Graduate Careers Australia
The Graduate Grapevine – Number 4, June 2006
Careers Fairs 2006 – A National CAS Perspective
By Easter, the annual cycle of Careers Fairs was over! Employers finished with dry throats, no voices, sore feet and a huge sense of relief. Careers Services were also vastly relieved that the busiest graduate recruitment season in years was drawing to a close.
For those universities who hold Careers Fairs, the story seemed to be much the same all around the country. There were more employers wanting to participate in Fairs than ever before, particularly in Accounting. Many universities had record numbers of employers taking part, firms wanting to get involved who had not been on campus before, as well as some who had been very quiet over the last few years. It was pleasing to see the IT sector starting to pick up and WA has a huge demand for Engineering and Resources graduates. Even where employers chose not to participate in Fairs, they were still interested in increasing their involvement on campus in a range of ways, such as the panels that are part of Focus Activities at Edith Cowan.
Each year Career Services try to improve on what they have done the year before and it was great to see Curtin join the large number of universities holding Fairs. For first timers, they put on a great show with over 5000 students attending, two students being the lucky winners of laptops donated by sponsors!
Timing of the Fairs is a challenge to universities as well as employers. Victorian universities had the experience of running Fairs late in the season, due to the Commonwealth Games. This obviously had the advantage of marketing Fairs for a longer time and encouraging more students to attend. However, it also meant that students who had attended the myriad of employer information sessions were getting burnt out! By the time the last Fair was held, there were only 12 days until the closing date for Accounting applications and a number of firms’ applications had already closed. For NSW, first off the rank, congratulations on stepping up to the challenge and getting such wonderful attendances with a shorter time to promote events than ever before.
A number of universities tried out new arrangements this year, changing venues and increasing capacity to avoid the overcrowding experienced in previous years. UNSW had outgrown all on campus venues and so raced to Randwick Racecourse. They shuttled their students to the starting gates via bus and managed to attract 122 employers and over 1800 students! UniSA went off campus too, to the Adelaide Convention Centre, but UWS did the opposite to UNSW and UniSA and came back on campus in a marquee this year and targeted the Business students at its Fair; Engineering and Education Expos are planned for later in the year. Flinders ran three discipline-focussed Fairs in March, JCU runs Fairs in two cities over consecutive days and USQ runs on campus and online Career Fairs for a month, providing its distance education students around Australia and the world with job opportunities. These marathons are a testament to the endurance of the Careers staff. The University of Melbourne created a whole new space with the use of a large marquee in the courtyard, this enabled government departments to be part of its two-day program instead of a separate Careers Fair later in the year. University of Adelaide is looking to follow suit next year with a marquee to increase its capacity to cater for employers. La Trobe also expanded its venue to cater for increased demand.
Career Services all like to try and improve on services to employers each year and this time UWS and Melbourne introduced an online registration system. UWS used scanners to streamline the student registration process to great effect. Several universities went down the ‘corporate uniform’ line to make their staff and volunteers identifiable to employers and students.
On the other hand, UNSW surveyed Careers staff and students about the employers at the Fairs and has some great feedback to pass on. Students commented on employers who stay hidden behind the tables and don’t engage them, about those who refer students to the website for information rather than offering additional insights not available at other times and about the problem of new graduates working as company representatives when they have limited knowledge of the employer and the industry. Hopefully this feedback will also lead to an improvement in what is offered at the Fairs in the future!
For Careers Services, the feedback they get from exhibitors really does influence what they try the following year, but is also great when they receive positive feedback about what they are doing well. High quality lunches and a high level of assistance to make the day run smoothly are always well received!
Marketing to students also required new strategies. La Trobe and USQ took to SMS messaging and sent reminders to students. At the same time, La Trobe went back to old-fashioned hard copy mail to Business students. A bus brought La Trobe regional students down to the metropolitan campus and the aroma of a free sausage sizzle enticed them to the venue! RMIT took a professional approach to their marketing and had a theme to all their materials which got fantastic feedback from the students and employers.
Initiatives to prepare both local and international students seem to have worked well. UNSW delivered workshops prior to its Fair and began with a Priority Hour for students who had attended the workshops, and La Trobe and Melbourne had flyers for international students identifying which employers offered international opportunities and where to go for more information.
Planning for Vacation and Graduate Fairs in 2007 is now underway. New things to look forward to include: a coordinated national approach to dates for Fairs; more employers entering the market; and, hopefully, more student participation. All Career Services are looking forward to receiving feedback from employers on the progress of their students through the application process.
Author: Anna Heywood Manager, Employer Liaison La Trobe University
Printed with kind permission
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