Andrea Pecetto is an International Student Recruitment expert. After obtaining two degrees, the first in Switzerland and the second in Australia in 2009, he moved to Norway, where he worked at the American Embassy.

Here he overlooked the Fulbright project, and then in 2010 took part in the launch of one of the most important portals of the education sector in the world, where he worked as manager until 2018.

In August 2018 he returned to Italy with the expertise acquired abroad to follow a new project: Docsity, a Community of over 15 million students with strong annual growth.

He currently manages the Docsity part of the program that assists users in finding future courses. But also Partner Universities to achieve their national and international recruitment goals.

Monsuni: Andrea, while the COVID-19 has made many technologies and processes obsolete, suddenly it seems to be strongly influencing the world of online recruitment: what do you think?

For more than 10 years I have been working in the online recruitment of students, and every year more and more universities contact us to launch their brand in the world. Realities that until yesterday were present only at a national level, some focused only on their region or city. The COVID-19, in my opinion, anticipated by a few years what would have happened anyway, that is to look for students where there are. That is to say, ONLINE!

Monsuni: we are accustomed to seeing non-Italian online solutions excel. For example, all major portals come from the Anglo-Saxon world, or in any case from northern Europe. What is the recipe for your success?

It is true before 2010 most of the portals were present exclusively in the USA, but after they have not been able to keep up. Especially those north-European, born a few years before, have stormed the market.

Docsity is not a portal, but a real ecosystem for students. We help users during their study path and in finding a future path.

Our strongest point is the knowledge of the user. This helps us to recommend the course more in line with their profile. Docsity is a Turin-based reality that operates in more than 70 countries and with a very international team.

Monsuni: what distinguishes Docsity from other online solutions? Do you have features that are yours only?

Docsity is a community with more than 15 million students, with an increase of over 400,000 new users per month. Unlike the classic portals, we don’t look for students on search engines, but we work on the ones we’ve already signed up for Docsity itself.

The strength remains the quality we give to universities, and the attention to detail, we become a real extension of the marketing and recruitment department of the University. Today we work with about 150 universities around the world, this allows us to give the customer the necessary attention.

Monsuni: What trends do you see emerging for recruitment portals?

On the Docsity side, we have been organizing virtual events since 2015, including Webinars, Seminars and Fairs. Due to the current emergency, we had an increase of 70% in demand, and the need to create a so-called Virtual Open Day.

In 20202, we organized more than 30 such Open Days for Universities in Italy and abroad, which entrusted us with the creation of the platform, the management of the event, and promotion.
The latter is a way to interact with students outside their region and why not also international.

This last year has shown us some very interesting results, what we thought was a year of crisis at the educational level, has turned out to be one of the best years, if not the best as a number of members.

In my opinion due to the strategic changes in the University marketing plan, that is, we went to focus on online channels, and this allowed us to reach a much wider “pool” of students.

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You can contact Andrea through his Linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pecetto/