Frances Chan
Careers Commentator
Discover how pre-registrations can keep your employer profile visible year-round.
Picture this: You’re at a bustling career fair, surrounded by curious students keen to chat to you and your colleagues. Each conversation is a great chance to connect with future talent – even if you're not currently hiring.
But what about online? A quarter of students are already scouting for jobs in their first year of university. Imagine one of these eager students stumbling upon your employer profile, only to be met with…silence. No job listings. No way to connect. It's like showing up to a party that's already over.
At Prosple, we discovered a critical disconnect on our jobs board:
Most employers post jobs only 1-2 times per year while students search year-round– leaving a massive talent pool untapped for most of the year.
Employer profiles lack details on upcoming jobs that could allow students to plan ahead.
That's where our pre-registration feature comes in.
What is pre-registration?
As a jobs and internships board, Prosple has traditionally only featured opportunities that are currently active. This changed when we rolled out our pre-registration feature.
Now, when a student visits an employer profile, they’ll always see real opportunities waiting for them. They’re also more likely to come across your profile in the first place when searching for jobs.
This means that even when you’re not actively hiring, you can showcase the kinds of roles you offer and give students a glimpse into the career paths available.
At this point, you may be wondering how pre-registrations differ from expressions of interest (EOIs). Unlike EOIs which tend to be generic (“Sign up to be notified about grad jobs”), pre-registrations are live job listings complete with information about specific roles.
Here’s an example from Coles – as you can see, the listing is an actual graduate job that just hasn’t opened yet.
An example of an opportunity students can pre-register for on Coles’ profile
This design choice also reflects our understanding that students prefer role-specific listings. Our data show that “role-specific vacancies outperform generalist listings by a significant margin of 14%.”
Benefits for students and employers
For employers:
Free and easy to use: All employers have access to pre-registrations at no additional cost and can set them up with the tick of a box.
Convenient: When the application period begins, pre-registrations turn into live job listings, and students are instantly notified. (We’ll notify you about this 3 days before and on the day it changes)
Year-round visibility: Employers can set up pre-registrations for their next job as soon as a previous job closes, maintaining a year-round presence.
Direct access to interested students: Employers can view and interact with pre-registered students, enabling more meaningful early connections.
Data-driven insights: Employers can see how many students are pre-registering for each role, giving them a real-time gauge of interest.
For students:
More time to prepare: Students can now discover roles well in advance and prepare at their own pace. This is especially beneficial for students who need additional support during the process, such as neurodiverse candidates.
Reduced stress: Even if a student misses the main application season, they can still see upcoming opportunities, reducing the feeling like they've 'missed the boat.’
Effortless tracking: Students are immediately notified when jobs are live, freeing them from the need to check back for updates.
Impact so far
Since the feature launched in late 2023, students have pre-registered 216,000 times for upcoming jobs across our platform.
Here are some notable outcomes (all employer names have been anonymised):
Opportunity | Pre- registrations | Applicants | Conversion rate |
Internship program at one of Australia’s leading investment banks | 316 | 112 | 35.44% |
Graduate job at a leading consulting firm | 850 | 294 | 34.59% |
Vacation program at a research institute | 2,760 | 498 | 34.59% |
Internship program at a engineering consultancy | 2,440 | 440 | 18.03% |
Graduate program in a state government | 3,020 | 453 | 15.01% |
As the data shows, pre-registrations are translating into real recruitment wins.
Impact so far
To set up a pre-registration listing, simply enable pre-registrations on any job listing that has an ‘applications open date’ in the future.
If you prefer to accept pre-registrations or expressions of interest (EOIs) via your own ATS or website, you can put the link in the External Talent PoolLink field. This will redirect students who click Pre-register to your own site instead (they’ll still appear in the Prosple Employer hub as well).
By leveraging pre-registrations, you can maintain an active presence on Prosple year-round, connecting with motivated students early and often – turning every day into a virtual career fair for your organisation.
Got questions?
