Get a job: with new automated systems, the campus Career Services center is taking off.

We may not like to admit it, but one of the most important courses any college student takes is "How to Get a Job 101." While the instructors for this course include the counselors at the campus's Career Services center, recently technology has been helping these staffers do a better job.

Although the wonders of the dot-cam revolution may have been overblown, one area that clearly benefited is Career Services. What had been a cumbersome, paper-clogged process of posting jobs and shuffling resumes, transformed itself virtually overnight into an automated, online meeting place. Curiously, white comprehensive campus ERP projects nave frequently been dogged by controversy and even calamity, most career center automation projects have been implemented smoothly.

This may be due to the fact that the processes are self-contained within the career center, or because the online services are virtually all hosted by outside companies (the ASP model). It is also possible that career center staff have simply not complained because the problems that arose along the way were dwarfed by the enormous level of improvement over previous all-manual systems. (A few themes of discontent are just now starting to emerge, but they will most probably lead to the creation of a second generation of career systems.)

RECRUITING, POSTING, AND OTHER DAILY CHALLENGES

As viewed by career center professionals, all job opportunities fall into two categories: recruiting (employers actually come to campus and interview students), and posting (the higher education equivalent of the classified ad--students read the posted job descriptions and send resumes directly to the employers). Recruiting has always been the more visible activity, and is often seen as a way to measure the effectiveness of a career center. The more recruiters on campus, the more students interviewed, the more successful the career center looks.

But however positive it may appear, any career center staffer will also tell you that on-campus recruiting is also a logistical nightmare. That's because there are so many different game plans that the employer can dictate: open, first-come-first-serve signups for interviews; selective appointments for interviews (where employers first sift through the resumes they receive and then decide which students to offer an interview); and everything in between, including various methods for filling the slots that are not snatched up by the students who were an employer's first choice.

Simply put, the role of the career center is to facilitate this intricate courtship dance. In the Paper Era, this meant posting job descriptions; accepting resumes from students who were interested in jobs; collating packets of resumes for employers; notifying the selected students; giving them the opportunity to sign up for interview slots; and supervising the adds, drops, and missed appointments.

A career center might dedicate a whole day a week just to managing the resume packets. Students might camp out waiting for interview sign-up sheets to be posted. Much of the process was limited to the normal business hours when the career center staff were there to referee and guarantee the integrity of the process. And time was always of the essence.

ENTER SYSTEMS AND SOFTWARE

The entire process began to be transformed in the '90s, first by job postings that could be downloaded into a PC (often to a dedicated career center PC that students would use onsite). Then came bulletin board systems that helped broadcast job opportunities more widely. Finally, Web-based systems were created to manage the whole process--from filing students' targeted resumes and cover letters, and matching students with employers, to managing interview schedules. With the advent of automation, many issues that plagued career services staffers are resolved, but there are new issues. What do Career Services directors at IHEs using a range of these new career systems see as important themes?

Online career systems match employers and qualified job seekers more efficiently and allow the parties to interact 24/7. Dr. Robert Greenberg is director of Career Services at the University of Tennessee, where his office uses Experience's eRecruiting. (See box, below for systems information.) "It's remarkable what it allows us to do at Low cost," he says. "If employers want an accounting major with a 3.2 average, who graduates in December, and knows some Spanish, they can find a whole cohort of students." Greenberg's surveys reveal that students, too, are happy with the system. "Because of our experiences with previous systems, I was afraid students would be frustrated, but they surprised me. They're tickled pink with the ability to manage things from their dorm room at 2 a.m. We didn't used to be open at 2 a.m.! They take care of this kind of business during hours I've Long been asleep."

Career so, ware has changed the way the career center staff spend their time. They spend less time on paperwork, and more time working with students and employers with needs that really require a human helping hand.

"My philosophy is that 60 percent of the students are going to make it without meeting me face to face," admits Luther Epting, a 34-year veteran of career services, and director of the Career Center at Mississippi State University. "The other 40 percent need a kick in the pants or a pat on the back, or something in between. Now we can focus better on that 40 percent. The information we put out reminds students: If you feel uncomfortable doing this, see us--whether it's for resume writing, dining etiquette, negotiating the job offer, evaluating the job offer, or interviewing skills."

Because of the increased efficiency in handling routine matters, Mississippi State University was actually able to reduce the staffing in its career center through attrition and, in the first year of operation, offset the cost of purchasing its Symplicity career software system.

The new world of online services requires the career center to think about communicating with students in new ways. Since students do not actually have to hike down to the career center to do most of the chores of job hunting, the career center staff have lost some built-in opportunities to form relationships with students. Some centers find that foot traffic has decreased, but others claim it has actually increased as a result of their Web-based systems. The secret is to use the center's online presence and other outreach activities to form a bond and to attract students to come in the front door.

