Why aren’t students showing up at in-person or virtual career events?

I’m a member of a discussion list that is dominated by college career service office professionals. Other members are talent acquisition leaders from mostly large employers and a sprinkling of vendors such as job board leaders like me.

One of the career service office members of the group asked what kind of a fire she could light under her students as it appeared to her that a large majority were doing little to nothing to search for jobs upon graduation. Her question made sense to me as the normal timeline for employers hiring through career service offices is the fall for entry-level jobs best suited for graduating seniors and January/February for the internships that are normally of interest to juniors and sometimes even sophomores and freshmen.

I suggested that we look at the realities that today’s students live in and evaluate their behaviors based on that instead of the realities that existed years or even decades ago. For as long as most of us have been immersed in this world, the focus has been on-campus recruitment even though it has always been the case that most students at most schools found jobs while in school and also after graduation not through career services but through referrals, job boards, help wanted signs in windows, etc. Sure, some schools saw most students and recent grads finding jobs through career services, but those schools were the exception and not the rule.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of today’s student. Almost every school has outsourced their job search and interview scheduling software to online, for-profit services like Handshake, Symplicity, Gradleaders, 12twenty, and others. In addition, millions of students a year use College Recruiter to find a great new part-time, seasonal, internship, or entry-level jobs and millions use other job search sites. Almost every student is also a digital native in that they were born well after the Internet was commercialized, and so finding a restaurant, used car, apartment, or job online is second nature to them. They’re also living in the reality that there is currently a massive labor shortage (mismatch?) and so they know that they’ll have multiple great offers within days of starting their search.

So, the question that I ask isn’t why more students aren’t abiding by decades-old timelines created by and for the benefit of employers and career services. Instead, I ask is why any student is choosing to spend a massive amount of time engaging in a highly stressful activity months before they need to. A second question that I ask is why would any of us be surprised that today’s students are choosing to follow a timeline that fits today’s realities even if it doesn’t fit the realities from years or decades ago.

Instead of wondering how we light a fire under today’s students, maybe we should be wondering how we light a fire under today’s employers, career services, and others who resist acknowledging and adapting to the new world we all live in.