Malaise Murphy, 23, is the campus owner at the University of Texas. The fact that she went to school there doesn't help much, though; she majored in communications, and the computer-science and engineering departments are of a different world. But now she knows that world intimately, thanks to students like Sravish Sridhar, 22, a computer-science major and vice president of the Association for Computing Machinery -- one of several student organizations that Murphy regularly contacts. When Murphy wanted to publicize an upcoming info session, Sridhar told her not to bother placing an ad in the Daily Texan, the student-run newspaper. Instead, Sridhar emailed all 350 people on the club's mailing list. He also suggested which food would go over well (pizza), and referred her to his friends, who are also high-tech majors.

That last gesture means a lot to Daniel, because it reflects the level of trust and acceptance between the students and recruiters. It also makes for particularly effective networking. More than anyone else, the students themselves know the real stars on campus -- the individuals who don't bother attending career fairs or putting together a résumé because they know that they'll be able to choose from a dozen job offers. The only way to get these leads, says Daniel, is to live in the trenches. But few companies live there. Another mistake that companies make is not responding quickly to students; they recruit according to their schedule, not students' schedules. And if you drop the ball and wait three weeks to call back after an interview, you lose recruits. "Students are being courted by your competitors, and the window of opportunity is small," says Daniel. "You've got to make a good impression."

CollegeHire's approach to recruiting helps solve an ongoing and expensive problem in the high-tech industry: retention. One way to avoid losing valuable employees, says Daniel, is by recruiting the right people in the first place. At Trilogy, he was a big believer in making sure that recruits were strong culture fits. As demanding as the long hours and workload were, few employees jumped ship because they thrived in that sort of environment.

Daniel says that he recruits for passion, not GPA or technical prowess. If people are bright and highly motivated, he believes you can teach them the necessary skills. "There are stars out there with a 2.0 GPA, the type of people who say, 'I'm not going to do another problem set out of this stupid book. I'd rather spend my time building a robot or something,' " says Daniel. "A lot of companies miss those people because they don't look deep enough. But if you find out what gets someone jazzed and channel that energy into something that a company is doing, then that person would be awesome."

In a sense, that's Daniel's own personal story. At Trilogy, he was one of the few nontechnical hires in his recruiting class in 1995. He'd studied journalism at Baylor University, earning both an undergraduate and a graduate degree, but he had earned only average grades. Daniel has always been the type of person who applies himself selectively, pouring his considerable energy only into certain classes or areas that interest him -- like recruiting. He flew all over the country for Trilogy, meeting and networking with students nonstop to get the most talented candidates. He still prides himself on being able to spot potential in students and then find the job and the workplace that they're best suited to -- where they'll thrive and stick around. If CollegeHire can work for the high-tech industry, Daniel figures, why not other markets? That's the next step: expanding the operation to include more majors, more companies, more matches. Daniel is a matchmaker who thinks like a gardener. "Plant them in a fertile environment," he says of recruits, "and they're going to frickin' blow away your expectations."

Chuck Salter (csalter@fastcompany.com), a Fast Company senior writer, is based in Baltimore. For his first job out of college, he worked as a weekend clerk at the New York Times's London bureau. Contact Jeff Daniel by email (jeff@collegehire.com), or visit CollegeHire.com on the Web (www.collegehire.com).

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Jeff Daniel, founder and CEO of CollegeHire.com, believes that recruiting college students is a job for marketing, not HR. It's about being able to tell a company's story, and being able to get students excited about working there. It involves what Daniel calls "the glitz and the grab." And what works at one school won't necessarily work at another. You have to be attuned to the cultural differences between campuses.