By Troy Behrens, MA, NCC

For a typical college career service professional, the thought of hosting a job fair can be rather anxiety provoking, especially if you happen to work for a college that is small, or in a rural area, or has a significant commuter population, or has multiple campuses. That probably covers 90 percent of colleges in one way or another, and as a result, we know how difficult it can be to attract "big-name companies" with high-caliber career opportunities. As if this dilemma wasn't challenging enough, we are probably more than likely to have mandates handed down to us from our colleges' administrators that require us to DO MORE WITH LESS.

Doing more with less in regards to a job fair might mean attracting more Fortune 500 companies, or providing opportunities for an alumni network, and it could also mean providing a wide variety of internships and jobs for each and every college major on campus. For many, it is all of the above and then some. Many placement personnel also have to find a way of hosting a job fair that would be convenient and easily accessible for students at a satellite campus many miles away. In response to some of these issues, I hosted a Virtual Job Fair (VJF) for a small, liberal arts college and the rest is history! (See Behrens, 1998, Journal of Career Planning & Employment, Summer Issue.) Our VJF was a tremendous success. Nearly 230 companies participated and 4,000 job hunters helped them fill their hiring needs. We even enjoyed a net gain in revenue that was larger than our on-campus job fairs.

More importantly, we were able to meet the demands of our students, recruiters and administrators in many ways. The students at our satellite campus 40 miles away were able to participate, recruiters were able to stay in their offices and attend to other tasks, our alumni both locally and from out-of-state were able to connect with employers and last but not least, jobs opportunities were available for nearly every major from social work to history. Since our experience was so positive, many career centers are considering hosting a VJF of their own.

Is There An Interest With Other Colleges?

In an effort to put our finger on the true pulse of the VJF interest, I interviewed and surveyed nearly 250 college-based administrators, which included 55 e-mail messages addressed to me from career center directors in US, Puerto Rico, Canada, Australia who plan on developing their own VJF's.

Demographics of Survey Participants :

• Represented College Campuses from 39 States
• Range of student enrollment: 1,000 - 37,000
• Average student enrollment: 10,000
• 41% reported rural campus settings
• 44% reported urban campus settings
• 45% reported having a predominant commuter population
• 25% reported having a "traditional" college campus
• 99.9% had NEVER heard of a VJF

The demographics were diverse from a few important perspectives. First, nearly 40 states were represented and the distribution of the campus locations within those states is almost perfectly distributed between rural and urban settings. The inherent benefits associated with a VJF for a campus that is hundreds of miles away from major employers need not be elaborated. But the same is true for the smaller, lesser-known college, which is situated in the middle of an urban-jungle that is teeming with dozens of competing campuses. Secondly, nearly ¼ of the participants represented "traditional" college campuses, which might indicate a benefit for those colleges that do not necessarily have difficulty reaching out to a commuter audience.

Forget about the survey for a moment, and consider these first-hand accounts from folks who hosted VJF's of their own!

Andrea Dine is Assistant Director of Career Services at the University of Cincinnati, had recently completed what is being touted as the country's first college-based, "paperless" virtual job fair. Ms. Dine reported a number of successful accomplishments that resulted before, during and after her VJF. Here are just a few of them:

1. Only 1 student assistant helped her with the coordination of the event, and that person was responsible for sending employers invoices! The career center staff was free to go about their daily business as the students enjoyed one of the most successful job fairs ever!
   
   
2. The ratio of students to employers was the highest in the history of UC job fairs!
   
   
3. Each company averaged approximately 100 hits to their "Virtual Booths."
   
   
4. Around 50 percent of all alumni who are registered with the UC Alumni office participated in the VJF!
   
   
5. The VJF web site was designed by 2 Ph.D. students who majored in computer engineering and a significant sum of money was spent for special software that was designed to help facilitate the VJF. The great news is this software will pay for itself after a few VJF's and then the entire process will be nearly cost-free!
   
   
6. One of the ways they advertised their VJF was by placing "table tents" on top of all of the computer terminals in their computer labs on campus, "That way," said Ms. Dine, "the students who really use the technology on a regular basis can learn about our event in a direct advertising format."

