How for-profit colleges recruit

“Dig deep. Get to their pain. Get to what’s bothering them, so that that way you can convince them that a college degree is going to solve all their problems.” This is a quote from a former for-profit college recruiter describing how she was instructed to recruit students, taken from the PBS "Frontline" special "College, Inc." (temporary posted online, today (5/7/2010), at http://video.pbs.org/video/1485280975/ ) For me, the quote highlights the importance of self-empathy; if people targeted for such recruiting have the capacity for self-empathy they already will have "dug deep" themselves, tuned into their own needs themselves, and considered for themselves what is and is not likely to meet those needs, or "solve their problems," instead of having it figured out for them by a marketer. When people don't self-empathize - tune into their own basic needs - they become ready targets for marketers' manipulations.