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Podcasts I Wanna Work There Episode 3
A Look at Higher Ed’s Talent Crisis
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Full Transcript
Enrollify_IWannaWorkThere_Audio_Epsiode3_JaimeHunt_Version1
[00:00:00] Eddie Francis: Recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education held a virtual panel discussion called Get Ready for This, the Talent Crisis in Higher Education. One of the panelists was Jamie Hunt, host of the Enroll Fi podcast Networks, confessions of a Higher Ed, C M O. Well, she joined me to talk about higher education employees, frustrations with lack of advancement opportunities, and also how she did a little something to help turn one group of employees at a university into brand champions.
[00:00:32] That's right now on, I wanna work there.
[00:00:40] Nevada, the institution, company or organization, everyone wants to find the best talent and everyone wants to keep their best talent. Higher education is no different. I'm Eddie Francis. I've worked at both talent acquisition and higher ed marketing on this podcast. We're going to explore the ways to create a [00:01:00] great experience for faculty and staff on your campus because in education, a great employee experience equals a great student experience.
[00:01:08] And who doesn't want that? We'll have some honest conversation. Get insights from experts and hear success stories from campuses. It's all about developing an attractive employer brand. Something that'll make the people say, I wanna work there.
[00:01:28] Thank you for joining us on, I want to work there and for this episode, our guest is Jamie Hunt. She is the Vice President of University Communications and the Chief Marketing Officer at Old Dominion University. And of course, of course, she is the host of Confessions of a higher ed, cmo. And, um, Jamie, I, I have to say that this is an honor.
[00:01:56] And you are all of that in a bag of [00:02:00] chips. You have one of the best podcasts around, especially in higher ed marketing. So it's, it's real. And I'm not, I'm not saying it's just to gas you up. It is actual, it is actually my honor to interview you. So welcome to the podcast.
[00:02:14] Jaime Hunt: Thank you. I am so pleased to talk with you, Eddie.
[00:02:17] You're one of my favorite higher ed marketers, and I am so happy to be here and I'm really excited about your show.
[00:02:24] Eddie Francis: Thank you so much. And, and you know, it is really cool that you and I can connect on this particular topic because after hearing you as a panelist for the Chronicle of Higher Education's, um, talent Crisis Panel discussion, I was sitting there listening to you and I'm thinking, Okay.
[00:02:43] Jamie and I are very much on the same page about a, a great many things. Um, you, you actually almost said things the way I would say them in a way and Oh. So yeah. And so I, I, I, you know, it is, it just, it just makes. Sense for you to, to be on this [00:03:00] podcast. And so let's start with something that you brought up, uh, during that panel discussion, you mentioned that there was an employee survey done, uh, at Miami University where you used to work.
[00:03:12] First of all, I was really pleased to hear that they did an employee survey and that they gathered some data on the, on the employee experience. Why did the university find it necessary to do that survey?
[00:03:24] Jaime Hunt: Yeah. So actually it was our department that decided to do the survey. Okay. Um, we were experiencing, um, some issues with morale and we had been through a time of great transition.
[00:03:38] The person before me had been in her role for maybe like 15 months. They had had, over the five years preceding my time there, I think they'd had like five different bosses. Then you had the covid. Situation and you had just all this transition. And so I really, really wanted to do a survey to try to get a better sense of what are some of the [00:04:00] issues causing these morale problems so that we could try to tackle them.
[00:04:04] And it was important to me that if you're gonna do a survey, you have to be committed to doing actions that will help address the challenges that come in the survey, because otherwise you're just wasting everybody's time and then people get even more disgruntled. With the process, it
[00:04:19] Eddie Francis: warms my heart that it came from marketing.
[00:04:22] It just warms my heart. It does. And so that leads to the question, what was the reaction that you got from folks, particularly the administration? What was the reaction you got from them when, first of all, you told them you were gonna do it, and then you gathered the data?
[00:04:38] Jaime Hunt: Yeah, I think that the reaction was, yeah, that's a good idea.
[00:04:43] That's something maybe other departments should be doing. And I don't know if anybody else did. I think I shared, um, the survey questions that I provided with other leaders across the university. But you know, I think the reaction to the results of the survey was a, were a little [00:05:00] bit surprising to people.
