A Refreshing Two Days in July

Every year in July we get together with our university board of advisors. This year, like prior years that I can remember, was another hot and humid couple of days in Boston.

This year, unlike all prior years, we had employers from our employer advisory board join the meeting and advance the conversation.

Some of the most interesting trends and questions posed and discussed by the group were:

How do employers select target schools - employers seem to do this very differently. Schools and employers both believe some aggregation of school profile information would make it easier for employers to figure out which schools to target.

Lower on-campus recruiting turnout - reasons included career fairs becoming the primary point of employer interaction, internships as a pre-recruitment tool, and some students going direct to employers.

Parental involvement - the "CEO parent" (previously known as the "helicopter parent") was mentioned as a phenomenon that both groups are seeing that doesn’t seem to be going away...

Fall recruitment is happening earlier – push for certain talent – business, engineering - is happening even earlier in October. Companies want their interview schedules earlier each year. Career centers are trying to accommodate but it's hard when everyone wants the same timeframe. Some career centers are working with employers in the same industry to align offer and notification dates when they can.

Getting involved with faculty, student groups and athletic organizations on campus – employers want to “fish where the fish are” so are engaging different parts of campus. Some career centers offer to be the coordination point for this activity; others prefer that employers manage on their own.

So yes it was hot, but the dialogue, idea-sharing, collaboration and camaraderie was refreshing and invigorating for all of us at Experience.

Photo (left to right): Stan Jackson (Experience), Cindy Henderson (Northern Illinois University), and Mike Sciola (Wesleyan University).