Dr. Mike Hopper, Director of Career Services at Moorhead State University had similar success with his VFJ, in fact, he has facilitated many virtual job fairs! Dr. Hopper had so much success with his initial VJF, he decided to host 3 more since then! He has even developed specialized VJF's for summer interns and business majors to name a few. He is currently hosting 2 separate VJF's for his students and reported that students from Moorhead State University will be seeing a lot more in the future. In fact, Mike reported that, " A new program at Moorhead State is being proposed to offer VJF's for their Internet/Distance Learning Students. Since the Distance Learning Program is gaining such popularity, it seems fair to develop VJF's for these students because they deserve the same high quality placement opportunities that the "traditional", on-campus students have come to enjoy."

Kay Field, Director of North Iowa Area Community College's Career Center had a lot of fun hosting her VJF and can't wait to host another one this summer. Ms. Field presented the following bits of information that she feels will help readers with the development of their own VJF's:

1. Her main purpose for hosting a VJF was due to her college's rural setting and companies' difficulty with being able to attend on-campus recruiting events.
   
   
2. Since she wanted to explore the VJF concept rather cautiously, she decided to give the employers who did visit campus at their "traditional" job fairs an option to try the VJF on an experimental basis. She did this by offering the on-campus and the virtual job fairs together or simultaneously. She found that some employers opted not to come to campus but rather, they wanted to partake in the VJF exclusively!
   
   
3. For the on-campus corporate recruiters who did not show an interest in the VJF, Kay set-up a computer station at the "traditional" job fair and encouraged employers to test the VJF site right there and then! "The employers loved the idea and were excited about signing-up for our next VJF," said Ms. Field. This turned out to be a truly innovative method for advertising her new recruiting idea to her best customers!
   
   
4. The NIACC virtual job fair reported 1,000 visitors in a 6-week period. Not bad for a rural community college in northern Iowa!
   
   
5. Kay recommends that folks who are interested in hosting a VJF on their campuses should take extra efforts to discover what their students' expectations for such an event would entail. "Find out what your students will expect from this event and try to provide it for them," says Ms. Field. "It will help increase your levels of student participation and overall satisfaction with the program."

VJF's are The Wave of the Future

Could do-it-yourself VJF's be the wave of the future? Especially for the smaller colleges and universities who have the placement deck stacked against them? Well, 100% of survey/conference participants rated VJF's as being VERY IMPORTANT (on a 1 to 4 scale with 1 being not important at all and 4 being very important) to the future of college placement offices. Furthermore, 100% reported that a VJF would be a most helpful addition to their career center's placement efforts….everyone thought it would make a significant impact on their placement statistics.

Reasons for VJF's Excitement

Learning about how a relatively new concept can make such a tremendous impact without being expensive or time consuming can really encourage you to take a shot at it yourself. Heck, if Roosevelt University hosted a 4,000 job hunter / 220 employer VJF with 2 staff members, no money and a part-time webmaster…why can't you!!??

Much of the excitement out there is coming from the folks who identify with the hardships of hosting successful job fairs in adverse or non-conducive environments. The career practitioners who were the most excited about hosting their own VJF's had this in common:

• They had miniscule budgets for job fairs
• They represented small colleges and their career centers get very little recognition from the college and or the community
• They wanted to appeal to more employers
• Students and employers demanded more convenient services
• They needed extremely cost effective programming
• Many campuses had rural locations and employers were apprehensive about traveling long distances

Possible Roadblocks to Developing a VJF

As is the custom when venturing off into unknown adventures, we're bound to be stricken with what might be either a small case of nervousness or full-blown fear of failure. Even though the VJF concept seems like a good one, we still have our doubts. Here is what our survey participants had to say about what worries them:

• Not having people with "expertise" around to coordinate VJF (25%)
• Convincing administrators that this is a worthwhile event (45%)
• Educating students on the new concept
• No webmaster at their college
• Computer Department is difficult to work with (28%)
• Keeping third party recruiters away!

As you can see the majority of the fears or anticipate problems involve colleagues' roles in the VJF's development. For example, many folks are anticipating trouble from their superiors because they might not approve of such an event. If it does get approved, how can they possibly pull it off because they can't work with those people in the Computer Department! To make matters worse, they are afraid that if a VJF expert is not available for assistance, it might be doomed to fail.

Well, you have to take a chance with your college or university administrators. If it takes that sell of your life to convince them, then start reading some Zig Ziglar books! As far as the Computer Department people are concerned, all you need to do is make friends with ONE…the person who handles the web maintenance for your university. Don't worry about having VJF experts around either. I was the first independent college-based career counselor to take a try at this VJF program, and there are a few others out there who are braving the "road less traveled," but that doesn't make us experts. Contact me and I will help you get tapped into a network of people who, just like you, are seeking some advice and support.