[00:05:01] We really found that people were not, Especially happy in their roles. And I think people thought, well, why not? Isn't marketing fun? Isn't the work that you do fun and creative? And there was some really big underlying issues that I think could be spread across the organization and are issues that I don't think were isolated to the marketing office.
[00:05:26] Eddie Francis: Hmm. And, and so what did you do with the data? How did you, how did you act on it?
[00:05:31] Jaime Hunt: Yeah, so one of the data points that we found was that people were really frustrated with the lack of advancement opportunities. We had a lot of people who had been in their roles for anywhere from eight to 35 years who had never seen a promotion, or maybe they saw one promotion in that time, they saw their supervisor.
[00:05:53] Was, um, either somebody who'd been brought in, um, where they might have felt that they were qualified for [00:06:00] that job or, um, somebody who was gonna stay in their job forever and there was not room for advancement and growth. And so that was one of the biggest things that, that jumped out to us is how can we fix this?
[00:06:13] Mm-hmm. Um, and so what we did was we built a career Pathways program where we identified really clear. Ways that a person could progress with their title and with their responsibilities without necessarily somebody else having to leave their job. So usually it's like, Hey, I'm an assistant director of marketing.
[00:06:33] I have to wait for the director of marketing to leave before I can. Get a title change? Well, no. If you're an assistant director, you could become a senior assistant director, then an associate director and a senior associate director without having to have the person above you leave. And so we developed these pathways both along a, um, managerial line and a non managerial line.
[00:06:57] And then we started promoting people. And [00:07:00] I think during my time there, I think we promoted somewhere between eight and 12 people. Wow. Um, And, and just were had a plan to work through basically everyone over the next couple of years.
[00:07:12] Eddie Francis: It's really interesting, you know, in episode two we had, we had the great Kevin McClure and Oh my gosh, I love Kevin.
[00:07:18] Yeah, exactly. And one of the things that he mentioned that just seems to be such a truism, unfortunately, what higher education, um, is that there's this attitude, or at least there used to be, this attitude is probably changing. You know, by force Maur right now. But, um, there's, there's traditionally been this attitude of, hey, if you're unhappy, you know, hit the bricks and we'll just find somebody else.
[00:07:40] Yeah. Uh, find somebody else. I wonder how many people would listen to what you did and say to themselves, I didn't even know that could happen at a college or a university. It seems like the accepted. Truism is you get into a college university and unless you're on a tenure track as a, as a professor or unless you want to [00:08:00] be the president one day, there really is no advancement.
[00:08:05] Jaime Hunt: That is so true. And I think about, um, pretty much every time I've left a job, it has been, that is the only way that I can get. Uh, advancement in my career. And I remember I was at the first university I worked for, um, I had asked for a raise because somebody had left and I absorbed about half of her job.
[00:08:25] And I asked for like a $5,000 raise and they said, we can't give you a raise because there's so many other people who are in the same boat as you and we haven't given them raises. And that was like my first, I was like 29 years old and I remember thinking like, So you have to leave to get a raise. So I did.
[00:08:44] Honestly, that was part of what pushed me to start applying for other jobs, cuz I realized I'm not going to, I just took on so much more responsibility. I'm not gonna get a title change or a pay increase. Why would I stay?
[00:08:58] Eddie Francis: That happened to me too. I mean, I was in one [00:09:00] position and I was told that I literally could not get an increase in pay that it was, and I said, okay.
[00:09:06] To be, to be clear, you're telling me this is impossible? And they said, well, yeah, we don't think it can happen. I said, great. And so I found another job that paid way more and they said, okay. And when I gave my, when I handed in my resignation, they said, well, why are you leaving? I said, oh, well, I'm getting higher pay at another place.
[00:09:26] And believe it or not, this was the response, well, is there a way we can counter the offer? And I said, well, no, you said it was impossible. Yeah, right. I asked you, is it impossible? And you said yes. So I am leaving on this date and I will see you later. Deuces. I mean, it's just right. I just, you know it. And I have come from the private sector, so I just didn't understand the inertia, you know?
[00:09:51] I was just go, I was like, yes, I don't get it. I just don't get it.
[00:09:55] Jaime Hunt: I was at another institution, I wanted to give one of my staff a raise. Mm-hmm. [00:10:00] Yeah. And my boss told me, what I need you to do is have her get a counter offer and then we can give her a raise. And I was like, I don't want her interviewing right.
