A student recruitment company that has been operating in the Australian market for two years has expanded its business to the UK with the aim of recruiting for 20-25 providers by the middle of the year.
Acquire Learning will focus on recruiting domestic and on-shore international students to providers offering higher education and further education online and on-campus programmes.
The company also plans to develop its business model to include retail spaces in both the UK and Australia.
“No one in the UK is doing this kind of thing on this kind of level”
Acquire’s strategy is based in following up leads by phone that have been fed to the company’s educational consultants via its data centre that collects information from various websites across the UK. A successful phone call results in the student enrolling in one of Acquire Learning’s partner institutions.
“Acquire Learning’s marketing strategy focuses on identifying, engaging and working with individuals who are looking to further their life through broadening career prospects, education or a combination of both,” said Simon Turton, UK General Manager.
“No one in the UK is doing this kind of thing on this kind of level and because of the way we do things we supply students in a large volume rather than the trickle of one or two that agents do currently.”
Once students are enrolled, the consultants maintain contact with them to offer services during their job search, from preparing for an interview to getting in touch with potential employers.
In Australia, the company is about to pilot an initiative to use retail spaces to catch walk-in business, allow student to meet recruiter as well as give students a space to use to find a course or prepare for a job interview.
If successful, the scheme will be rolled out in the UK some time late 2014 or early 2015. “The long-term plan is to have one on every high street in every major city,” said Turton.
Last year the company’s Australian offices enrolled 13,500 Australian residents for 15 main providers. Turton says consultants in the UK have already come across on shore international students are who are unfamiliar with access the UK Education sector.
“Our consultants are working with these individuals in mapping out career and educational pathways and early results suggest in-country foreign students will come to represent a respectable percentage of our UK business,” he said.
