Student Recruitment Management Available on Salesforce.com

TargetX, a higher education recruiting company, has created the Student Recruitment Management (SRM) system. This solution is the first CRM for colleges that’s designed to provide a completely integrated, customizable, expandable and reportable suite of recruitment management tools.

Colleges are feeling increased pressure to build relationships with prospective students and the creation of the SRM is expected to provide a one-stop online tool for managing the entire recruitment process.

"We've combined a revolutionary way to manage student information, a consumer-friendly student portal for applying online and scheduling campus visits, and the electronic communication tools for which TargetX has become known and respected throughout the industry," said CEO Brian Niles, in a Thursday statement.

This new system was unveiled at the 64th annual conference of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, held this week in Seattle. Launching with such a crowd will help to gain more attention for the solution that will in turn begin to drive demand.

The SRM system is designed to enable admissions offices to manage and automate the recruitment process, from the first point of contact with a student to the point of enrollment.

"Colleges finally have one tool for managing the entire recruitment process, powered by a single database," Niles explained. "No more moving data around, no more waiting for the IT department to deliver reports, no more struggling to figure out who in the inquiry database received what communications. Everything is in one place, on-demand, with real-time information on prospects, touchpoints and tasks."

“With the SRM, the days of importing and exporting data are over,” Niles added. “The open architecture enables real-time, two-way data exchange with campus information systems, eliminating the need to juggle different silos of data.”

The SRM is built on the Force.com platform of Salesforce.com (News - Alert). More than 47,000 organizations and one million people are using Salesforce technology for their customer relationship management. Such reach will enable TargetX to maximize their opportunities within a proven platform.

"Rather than reinvent the wheel, we decided to take the Force.com platform that powers the incredibly successful Salesforce CRM tool and mold it into the first truly-integrated recruitment management tool," Niles said.

The SRM system is easy to expand as users can add to the capabilities of their TargetX systems through hundreds of add-on products. It also offers automatic integration with TargetX’s e-mail broadcasting and online chat tools. Colleges also have the option of using TargetX's popular blogging and social networking tools to further their communications efforts with today web-savvy students.

"People really like our system because it works just the way they want it to - leaving them to do the job they were hired to do, which is find the students that best match their college," Niles continued. "While their direct marketing practices have become more sophisticated, their data management systems have not. They spend countless hours moving data from vendor to vendor and struggling to create reports that are often outdated by the time they get them, or are simply inaccurate.”

"We've been there. We know. The experience of the TargetX team includes people who have struggled with various types of enterprise systems only to realize there must be a better way. And that better way is the SRM."

As the demands within the educational system change and colleges and universities must look at the business end of recruiting, companies such as TargetX are providing the solutions they need to drive performance. As competitive as the educational industry can be, such tools will go a long way in helping institutions in securing the optimal student class.