by KIM HILSENBECK
At a typical college campus, job fairs each fall and spring offer students a chance to meet a few dozen area employers, typically large firms with equally large recruiting budgets.
Several hundred students may drop off a resume with one of a few dozen employers, say hello, shake hands and get a business card. But the interaction, said Jay Whitchurch, CEO of Austin-based campus2careers.com, often is not a meaningful opportunity for a recruiter to get to know a student.
Another challenge, said Whitchurch, is that there are 29 million small to medium sized businesses in the United States, yet only one percent recruit on campuses. Students may be missing out on jobs and internships at those firms.
“We saw a big hole in the process,” said the former senior vice president of educational assessment at Pearson Education, Inc., which administers the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR).
That’s why he and his partner, Nathan Green, president of campus2careers.com and a former Pearson general manager, created a way to bridge the gap by connecting students and small to medium sized employers.
Their firm, started in 2009, provides two avenues for connecting students and potential employers. First, there is the website job board where students create a profile and employers post jobs. But it’s not your typical job board.
“It’s much more dynamic than just uploading your resume or getting a list of people who posted a resume,” Whitchurch said.
Students post their resumes but also create a digital profile, which can include videos, portfolio items and more. The firm’s proprietary software uses preference and skills-based matching, enhanced filters, and rich digital profiles to help companies source, screen and select students without leaving their office.
The real value of the site, according to Whitchurch, is that the firm performs a matching service and rank orders the job openings based on the student’s profile. Similarly, employers receive a rank-ordered list of potential candidates.
“Think of it as Match.com meets Monster.com,” he said.
Though he admits the science isn’t perfect, campus2careers reportedly has helped about 2,500 college students get an internship or job in the last three years.
About 10,000 students have profiles, and more than 1,600 employers have a relationship with the firm. Students post at no charge; employers pay $100 for a one-time listing or $600 for unlimited posts for a year.
The second way campus2careers connects the two groups is by hosting in-person events such as “Intern in ______” (fill in the blank with the name of a city, such as San Marcos).
Whitchurch said campus2careers has partnered with Austin Community College and Texas State University, along with about 500 other colleges across the country. His firm typically hosts three to four in-person events in a given city each year. Generally held on a campus, participating companies pay $25 to attend.
“We took the best of what college employment fairs do, but broke down the barriers, created a more relaxed environment and provided an opportunity to create more meaningful conversations, so the result is more productive,” Whitchurch said.