Word of mouth

Word of mouth is clearly an important channel for recruitment. At risk of stating the obvious:

• Encouraging current masters’ students or creating distinct pathways from masters’ degrees through to research study may encourage existing PG students to continue their studies with you. For example offering some kind of scholarship or discount may act as an incentive.
• Ensure any opportunities and studentships are well promoted within the department.
• Where appropriate paste opportunities onto email lists and national websites.

External advertising

Use external advertising sparingly. There are occasions when it may be helpful to advertise studentships externally. We recommend web advertising as the most cost effective approach. In particular we recommend opportunities are advertised on jobs.ac.uk, postgraduatestudentships.co.uk, and findaphd.com. Specialist print advertising may also be helpful.

Before reaching decisions on external advertising please contact Imran Awan in the Division of Marketing and Communications. We will place advertising through our advertising agency, and ensure it is professionally designed.

Promote the University's facilities

We should not underemphasise the facilities on offer at Leicester to PGR students. For example, the Graduate School reading room in the David Wilson Library contains extensive, dedicated PG facilities including PCs, study places, and two bookable group study rooms. There are extensive and successful University-wide and College-wide training programmes to help students to develop generic research skills that increase employability and effectiveness and also enhance discipline-specific research skills. Departments will also not wish to underplay the facilities and resources that they provide through their own accommodation, equipment, seminar programmes, access to visiting academics, etc.

Manage the relationship

After initial contact the lead needs to be managed. It is good practice to follow up on enquiries after an initial period of time. This will give the impression we are keen and interested in the individuals and will hopefully spark further interaction. You will also know that students don't always know what a good research project is - getting into an early email 'discussion' about a suitable project area will help define this.

Reach a decision swiftly

Research by the Russell Group shows postgraduates are six times more likely to accept an offer that is faster than average rather than slower than average.