Virtually every organization that recruits college students for internships or recent graduates for entry level jobs and other career opportunities has the same problem: students either don't know what your organization does or they don't know what opportunities your organization offers. Either way, you've got a branding problem. Some tried and true methods of building brand on-campus are to recruit on-campus year in and year out, hosting information events in conjunction with your on-campus interviews, and creating and enhancing your long-term relationships with the staff and faculty.

Another great way of building brand that isn't so tried and true is to participate in career exploration programs through the college career service offices. At Kennesaw State University in Georgia, for example, the career service office brings in professionals from a variety of fields and industries to talk with students about their careers. The speakers typically aren't recruiters. Instead, they're recent graduates, line managers, and others who speak from first hand experience. So if your organization is struggling to recruit electrical engineers, you'd send in a recent graduate from your electrical engineering program or perhaps a manager in that department.

Continue reading "Use Career Exploration Events to Build Your Brand On-Campus" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 2, 2007 at 7:17 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

Much has been written in the media about the dangers of blogging so it is so refreshing to see that colleges, or at least some colleges, are actually encouraging their students to blog. The career centers of Harvard University and University of Washington are leading what I hope will become a trend. They understand that blogs are like knives: they're dangerous in the hands of careless people but wonderful tools in the hands of those who are somewhat thoughtful and careful as they provide bloggers with a tremendous opportunity to improve both their personal and professional brand.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on September 17, 2007 at 6:02 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

There is no doubt that parents of every generation have been concerned about their children and have wanted their children to succeed. But what happens when you take probably the most career-focused generation in history – Baby Boomers – and turn them into parents? You get parents who hover over their children so continually that sociologists have begun to refer to these Boomers as helicopter parents.

As a Gen X’er, I understand but don’t condone this type of behavior. I understand that these parents have raised highly programmed, multi-tasking kids. I get that these parents are used to running their kids from one after school activity to another to another. And I even get that some of these parents have a hard time letting go when little Johnny or Jenny move away to attend a great college. But after four or five years of living away from home and hopefully entering the workforce, John and Jennifer are no longer kids. They’re adults. So you’d think that by the time John and Jennifer have chosen to go back to school for an MBA that their parents will also have grown up and realized how destructive their hovering can be. Well, you’d have figured wrong.

Continue reading "Helicopter Parents Invading the MBA Schools Now Too" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on June 27, 2007 at 7:57 AM | Leave a Comment (0)

I received an email earlier today from a college career service office professional asking for advice about what to do about the huge number of job postings she's receiving from organizations that help U.S. college students teach English abroad. The positions are typically in Asian countries, but not always. Her concern is that there are so many of these organizations and so many of them are new that it isn't feasible for her small staff to determine which ones are legitimate, which ones are scams, and which ones are somewhere in between.

Continue reading "Bogus Job Postings" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on April 18, 2007 at 4:21 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

Readers of this blog know that I love social networking sites in general and Facebook in particular. While they have their downsides, they make college campuses smaller and friendlier to students and that is a wonderful thing. But other than being used to meet friends on-campus, those who study Facebook are often stumped when it comes to listing tangible benefits.

Continue reading "Another Great Use for Facebook" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on October 18, 2006 at 7:15 AM | Leave a Comment (1)

The month of October is a busy month as relates to observations. Of the several, Roy Grizzard, Assistant Secretary for Disability Employment Policy of the Department of Labor today released an announcement of the Department's recognition of individuals with work differences.

There are resources, recognition dates, and programs to assist employers, job seekers, and college career counselors in opening the diversity doors and creating employment empowerment for those typically called "disabled." One of the most significant programs encouraged by the Department is mentoring. Having a counselor who can guide a worker through the intricate employment maze and over the rungs of success is imperative to anyone's career. One who can help an intern or "young" worker navigate these trails is a proven factor to success on both sides.

So many times individuals with disabilities are rejected from employment opportunities because of their observed impairment without testing or asking if they feel they can perform the essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodation. It would behoove us to face the facts of workplace access and the opportunities that abound in creating a diverse environment.

Posted by Yvonne LaRose, CollegeRecruiter.com - Career Coach on October 2, 2006 at 2:09 PM | Leave a Comment (0)

This blog entry is courtesy of Amitai Givertz and is another in the series of blog swap entries as organized by Recruiting.com.

If I was a student today – like you are perhaps – I would be pretty ticked off with the quality of online services and resources being provided by my college’s career center. Of course, there are always exceptions and I’m sure that somewhere out there is an unbelievably terrific resource that provides everything that would give me a competitive edge in my job search, but I haven’t seen it yet. What I have seen ranges from what I can only describe as mediocre, a typical offering of generic and conventional blah. Admittedly, my sampling for this missive was random and limited to the relatively few colleges who at least understand that students google. But you know what – this is a rant about shortchanging students working stuff out online and not an article about best practices. If career counselors or recruiters want to argue the toss – and I wish you would – hey, leave a comment.

Here are my top three peeves and some practical suggestions for you to consider:

Continue reading "College Career Centers: Reality Online Checks Out" »

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on August 1, 2006 at 6:22 AM | Leave a Comment (2)

I am fortunate enough to be the moderator of the College Recruiter discussion list at the Electronic Recruiting Exchange, a group which has 861 members as of 7/21/06. A question that was recently posted to the group asked how to make college career service offices more relevant to students as very few students use the services of their college career service offices and the writer wanted to increase that number. I agree that career service offices are grossly under utilized by students, but as I mulled over the issue for a few days I came to the realization that the problem has at least two sides to it. In addition to the offices being under utilized, many of them also measure their effectiveness incorrectly.

I spoke at a college recruiting several years ago when this topic came up. An attendee from MonsterTRAK said that he had seen a study that indicated that only 14 percent of college seniors have ever physically visited their career service office and that it was quite challenging for their business to get students to use their site when they aren't using the services of their career service offices because their site depends so heavily upon the effectiveness of the career service offices. He felt that career service offices should not measure their effectiveness by the number of students who participate in on-campus interview, career counseling, career fairs, etc. but instead on the outcomes: how many students find a job in their desired career field with six months of graduation.

I believe that his belief was correct. Focusing on how many students walk through your door or how many resumes you help write or any of the other tactical issues causes you to lose sight of the strategic issues which are the most important: are your students finding the right jobs in the right timeframe? Stop defining success by the successful completion of tasks and instead define success by the outcomes that really matter.

Successful organizations do not measure the success of their sales people by how many sales calls those sales people make. They measure their success by their sales. Similarly, successful career service offices should want to measure their success by their outcomes rather than by their daily tasks.

Posted by Steven Rothberg, CollegeRecruiter.com on July 21, 2006 at 6:47 AM | Leave a Comment (2)