[00:10:08] I want somebody else to know she's amazing and hire her away. Uh, I don't want her to fall in love with a different place and just leave. That's an absolutely ridiculous thing for me to do.
[00:10:20] Eddie Francis: So here's the thing that really kills me, and I think this is something that prevents a lot of colleges and universities from being employers of choice, um, at least for high quality talent a lot of times mm-hmm.
[00:10:33] Um, is that people see this irony where. A college or a university is a producer of knowledge. And so you would think that an institution of higher learning, when you get in there as an employee, you would think that that place is creative and it can figure out anything. And growth mindset, growth mindset, growth mindset.
[00:10:56] Like you would think that is what's happening. And then you get in and somebody [00:11:00] says, Ha ha ha. If you get a raise, that's really gonna be interesting.
[00:11:04] Jaime Hunt: Right? Right. We don't have a mechanism for giving people raises. Like, ha, what? How is that possible? I, well, and I, I, I did take working with HR to make this possible, right?
[00:11:18] Yeah. Like, we didn't, we couldn't just say, well now we're gonna do this, and just magically start to give people. Title changes and pay increases. But, um, you know, that was on me as the vice president to do that work of making the case to the cfo, making the case to the AVP of HR to really put a structure, um, in front of them that showed them that we put research into this.
[00:11:44] And so, You know, I think as VPs it's so easy to just like kind of throw up our hands and be like, that's how it is, but we have to be unsatisfied with that. Mm-hmm. And those first title changes and pay increases took from [00:12:00] about August to about February to get. Processed all the way through, and then they got retroactive pay for that.
[00:12:08] But then once we did that first batch of maybe six, all the ones after that took about a month to work through the system, which, you know sure in the private sector, maybe I could say you have a different pay tomorrow and you have it. Starting tomorrow, but for higher ed, that's not too shabby.
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[00:14:13] Eddie Francis: One of the things that you mentioned during the panel discussion with the Chronicle of Higher Education is you saw a need to really dig into job descriptions, um, and to figure out how those job descriptions could be modified. Why is that
[00:14:28] Jaime Hunt: So, I think that one of the biggest barriers to recruiting a diverse talent pool is that we.
[00:14:37] Create a situation where people can self-select out of applying for jobs. Mm-hmm. So when you have these long lists of minimum qualifications that there's nobody that's gonna check every box. Yes, we know studies have shown that women and people of color and immigrants are less likely to apply for jobs if they don't check every [00:15:00] box, right?
[00:15:00] So we're just basically putting out in the world if you're, if you're of some sort of underrepresented group, whether you're a woman, person of color, immigrant, or all three, you're not gonna feel comfortable applying for this job, even though you're. Completely qualified, but you have this imposter phenomenon that tells you that if I don't have every single thing in spades, every t, every eye, I'm not gonna apply.
[00:15:26] And then you miss out on some really talented people when you do that. And so simplifying those minimum requirements, I think just makes all the sense in the world and is low hanging fruit for recruiting a more diverse talent
[00:15:40] Eddie Francis: pool. Yeah, I started chuckling when you were talking about the minimum qualifications because the one that kills me is must lift, must be able to lift 30 pounds.
[00:15:50] And, and I'm like, I mean, I was like, is this a deadlift cop? What is this? Are, are we, are we gonna be weightlifting? What's happening? What, what are we gonna be doing? [00:16:00] I mean, I understand why, but it's just ridiculous to me, honestly. Yes. To sell, to tell somebody, you have to be able to lift 30 pounds to do the job.
[00:16:08] Yes. Where it just, I,
[00:16:12] Jaime Hunt: well, and even the things like standing and walking, so are you telling me that someone in a wheelchair couldn't write a press release? Like That's exactly. Or somebody with some sort of mobility impairment can't answer the phones or. Honestly, the job that I have as, as VP and cmo, would I have to be able to walk to do my job?
[00:16:31] I don't know that I would, but if you're saying, yeah, you have to be able to walk, you have to be able to stand, you have to be able to do these things, but do you really? Yeah, like the technology is there that even typing. Isn't necessarily essential if you have a quiet office and VO voice recognition
[00:16:47] Eddie Francis: software.
