As tech-savvy Millennials reshape the work world, employers and college career-services offices are bringing the job-search process online with tools like virtual career fairs and finely targeted email feeds of job opportunities (for students) and candidates (for employers).
Later this month, tech startup Collegefeed Inc. will host a “digital career fair” for students at Carnegie Mellon University. Participating companies–38 have signed up so far–will identify what positions they’re looking to fill, and will be matched with students whose profiles fit the bill. The week of the event, employers will contact the students they’re interested in interviewing.
5 comments:
I am not so sure how I feel about this. While I am all for the use of technology, I think there are just certain circumstances that have always and will always be best done face to face. I think job fairs and interviews definitely fall under this category. I have had very few phone or skype interviews in my life, but the few I have had did not go very well. This was not necessarily because of how I performed in the interview, but it was more because I did not feel I could connect with the people on the other side of the phone or the computer. There is something you get from talking to someone face to face that you will never be able to match over the computer.
So, I've never actually participated in a career or college fair, but it seems to me part of the fun of it would be the ability to talk to a whole bunch of different people, even if their field isn't in your interest. The way they describe the "matching" in this virtual career fair, I'd worry each student would be pigeon-holed into a certain category and only fed jobs in that category. I also have similar concerns to Jess regarding phone and internet interviews. My phone manner, when not reasonably scripted, can be rather atrocious, and I've never had a successful Skype conversation with someone. I guess it's a neat idea, but I almost feel like TartanTrak does the same thing without rebranding itself as a "fair."
Like Jess, I think job interviews are better face to face. When I was applying for colleges, I had one phone interview and I didn't feel nearly as confident about it as I did when I did face to face interviews even if the interviews were in groups. I feel like recognizing facial expressions are important in interviews for both the interviewer and the interviewed. Also, I feel like face to face interviews would be beneficial for the company who is hiring. Interviewing in person allows the company to see the person, how they dress, their attitude, and composure. From what I understand these are important characteristics for an employee to have and they aren't things you can necessarily judge correctly online.
While agree that a virtual career fair is not really an equal substitute for a face to face conversation, the way I understood the article was that in many cases, the interviewing companies would schedule in-person meetings after being matched up with students. If this is the case, it seems to me that the virtual career fair simply streamlines the process of finding a good match -- both potential employers and employees are led more directly to the people that they are most interested in. As the article also points out, using this process also tends to widen the range of search, since travel time is not such an issue.
This doesn't surprise me at all, in fact I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner. I like the fact that we get the opportunity to be exposed to more companies and that you know a recruiter has gotten your resume. That being said, there is something about face-to-face interaction with a recruiter that could easily help you or even make you realize that the company isn't the right fit. I think virtual career fairs is the way of the future if they are in tandem with live ones, working hand-in-hand.
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