Improving the university recruitment process with web analytics

Purpose: The main aim of the article is to know the information needs of candidates for university courses and indicate the importance of web analytics tools in the university recruitment process. The authors present the recruitment process for data science high study programme that was conducted in the middle of 2021 at one of the biggest universities in eastern Poland. Theoretical background: Digital transformation is an irreversible process today. Data produced by people, things, administration units and business organizations can be the source of valuable information. That transformation causes new possibilities for fast development, but also creates challenges for education processes and professional work. Furthermore, the digital transformation resulted in creating new professions like data science (DS). Because of data volume and its importance DS professionals became one of the most wanted specialists in the 21st century, and therefore many universities try to launch new study programs related to automated data processing and try to get the attention of potential students. Design/methodology/approach: The process was supported with analytics tools Hotjar and Google Analytics. The results presented in the paper base on the analysis of 974 pageviews recorded by Hotjar and activity of 824 page users reported by Google Analytics. Findings: The analysis showed that web analytics tools are very easy to use in the recruitment process, and that gathered data allows for better understanding of candidates' needs and improving the future requirement processes and tools. Results indicated that the most important topics for candidates were study programme and payment. Form the technical point of view the responsiveness of applications used for the recruitment process is crucial because a lot of traffic was generated by both users of desktop computers and mobile devices. The greatest interest in the program was recorded before the holiday months. Originality/value: The research contributes to academia in the field of recruitment. Paper presents the data science high study programme and indicates the importance of web analytics tools in the university recruitment process.