Billboards - University of Minnesota Department of Forest Resources
The University of Minnesota's Department of Forest Resources has used billboards in their recruiting efforts. (Click here to see billboard image (pdf). Jenna Williams, who is Coordinator of Career and External Communications in the Department of Forest Resources at the University of Minnesota has offered to share some of their lessons learned about billboard use in recruiting.

Jenna Williams shares some of their lessons learned after posting the billboard:

• Location, location, location! We put ours on the opposite side of the road (aka across the other lane of traffic) and found that this made them hard to read and much less visible.
• The background image for our billboards easily blends in to trees behind the billboard making it hard to identify what the picture is - viewers maybe take a glance at billboards and do not read unless something catches their eye.
• The less words the better! We are contemplating getting rid of the web address in the future - people know to look online and if they see the U of MN on the billboard they will know where to look. For me personally, I never ever remember web addresses in ads - all they do is give me a further reminder to look online.
• Finally, in the future my goal is to find routes that local high school students may travel frequently - this is our target audience and if there are main roads between them and their home, they are going to see the billboard more than once and probably more than just glancing.
• But the best advice is to just start paying attention to billboards you see. You'll notice the ones with small text you can't read, too much text you can't get through, and then the ones that catch your eyes and are simple enough to get a point across at 70mph.

If you would like additional information on the billboard work, here is a link to Jenna Williams contact information at the University of Minnesota.

If you have any recruiting 'Lessons Learned' you would like to add to this site, please contact us at the Forestry Recruiting Information Clearinghouse.