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Today, I’m excited to introduce CheckIn – the newest member of the LinkedIn Talent Solutions product family that we unveiled at Talent Connect Australia 2013. CheckIn is a mobile app that radically simplifies how recruiters collect and manage candidate information at events.

We built CheckIn for two reasons. First, the fastest growing demographic on LinkedIn is students and recent graduates, who now comprise more than 30 million of our more than 225 million members. Second, lots of recruiters annually fill hundreds to thousands of internships and entry-level jobs via campus events. Unfortunately, most of the products used to collect student and recent-graduate information at campus events are archaic and cumbersome.

It is apparent to most that the U.S. labor market continues to slowly recover from the depths of the recent Great Recession. As employers find it increasingly hard to secure qualified talent for professional positions, more and more of those employers are hiring college and university students for internships, part-time jobs, and seasonal positions. They’re also turning to recent graduates for entry-level jobs and other career opportunities.

But is that the best course of action for these employers? In short, is there a net benefit to recruiting college students and recent graduates?

When it comes to attracting new university graduates, traditional marketing techniques such as college fair booths don’t resonate with students the way they used to. In fact, less than half of college seniors plan to attend campus fairs, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers.[1] But that doesn’t mean that students don’t want that personal connection with you!

While students may not be thinking about career options in their early years, the tides turn very quickly to internships and jobs, especially for those in sought-after fields of study. The ratio of graduates to opportunity necessitates that employers start marketing their brand early and often.

Note: this event takes place from 8:00am-1:00pm PT on Monday May 13th; register today.

Leading employers around the world understand that today’s college and university students and recent graduates are tomorrow’s leaders. Some employers look at interns and recent grads as cheap labor, but the smartest employers regard those candidates as strategic hires.