[00:16:48] Yeah, it was really interesting to me how in some of the practices at a couple of the universities I've been at, everything just seemed to be on autopilot and as soon as you went in, I went into a few job [00:17:00] descriptions and I said, I. This kind of, this is kind of ridiculous. I'm gonna change this job description.
[00:17:06] And you know, folks say, well, are you sure you want to do that? I said, listen, I'm basing this job description on what I need. Okay. Yes. And I do think there is a lot of merit to I, I've seen some job descriptions that are like two pages long and you're just sitting there going, is this person really? Gonna have to do all of this and do, and now are you telling me that there is no professional development that can happen?
[00:17:32] That if you want this per, you know, to get this person Yeah. Better at this job, because I, I mean, you're right. Uh, as somebody who's a former recruiter, yes. Those studies are definitely out there that is saying that if the job, especially if the job description is written too long, yes. There are a lot of people who are gonna check out by the time they get to the 20th bullet point.
[00:17:53] Yeah.
[00:17:54] Jaime Hunt: Yeah. I, I remember the, the second university job that I had, I almost didn't [00:18:00] apply for because I was like, mm-hmm. There's a couple things in here I've never done before, and I, you know, are they gonna be looking for somebody that can do these things? And now in retrospect, it's like, for what they were paying, they were lucky they had anybody that could do any of the job description.
[00:18:15] Eddie Francis: Absolutely. Yes. I mean, it's, it's really so. You know, I, I want higher ed to pay attention to some of the blowback that comes back from applicants. Um, yeah. Especially the ones who said, especially the ones who say, I just got a master's degree. Surely you must be able to do better than this and pay. Um, yeah.
[00:18:35] Especially if you're asking me to do all of these things. Um, and I, and I just think that the, the lack of. Realism, um, when it comes to really taking a look at it, and you can't hold people hostage over a mission either. You know, you can't say, well, you know what the mission is, right? This is higher ed.
[00:18:53] This is just how it works. And if you really believe in it, you're gonna do every single one of these things. And it's, you know, I, I, I, [00:19:00] I, I don't know about that.
[00:19:02] Jaime Hunt: It's a little bit abusive to be using the mission. Like the mission doesn't pay the bills. That's right. And. We should want our employees and our staff and our faculty to be able to have lives, right?
[00:19:17] Mm-hmm. We should be paying living wages. We should be paying wages that reflect the importance of the work that we're doing and the challenges of the work that they're doing. And I understand the budgetary pressures, but then maybe we have to do a little bit less, rather than say, we need everybody working 60, 70 hours a week in order to accomplish all that needs to be accomplished.
[00:19:40] You're just putting the burden of. Those budgetary challenges on the backs of people's families who don't get to spend time with their kids or don't get to spend Yeah. Go on vacations or whatever. I have to have a second job cuz you can't afford it on the salary you make. That's just not fair.
[00:19:56] Eddie Francis: Yeah. You know, and that, that brings me to something about you that [00:20:00] I, I really admire.
[00:20:02] Um, and that is the fact that as, as a, as a vp, um, You understand full will that you need execution when it comes to the work. Yeah. Uh, but at the same time, you seem to be very compassionate and you seem to be really empathetic towards your team. Um, when it comes to that level of compassion, when it comes to that level of empathy, how ha how have you seen that affect your team members?
[00:20:32] Jaime Hunt: Yeah, I think that, Being empathetic is absolutely critical, I think, for a leader. Mm-hmm. Um, and it's critical in so many ways, but I do think that people will be more productive if they believe, really believe that the person that's leading them genuinely cares about them as a person. Mm-hmm. And I think about the times when I've had really great empathetic.
[00:20:57] Bosses, I'm thinking about Elwood Robinson in [00:21:00] particular at Winston-Salem State. Yeah. What's the Salem say? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. He's, he's retiring now, but, um, you know, I was talking with someone today about when my dad was dying, about how it was just, you need to do what you need to do and we're gonna give you all the flexibility and we're gonna check in on you and make sure you're doing okay, and we're gonna fill in any gaps that you need.
[00:21:23] Will you help take care of him? And that made me, I was telling a team member this morning that made me be such a better employee. Yeah. In terms of, I felt like they cared about me. So I was meticulous about the work that I did do during that time, and I was super communicative about how the situation was going and what I thought was when I thought I'd be back and all of that.
