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Revolutionizing Recruitment: Personalization is the New Expectation
Several years ago, I submitted an online inquiry as part of a secret shopper assessment for a school. A short time later, the school’s first response arrived in my inbox.
It began, “Dear Sir and/or Madam.”
I wish I could say that was the only time I have seen something like this. Unfortunately, I have encountered similar responses at other schools as well. I recently found this same issue in two schools I submitted inquiries to this summer.
In some cases, the admissions team did not even realize that this was the first message prospective families were receiving.
The problem is bigger than poor email etiquette. A response like that immediately communicates something to a parent: you are one of many. We do not know you yet, and we have not taken the time to make this interaction feel personal.
That matters because families are paying attention to far more than the information you provide. They are also forming impressions about what it might feel like to be part of your school community.
In the previous article in this series, I wrote that Story Is the New Sales Pitch. Stories help families imagine what could be possible for their child. But imagination alone is not enough. At some point, parents need to begin believing that the story could actually be about their child.
That leads to Rule #4 in my Revolutionizing Recruitment framework:
Personalization Is the New Expectation
Personalization has always mattered. That is not new. What has changed is the level of personalization families now experience in almost every other part of their lives.
We live in a world where the companies we interact with know our preferences, remember our past purchases, recommend what we might want next, and tailor much of the experience around us. Whether or not we think that is always a good thing, it has changed expectations.
So when a prospective family contacts a school and receives a generic response, that disconnect is noticeable.
Families do not want to feel processed. They want to feel known.
That does not mean every interaction needs to be elaborate or expensive. It simply means the family should have evidence that someone is paying attention.
The Disney Button Is Not Really About the Button
One of the simplest examples of personalization I have seen comes from Disney.
If you spend time in the parks, you will see guests wearing buttons that recognize different experiences. Someone may be celebrating a birthday, an anniversary, or a first visit. When my wife, Janine, and I visited Disneyland for the first time, we received our own first-visit buttons.
At first glance, it is just a button. But the button creates an opportunity for a cast member to notice something about the guest and respond to it. They can welcome someone visiting for the first time, wish a child a happy birthday, or recognize a couple celebrating something special.
The piece of plastic is not what makes the experience memorable. The interaction does.
It is about being seen, acknowledged, and known. That was the point I made during my FACTS Elevate keynote when I introduced this rule.
Schools have the same opportunity, even though prospective students are not walking onto campus wearing buttons that announce what matters to them.
A student may be nervous about changing schools. Another may love robotics. A parent may be concerned because their child has struggled to find friends. A family may be looking for more academic challenge, stronger support, a faith-centered community, or simply a place where their child will be known.
The question is whether we take enough time to discover those things.
Personalization Begins With Listening
Too often, schools think about personalization as something we add to the process. We use the parent’s first name in an email, put the student’s name on a welcome sign, or customize a folder for a campus visit.
Those touches can be meaningful, but real personalization starts before any of them.
It starts with curiosity.
When a family first contacts your school, the goal should not simply be to collect enough information to move them to the next stage of the admissions process. The goal should be to understand them.
What prompted you to begin looking at schools?
Tell me about your child.
What matters most to you in this decision?
What does your child enjoy?
What are you hoping will be different next year?
Questions like these change the conversation because they move it from transactional to relational. They also give the admissions team something far more valuable than another field in a database: context.
You cannot personalize an experience for a family you have never taken the time to understand.
This is one of the reasons I believe admissions professionals should see themselves as guides rather than processors. In my keynote, I described the goal as guiding families through the process of discovering whether your school is the right fit for them and doing that one family at a time.
That requires listening before presenting.
Use What You Learn
Listening only matters if it changes what happens next.
If a parent tells you that their child loves theater, that information should influence the campus visit. Introduce the student to someone involved in the performing arts, show them where rehearsals happen, or share a story about another student whose experience might resonate with them.
If a family is concerned about the transition into middle school, connect them with someone who can explain how new students are welcomed and supported. If a parent expresses concern about academic support, do not simply send them a general description of the program. Help them connect with the person who can explain what that support could look like for their child.
That is where personalization becomes real.
Personalization is not simply knowing a family’s name. It is showing them that you remembered their story.
When the next interaction reflects something the family previously shared, the message is powerful. It says that we were listening, we remembered, and what matters to you matters to us.
Automated Does Not Have to Mean Impersonal
Technology can make personalization easier, but it can also make the admissions experience feel less human if we are not careful.
I see both extremes in my secret shopper work. I have received generic responses that clearly feel disconnected from the family and the inquiry. I have also seen schools use technology very effectively.
During my keynote, I shared an example from Capistrano Valley Christian Schools. Their first response is automated, but it does not feel automated. The communication is clearly directed to the prospective family, includes compelling content and useful next steps, and comes from a real admissions professional. The family knows who they are communicating with.