For some, this has meant taking a more hands-on approach to the technology. Karl Martz, coordinator of Career Services at the Harrisburg campus of Pennsylvania State University, took an HTML workshop so he could maintain his own Web pages, "because ideas can't wait three or four weeks. Career Services folks have been forced to become more proficient in technology." Information on the career center's Web page is a natural tie-in to the job-seeking facilities provided by College Central, the career services system that the Harrisburg campus uses.

Martz has found innovative uses of technology beyond static Web pages: His center sponsors online chats with recruiters who are coming to campus. In the first hour, students can question the company representatives about a prescribed topic, such as what employers want to see in a resume. Then for another hour, they can ask specific questions about the company's job opportunities.

GETTING OUT THERE

The upside of the online communication is that career centers are reaching audiences they would not have reached before. (Martz recounts how several students who were finishing a tour of military duty in Germany contacted him because they encountered his career Web site and became interested in attending the school.)

Still, some worry that the ease of using the online services could Lead students in the wrong direction. Andy Ferguson directs the Career Development Center at the University of Richmond (VA). "Online systems create a more efficient job-seeker," Ferguson admits, "but they also breed a jobseeker who forgets that there is more to life than sitting in front of the Web every day, Looking for jobs. Students are not as savvy as they used to be about the need to get out, hit the ground, network, meet people, and do more than the transactional stuff that happens on the Internet." Such concerns notwithstanding, the benefits of the new systems are numerous, say proponents.

THE FUTURE

What Lies ahead for career software, now that the basics are under control? Some users would Like to see greater emphasis on customized content for each student who logs in, as in a portal Greenberg, at the University of Tennessee, sees an opportunity for richer contact before the interview, perhaps even including videos made by the job seeker. Ferguson, at U Richmond, longs for more connectedness, plugins that tie the career center software to the institution's alumni information systems, for example, and better Links to the employers' own applicant tracking systems.

"Once students Leave the career services realm, we don't run the process of keeping up with them," Ferguson notes. "We need to make it more efficient to pass along the outcomes, whether students get a job or go to graduate school. It is important to hold on to your alumni."

Certainly, supportive career services systems have made the career center into an island paradise--at Least compared to the paperbound past. But, say many, it may be time to think about hooking up the island to the rest of the institution.

RELATED ARTICLE: The systems.

While the major career systems have much core functionality in common (for instance, most of these services are hosted by the providing company, using a Web-based ASP model), each has its own personality, you might say. Use the following snapshots to help you develop your own short list.

Experience (www.experience.com) offers eRecruiting for an annual subscription fee that is based on the level of service the institution needs. The company has over 500 higher education clients (the List is on its Web site). According to Janet Sun, the firm's VP of Marketing, "College recruiting is about relations, and we are the technology enablers of those relationships. Our philosophy is to help career centers to better connect with employers, bring job opportunities to campus, and Let employers have better connections with students--with all three parties working toward the same goal."

College Central Network (www.careerservicescentral.com) runs Career Services Central, a management system that is used by over 230 small and midsize, two- and four-year college career centers. It is affordable, at $1,500-$3,000 per year. Although it has Lots of features, it is intuitive to use and easy to manage. "We believe a career office management system should be simple, reliable, and predictable, Like the water cooler at work" says Senior Vice President and cofounder Stuart Nachbar. "You expect the hot water to be hot, the cold water to be cold, and the bottle to be changed regularly--all without incident or fuss. Career counselors have the same expectations from their office management system."

MonsterTRAK (www.monstertrak.com) is the college division of the well-known Monster job service. The collegiate job board service is free, but a separate product for managing recruiting, InterviewTRAK, costs $2,500 per year. Over 1,500 campuses use MonsterTRAK, and over 170 use InterviewTRAK. MonsterTRAK charges employers for listings, and gives a share of revenue to the institution. There are currently over 6,000 jobs in the separate college job database. MonsterTRAK relaunched its site with a major overhaul in July, improving navigation for both the job seeker and the career center, according to Michelle Forker, senior vice president.

Symplicity (www.symplicity.com) is a new system, still being much enhanced, but it gets user approval for sophistication and flexibility. Symplicity offers both a hosted model ($15,000-$20,000) and a version that the institution purchases and runs on its own servers ($48,500). Eighteen schools are involved in the initial, rollout. "Our system integrates with campus Legacy systems and portals, and is a full office-management tool--the first of its kind in the industry," says Symplicity President Ariel Friedler.

NACELink (www.nacelink.com) is a joint project of the National Association of Colleges and Employers, and DirectEmployers Association. This new and developing project is unique because it has been developed by two nonprofit membership associations. Norita Rehrig, the assistant executive director of NACE, explains that NACELink is a response to needs expressed by college career center directors who are members of NACE: "The schools wanted more branding and identity; they wanted to be providing their own service. You don't see NACELink; we are behind the scenes. They wanted to ensure the privacy of the students' data; we do not resell, it to marketing companies. Vendors come in and out of this market, and schools wanted stability. Finally, NACE employer members wanted to control, escalating costs for electronic job postings."--JS

John Savarese is a consulting principal for Edutech International (www.eductechint.com).