[00:21:47] But if I felt like they didn't care about me, it would've been like they're just doing their legal obligation to let me use F M L A to go take care of my dad. And that level of compassionate [00:22:00] empathy is just. It's just such an important thing for leaders to have. But if you need to be convinced, right? If you need to be convinced to be a good person, cool.
[00:22:11] There's business case for being a good person too. Mm-hmm. So if it's not enough for you to feel like the purpose of life is to help each other, Right? Mm-hmm. If that's not your core belief, that's fine. That's cool. But there is a business case for being an empathetic leader, and that is people who work for leaders with empathy are much more productive.
[00:22:32] They'll stay longer, they'll work harder, they'll . Understand when there's challenges, they'll put in the extra work when it happens because they know you care about them.
[00:22:43] Eddie Francis: You know, I'm going to, I'm going to bring back something that you said, and, and I almost gave this a stand innovation, uh, during the panel discussion, uh, when you said leadership is about people.
[00:22:54] Um, and, and I mean, it, it amazes me that that's something that people, apparently, a lot of leaders, [00:23:00] and I think a lot of leaders in higher education still need to understand because. The other thing is, is that if you were in higher education, you were in the people business. Like, yes, there's, there are no if, ands or buts about this.
[00:23:13] There's no re there's not enough research in the world that can get you away from people in higher education because your research is about people half the time anyway. So, um, I, I, I think, I think the recognition. That higher ed in particular is a people business, and the leaders have to be people.
[00:23:33] People. That's critical for colleges and universities to become employers of choice.
[00:23:41] Jaime Hunt: Absolutely. Well, and I think. We are selling a product that is an education that's delivered by people. Hmm. And who are we delivering that education to? People. Who are the people that are, uh, or who is doing the services that, um, students get?
[00:23:59] [00:24:00] It's people. Everything is people. If you look at our budgets, you know, 80 plus percent of our budget is people. Mm-hmm. We are. People, businesses, we are a business, yes. But we're a business run by people and we're, we need to all be in it together. And you can't feel like you're all in it together if you don't feel like the leadership genuinely cares about you.
[00:24:20] Mm-hmm. How do you feel like we're all in this together?
[00:24:24] Eddie Francis: Well, it's a situation of trust too. I mean, a, a leader really can't do what they need to do and they can't really enact the vision that they have for an institution if people don't trust them. And if people don't trust you, then then goodbye vision.
[00:24:38] It's not gonna happen. As a matter of fact, you're gonna have a bunch of saboteurs on your hand actually. Yeah. So, and I, and that I have seen. So, um, absolutely. Um, so one thing I would really love to hear from you is, um, how can colleges and universities in your view, because one of the things I really, really [00:25:00] want leaders and, and I want I want our fellow marketers to get out of this podcast is I really want them to get something that's gonna push them in a direction of solutions for their institution.
[00:25:11] So what is one resourceful thing that you believe. That just about any college or university can do, um, so that they can turn their employees into effective brand champions. I mean, people can see, people can be brand champions and wear the gear, but I think an effective brand champion as someone who goes around and says, I love working at this place.
[00:25:37] You should attend. I love working at this place. You should donate. I'm gonna leave this place, and I really wish I could stay forever, but. I love it all the same. So, in your view, what's a, what's, what's a resourceful thing that you think any college or university can do? Yeah.
[00:25:54] Jaime Hunt: When I was at Winston-Salem State, we launched a brand ambassador program and we started with the [00:26:00] employees.
[00:26:00] Actually, what we did was identify those employees that seemed really passionate about the institution. We made them feel really special. Right. You were getting this invitation that was given to you, Eddie. Because of who you are as a person to participate in this program where you're gonna get some training on, you know, how to be a brand champion, but it's not just, Hey Eddie, you're a brand champion now.
[00:26:26] It was a personal invitation from the Chancellor to come to an event where we ask you, Eddie, you seem like someone who loves the university. You do such great work. You're you. You're a leader around campus, whether you're in a leadership role or you're a leader because of your innate personality. Eddie, we wanna ask you, are you willing to be a brand champion for the university?
[00:26:51] And this is what it would entail, and this is the training that you'd have. And Eddie, we would love to have you on board with this. What do you [00:27:00] think? And it wasn't like this. We're, um, Hey, we're just inviting a bunch of people that we'd like, you can come here and you can, we are expecting you to start wearing gear and using these talking points.