What Would You Do Similarly? What Would You Do Differently?

An advantage of experiencing someone else's VJF before you design your own is that you can use that which was successful and you can learn from their mistakes. The following is some information that was provided about what we did that was useful and what should be changed:

The SAME as my VJF:

• Use Superstats.com for free webcounter and site statistics
• Design the web site the same way
• ALL OF IT will be the same as your site! (90%)

DIFFERENT:

• Would not allow students to fax resumes to Career Center
• Would not allow students from other colleges
• Would stand firm on company registration dates

Even with our blunders and bone-headed ideas that didn't seem to work too well, our VJF was a success and with that said, many career center practitioners are feeling confident as well!

Can A Virtual Job Fair Provide Adequate Services for Your Career Center?

The percentage of survey participants that plan to host a VJF from their campus is a healthy 87%. That's not bad considering 99.9% of them had never been involved with one. When asked, they can elaborate on which type of VJF they would like to host. For example, a VJF can be used online as the feature or stand-alone event. It could be done in a simulcast with a traditional job fair or, it could be held in an alternating fashion with a traditional job fair in the spring and a VJF in the fall, for example. Here is what the survey says:

• Percentage that believes a VJF could be effective as a STAND ALONE event: 55%
• Percentage that would like to simulcast a VJF with a traditional job fair: 25%
• Percentage that would like to host both a VJF and a traditional job fair separately: 30%

It is interesting to note that 55% believe a VJF could replace their on-campus job fairs if they develop the program effectively!

In Which Ways do You Think a VJF Could Help Your Placement Efforts?

If your campus is currently hosting job fairs that leave something to be desired, then switching over to a VJF concept might not be such an unrealistic idea. Desperate times sometimes call for drastic changes, so I will present to you one final time, the reasons most commonly expressed for wanting to instill changes for the better:

• Small Job Fair budget
• Expectations to do more with less
• Our small college needs more recognition and publicity
• Need to appeal to more employers
• Must be more convenient for employers and students
• VJF's are very cost effective
• Rural location, not many employers want to visit our campus
• VJF fits all employer budgets, so there is no reason for them to miss your event!
• We can join our multiple campuses with 1 job fair!
• VJF can offer more job opportunities for students
• Too many benefits to mention!
• It can make placement more efficient
• It will help us reach our alumni and students who are out of state or studying abroad!!
• Most Horrific Reason: "Our one career center handles 60 satellite campuses around the world and we do not have a single job fair to offer!!"

All of those reasons for needing to host a VJF makes one wonder if a small college could survive without one. As the world becomes the placement venue for many larger businesses, smaller colleges must keep pace or succumb to the threat of declining enrollments. The VJF just might be the tool needed to level the playing field with the larger universities' career centers!

The Excitement is Catching!

• "What an exciting and impressive innovation!"
• "Congratulations on your great idea."
• "This is a wonderful concept. I wish I'd thought of it!"
• "Very insightful. Thanks for sharing."
• "Keep on pioneering!!"
• "This was by far the most inspirational seminar of the conference. Great job!"
• "Can't wait to get started on my own VJF!"
• "I wish you had more time to present MORE information. I'm going to use everything I've learned."

As more higher education administrators talk to me about hosting their own VJF, they rush back to their offices with a gleam in their eyes. During the last four months, I have received phone calls from 13 career center directors who have informed me of their VJF's upcoming start date. Finally, a means to do more with less!

-- Troy Behrens has 12 years of career development experience in both higher education and private industry. With a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology from the University of Arizona, he is a Nationally Certified Counselor (NCC), a Certified Career Counselor (NCCC), a Licensed Professional Counselor in the State of Illinois, and winner of the National Association of Colleges and Employers Technological Innovation of the Year Award. After serving as a career counselor with the University of Arizona’s Career Center, Troy became the Director of Career Services for Roosevelt University in Chicago, and has authored nearly 50 career management articles for national publications. In his spare time, he teaches career development courses for adult career changers, and is a board member for Midwest ACE and several college-based career centers. Currently, he is Manager of College Relations for a Fortune 500 corporation and is pursuing an Ed.D. in Higher Education Management at UCLA. Troy can be reached through his web site at: JobGod.NET.

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