Two other students at the school landed interviews with even less effort. Ben Dyer and Nina Tsai, both graduating seniors, simply posted their resumes on the university’s Career Services Web site, which employers can search for prospective hires. Tsai was contacted by a Chicago-based computer-training service. ““I’d never even heard of them,’’ she says. Dyer is deciding whether to accept a sales job at another company.
The digital revolution is changing everything it touches, and the employment market is no exception. Companies post jobs at their own sites, where applicants can get background information or e-mail a resume and cover letter with just one click. Universities, trade organizations and professional associations are also posting listings and resumes to help their members get jobs. And there are several commercial Web sites devoted to publishing job listings and vast electronic resume databases. Forrester Research estimates that $30 million will be spent this year for online recruiting; by the year 2000, they predict, that figure will shoot up to $218 million.
College students are some of the most wired people in the country. According to a survey by human-resources specialist Bernard Hodes Advertising, 94 percent of students have access to the Web, and 56 percent had looked for a job online. That’s why the online-recruiting market targets students. Nearly all major recruitment sites, such as The Monster Board, CareerMosaic and the Online Career Center, have areas devoted to college students seeking internships and jobs.
Career counselors say the new technology vastly improves the job-seeking process. Their Web sites put a lot of job information in one place, and they’re so easy to search that it doesn’t even seem like work. ““Before, students had to come in here and read through books and 400 binders or go to the library [to job hunt],’’ says Dr. Jean Hernandez, director of the University of Washington’s career center. On the Net, they can do much more than just post resumes or research companies. Tyler Munson graduated from the University of Illinois last year but couldn’t find the advertising job he was looking for. So he put a portfolio of his designs on the Web and registered his site with Yahoo! ““After that, the traffic just kept multiplying,’’ he says, and online art galleries started to feature his work. Eventually, a California Web-design company saw his portfolio, flew him out to interview and a week later offered him a job as an interface designer.
Many college placement offices have had to trim their budgets, so the cost-saving benefits of the Web couldn’t have come along at a better time. ““We used to do paper postings of jobs,’’ says Lance Choy of Stanford’s placement center, whose budget was cut 20 to 30 percent. ““Now we use Jobtrak, an outside company that posts jobs accessible to Stanford students only.’’ That effort has been so successful that the university now plans to create a resume database employers would be charged to access. Choy has no doubt they’ll pay for improved access to Stanford’s highly sought-after students, particularly computer-science and engineering grads. “"[Technology] companies are already frustrated because of how competitive it is,’’ he says.
Employers in the high-tech sector are the most plugged in. According to a recent survey, two thirds of the jobs filled by Internet postings are in technology. Progressive Networks, the Seattle-based company that makes RealAudio and RealVideo software for the Internet, has added about 40 people in the last three months. Recruiter Colleen Gehrt uses recruitment agencies and newspaper ads but expresses some dissatisfaction. ““Agencies are a high time commitment, and ads aren’t always great for specialized positions. So recruiting for us is moving over to the Web.''
Martin Goldberg, an attorney in Progressive’s legal department, is a perfect example of how the company’s Web site attracts people who might never have considered working there. Returning from a two-year federal clerkship in Alaska, Goldberg, 32, wanted a high-tech job in the Seattle area. ““I visited RealAudio’s home page and saw that they needed someone in their legal department,’’ he said. He applied, was granted an interview and soon had the job he’d been looking for. By Gehrt’s estimate, half of Progressive’s new hires are found through the Web. The rest? Through that old standby: referrals by current employees.
No one suggests that students give up on networking, career counseling or any of the other traditional offline methods. Many students still need one-on-one advising to figure out which jobs to apply for. ““The vast majority of college grads don’t know what they want to do,’’ says Robin Ryan, a Seattle-based job counselor. ““Online [job searching] isn’t going to help people who aren’t targeted in their job search.’’ And Stanford’s Choy stresses that nothing beats a mock interview to help a grad come off as polished as possible. So the placement center can still help people who have landed an interview via the Web, of course.