[00:27:13] Right? It was all about valuing them. Mm-hmm. And talking about what they were bringing to the table that could help us get the word out about the university and the number of people who said they were like, Well, I had to come, I had a personal invitation from the chancellor, like it was, you know, it, it was in the mail and it was signed by him and it was a whole thing.
[00:27:35] And they were like this, they, the people were strutting around. They had their little brand champion buttons. I would see them at events, you know, you know, weeks later and they'd be like, I'm wearing my button and I can't wait to go do this and that. Um, and it was all about making people feel seen as the people, as individuals.
[00:27:55] Make people feel seen as individuals. And I'm not necessarily saying like, [00:28:00] Hey, everybody needs to have this really formal program to do that. But just generally speaking, seeing people like individuals I think would, would launch a brand ambassador program organically. They're gonna be excited because they feel valued.
[00:28:14] People just wanna feel valued at the end of the day.
[00:28:17] Eddie Francis: So I have to tell you something about that. The thing is so funny, so my wife was from Winston-Salem, and so the funniest thing is one day we were, we were looking at something and, and somehow Winston-Salem State came across, you know, Whatever we were looking at the feed or whatever.
[00:28:37] Uh, she graduated from Hampton. She didn't want to stay at home to go to school, so she went to Hampton and then she go, nobody's perfect, and she's okay. I won't get into that one, but, but she said, I wonder what's going on. What's the Salem State? And I said, what do you mean? She said, They are, like she said, they're different.
[00:28:56] Like the university is just different. And she said this roughly [00:29:00] about five to six years ago actually. And so she was trying to figure out what was so different about Winston's Salem State because she just said that the atmosphere seemed different. She said, people seem much prouder of Winston-Salem State and so we may have our answer here.
[00:29:18] You, you know, you, you may be the culprit of that and I'll let her know that you're the blame.
[00:29:23] Jaime Hunt: That makes me so happy to hear, honestly, of all the work I've done in my career, the work I did at Winston-Salem State is the work I'm most proud of. And it was all on a shoestring, and it was, but it was all by people who just like, we all rolled up our sleeves and said, how can we make people realize what a gem this place is?
[00:29:40] And, um, super proud of the work that we did and measurable outcomes we saw. Um, this isn't, you know, why we're here, but we saw, um, in 2014. 42, 40 3% of students said Wssu was their first choice. And in 2018, after we started doing all [00:30:00] of these campaigns, it went up to 62%, which was a huge increase. But it was all about activating branch champions cuz we had, my budget was like $200,000.
[00:30:11] Yes. You know that's not gonna go very far. You need to activate ambassadors. Mm-hmm. To really amplify the story.
[00:30:18] Eddie Francis: Hmm. Well actually that, that data point that you just gave, that is the reason we are here and that is exactly why you are Jamie Hunt.
[00:30:28] Jaime Hunt: Well, thank you. I'm really, it makes me so happy to hear that she saw a difference.
[00:30:34] Yeah. Yeah. In the
[00:30:34] Eddie Francis: institution. She absolutely did. So, um, so bravo to you and Dr. Robinson. I mean, I, I know, yes. I, I've admired him from, I've admired him from afar, so I, I know the work that he has done has been excellent. And so, so listen, if anybody, I mean, of course people can catch you on confessions of a higher s e o, but if anyone did just wanna reach out to you, how can they do it?
[00:30:57] Jaime Hunt: Yeah, so I am really active on [00:31:00] LinkedIn, Jamie Hunt, um, J A I M E, and I'm on Twitter at Jamie Hunt. I M C J A I M E H U N T I M C. Or you can reach out to me here at ODU at J one Hunt. At odu.edu and I don't know why it's J one Hunt, but I accept it cuz it makes me feel like Jamie's number one. Um, but I'm, I'm happy to chat with people.
[00:31:23] I, I talk with people all the time about this stuff. Um, I'm happy to let people pick my brain.
[00:31:29] Eddie Francis: Absolutely. Well, Jamie is the VP of University Communications and the CMO at Old Dominion University, and as we mentioned several times, the host of Confessions of a Higher ed CMO right here on the Enroll five Podcast Network.
[00:31:42] So Jamie, thank you so much. Appreciate you joining
[00:31:45] Jaime Hunt: me. Thank you. You for inviting me. It was a pleasure, Eddie.