That distinction is important because automation is not the enemy of personalization. Poorly designed automation is.
A good system should help your admissions team respond quickly and consistently while still sounding warm and human. It should create more capacity for relationship building, not more distance between the school and the family.
The same principle applies to artificial intelligence. AI can help us draft communication, organize information, summarize conversations, and identify opportunities for follow-up. But it should support the relationship rather than replace it. The best use of technology is to help us become more attentive and more responsive, not less human.
Every Family Should Feel Like the Only Family
During a busy enrollment season, an admissions office may be working with dozens or even hundreds of prospective families at the same time. There are inquiries to answer, campus visits to schedule, applications to review, questions to resolve, and follow-up that needs to happen. It is easy for the work to begin feeling like a process.
But that is not how the parent experiences it.
To the admissions office, this may be one of 100 inquiries. To the parent, this is their child.
They are thinking about whether their son will make friends, whether their daughter will be appropriately challenged, whether a teacher will notice when their child is struggling, and whether they can trust your school with someone they love deeply.
That perspective should change the way we approach the work.
Every family should feel as though they are the only family you are working with. Of course, they know they are not. But in the moment when you are talking with them, touring the campus, or responding to a concern, they should feel that they have your full attention.
That is the level of personalization families remember.
Personalization Creates Belonging Before Enrollment
There is an even deeper reason this matters. Personalization begins creating a sense of belonging before a family ever enrolls.
When a student hears their name, realizes that someone remembered their interests, meets another student with something in common, or receives follow-up connected to a conversation they had during the visit, they begin to feel less like an outsider looking in.
The family begins to imagine themselves as part of the community.
This is also where the first four rules in this series begin to reinforce one another. Relationships build trust. Experience helps families feel the difference. Stories help them imagine what could be possible. Personalization helps them believe that the experience could actually be for their child.
That is much more meaningful than inserting a name into an email. It is the beginning of connection.
Personalization Should Continue Throughout the Journey
One of the mistakes schools can make is treating personalization as a first-impression strategy. We work hard to make the first email or campus visit feel personal and then allow the rest of the process to become increasingly administrative.
Families notice that too.
The first inquiry response should feel human, but so should what happens next. The campus visit should reflect what the family has shared. Follow-up should connect to their questions and priorities. The application process should feel guided rather than mechanical, and acceptance should feel like a celebration of the student rather than simply a change in status inside the enrollment system.
Personalization should not be one memorable moment. It should be the way the family experiences the entire admissions journey.
This is particularly important for schools that promise that every child will be known, valued, or loved. Those ideas may appear prominently on the website or in marketing materials, but prospective parents are already looking for evidence that the promise is true.
The admissions experience is one of the first opportunities to prove it.
Personalization Is More Than a Name
There is an important caution here because personalization can easily become superficial.
Putting a family’s name on a sign does not automatically make an experience personal. Neither does using a first-name merge field in an email. Those touches can certainly enhance the experience, but they mean much more when they are supported by genuine attention.
There is a significant difference between saying, “Jennifer, thank you for visiting our school,” and following up with, “Jennifer, you mentioned during your visit that Emma has become really interested in engineering. I thought you might enjoy seeing what our middle school students are working on in robotics this week.”
The second message demonstrates something the first does not. Someone listened.
That is the real standard for personalization.
Questions for School Leaders
As you evaluate your admissions process, consider whether prospective families truly experience personalization or whether you are simply using a collection of personalized tactics.
Does your first response feel human? What do you intentionally learn about each prospective family? Does your admissions team have a way to remember and use what families share? Does the campus visit reflect the interests and needs of the child, or is every family receiving essentially the same tour? Does your follow-up demonstrate that someone actually listened?
Take a close look at your automated communication as well. Does it still sound like it came from a real person who understands the family?
Perhaps the most revealing question is this:
If you removed the family’s name from your communications, would anything else make them believe the message was written for them?
If the answer is no, there is an opportunity to make the experience more personal.
Help Families Feel Known
Parents are not simply looking for a school that knows their child’s name. They are looking for a school that will truly know their child.
That distinction begins during recruitment, long before an enrollment contract is signed. Families are already watching for signs that someone has listened, remembered what matters, and taken a genuine interest in who their child is and who they might become.
That is why personalization matters so much. It is not a tactic designed to impress families. It is a way of demonstrating, from the very beginning, the kind of relationship they can expect if they become part of your school community.
When families experience that kind of attention during the admissions process, something begins to shift. They no longer feel like one more prospect moving through a system. They begin to feel known, and when families feel known, they can begin to imagine what it might feel like to belong.
Families do not want to feel processed. They want to feel known. And when they feel known, they begin to believe they belong.
