recruitment and Diversity Initiatives (RDI) employs GradSlate* in four distinct ways, not all of which have yet been built:
- to collect information on Prospects and Inquiries
- to send automated strategic recruitment communications
- to coordinate the administrative aspects of recruitment events and presentations
- to assess recruitment efforts
Graduate programs are encouraged to approach recruitment proactively and the RDI staff are here to assist you.
Overview of Recruitment
The process of recruiting new students to graduate education is traditionally visualized as an inverted pyramid. The top layer (Prospects) represents those who have not yet shown an interest in graduate education at UGA and contains the largest number of people. The funnel then narrows (i.e., the number of people decreases) downward toward the ultimate goal of enrollment.
GradSlate uses the term Person Status to denote each of these sequential layers (or statuses) and enables graduate programs (and the Graduate School) to store, track, and assess recruitment efforts.
*To distinguish the Graduate School’s instance of Slate from the platform used by Undergraduate Admission, we use the term “GradSlate.”
Prospects
As noted above, the Prospects status represents those who have not yet shown an interest in graduate education at UGA. Typically, this layer consists of data from external lists (e.g., the national McNair Scholars Program) that are uploaded to GradSlate. GradSlate then creates a Person Record for each name on the list and labels this record with a status of Prospect. Graduate programs can proactively recruit their Prospects by sending automated emails encouraging students to fill out an inquiry form (Request for Information) or register for an event. Once a person demonstrates an interest in graduate education at UGA, their status is updated to Inquiry and their Person Record progresses downward through the funnel.
Inquiries
The Inquiry status is given to those who have demonstrated an interest in graduate education at UGA, for example, by completing an inquiry form (Request for Information), attending a recruitment event, or meeting with a faculty or staff member to discuss an interest in applying. Once an Inquiry has expressed an interest in a particular Program, Users with the Recruiter Role (see Program Roles and Populations section below) in that Program have access to their Person Record and the data within.
Recruiters can find prospective students that have expressed an interest in their Programs by using the Prospective Students for Future Terms by Populations query in the Inquiries/Recruiting section of the Programs tab on the GradSlate home page.
Clicking on this link, then clicking on the Run Query button on the resulting page, generates a list of all Inquiries that have expressed an interest in your Population (see Program Roles and Populations section below).
Click on any record to see the details about that Person (use the Lookup Record link on the popup panel that appears).
Program Roles & Populations
As a program administrator, your access to Prospects and Inquiries for your graduate program is determined by your Role. Currently, there is only one Role for this access:
- Recruiter: Permission to view, track, email Prospects and Inquiries who have expressed an interest in your Program
The Inquiries that have expressed an interest your Program are contained within a Population and the Recruiter Roles are specific to Populations.
To access this Role, you must first be a GradSlate User. To become a User, have your Program Coordinator use the Request to Add New User link in the Users/Roles section on the Programs tab of the GradSlate home page. Once you are a User, have your Program Coordinator fill out this spreadsheet template and email it to Lisa Sperling at sperling@uga.edu.
Uploading Prospects and Inquiries to Slate
Graduate recruiters are now able to upload the contact information of prospective applicants to their graduate program (Prospects and Inquiries), enabling this information to be stored in one place. All data to be uploaded in GradSlate must first be “cleaned,” meaning that the data must be in a specific format. Please use these resources to learn how to clean your data from recruitment events and programs. The Uploads Template for Import is the required template and format for clean data. Once data are formatted and clean, graduate recruiters can email Lisa Sperling at sperling@uga.edu to submit their data files.
Resources to Clean Data:
GradSlate Training Video for Cleaning Data
Part I
Part II
Creating Events through GradSlate
Creating Events through GradSlate
The Office of Recruitment & Diversity Initiatives (RDI) will assist Graduate Coordinators by creating events through GradSlate. Graduate Recruiters are now able to host events for Inquiries and Admitted Applicants through GradSlate. Common events routinely created by programs include information sessions, visitation days, open houses, and department tours. All participants are entered automatically into GradSlate upon registration, engaging new students through our customized emails and updating current information for students who were previously engaged through GradSlate.
After reviewing the Creating Events in GradSlate Template, Graduate Recruiters can submit a Creating Events in GradSlate Request Form for their program. Once your GradSlate event is built by RDI staff, access and ownership will be transferred to the Graduate Recruiter with a GradSlate account. For more information, please contact Lisa Sperling at sperling@uga.edu.
Creating Events in GradSlate Part 1
Creating Events in GradSlate Part 2
Creating Events in GradSlate Part 3
Creating Deliver Messages through GradSlate
The Office of Recruitment & Diversity Initiatives (RDI) will assist Graduate Coordinators by creating Deliver messages through GradSlate. Graduate programs will be able to send a customized letter to Inquiries who have selected the intended term of the application cycle. We recommend including information on:
- Information about your graduate program
- Funding from your department
- Deadline to Apply
- Relevant links to your website to further engage students
- Relevant links to any events you will host for prospective applicants to learn more about your graduate program
Please write your letter in a format that can be reusable if you would like to resend Deliver messages for future academic cycles.
After viewing the webinar below and reviewing the Creating Deliver Messages in GradSlate, Graduate Recruiters can submit a Creating Deliver Messages in GradSlate Request Form for their program. Once your GradSlate Deliver message is built and sent by RDI staff, access and ownership will be transferred to the Host with a GradSlate account. For more information, please contact Lisa Sperling at sperling@uga.edu.