[00:31:54] Eddie Francis: I wanna work there as part of the Enroll five Podcast Network. If you like this podcast, check out [00:32:00] other enroll five shows. The Enroll five podcast network is growing by the month of all kinds of marketing admissions in higher ed technology shows, and they're jam packed with stories, ideas, or frameworks, all designed to empower youth.
[00:32:13] To be a better hire ed professional. There are some great industry voices that you can check out, like Terry Flannery, my good friend Jamie Hunt, Alison Terio, KA Myers, Dustin Ramsdale, Jamie Gleason, and many more. Learn more about the Enroll five Podcast Network at podcasts. Dot enroll.org. Our shows help higher ed marketers and admissions professionals find their next big idea.
[00:32:37] So, uh, come and find yours.[00:33:00]
About the Episode
The what's what...
Recently, The Chronicle of Higher Education held a virtual panel discussion called “The Talent Crisis in Higher Education.” One of the panelists was Jaime Hunt, host of The Enrollify Podcast Network’s “Confessions of a Higher Ed CMO.” Jaime joined “I Wanna Work There!” to talk about why she once conducted an employee satisfaction survey and how she used the data. We also find out why she obsesses over job descriptions and how empathy impacts performance. Finally, Jaime talks about a brand ambassador program that featured employees and the results it pulled in.
This episode is brought to you by our friends at DD Agency:
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About the Enrollify Podcast Network
I Wanna Work There" is a part of the Enrollify Podcast Network. If you like this podcast, chances are you’ll like other Enrollify shows too!
Our podcast network is growing by the month and we’ve got a plethora of marketing, admissions, and higher ed technology shows that are jam packed with stories, ideas, and frameworks all designed to empower you to be a better higher ed professional. Our shows feature a selection of the industry’s best as your hosts. Learn from Mickey Baines, Zach Busekrus, Jaime Hunt, Allison Turcio, Jaime Gleason and many more.
Learn more about The Enrollify Podcast Network at podcasts.enrollify.org. Our shows help higher ed marketers and admissions professionals find their next big idea — come and find yours!
About the Podcast
Eddie Francis, a brand strategy consultant, award-winning broadcaster, podcaster, and speaker, is driven by the deep belief in the importance of being valued. As the founder of Edify Ventures, a consultancy focusing on personal and employer branding, Eddie hosts "I Wanna Work There!" on employer branding in higher education and "For Our Edification" on personal leadership. With a background in radio, including hosting the "HBCU Lifestyle Podcast," Eddie's contributions extend to various platforms, earning him recognition as one of New Orleans Magazine's "30 People to Watch." In higher education, he played pivotal roles in brand identity, communications, and enrollment growth. As a speaker, Eddie shares leadership insights with college students and has contributed to the book "Leadership to Letters." Eddie holds a Master of Professional Studies in strategic leadership and a Bachelor of Arts in mass communication. Proudly affiliated with Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Inc., he is the husband of Dr. Halima Leak Francis and the father of Stevie.
Transformation has been a hallmark of Jaime's career. In nearly 20 years working in higher education, she been part of four university rebrandings and five website overhauls. She's been hands-on in the development of an integrated marketing communications model at three institutions. As a result, she has gained extensive expertise in brand strategy, recruitment marketing, internal communications, crisis communications, issues management, online innovation, and media relations. She also has in her portfolio government relations and, for two years, she oversaw a public radio station. She is currently the vice president for university communications and chief marketing officer for Old Dominion University, a 23,000-student public R1 research institution in Coastal Virginia. Prior to her current role, she was the vice president and chief communications and marketing officer for Miami University (the one in not-as-sunny Oxford, Ohio). She also served in marketing and media relations leadership roles at Winston-Salem State University (North Carolina), Radford University (Virginia), the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, and Northwestern Health Sciences University (Minnesota). Her background also includes more than four years as a print journalist and three years working for nonprofits and in nonprofit consulting. She earned my bachelor's degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota and her master's degree in integrated marketing communications from West Virginia University.
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A great employee experience equals a great student experience. In a time where employee recruitment and retention is more challenging than ever, I Wanna Work There! takes a look at how colleges and universities can develop competitive, compelling employer brands. Join us for an honest and solutions-based look at the issues that surround institutions positioning themselves as employers of choice.
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