Glennis Nagel
co-editor
UNK students will join students from more than 20 Nebraska colleges and universities participating in the first Nebraska Statewide Collegiate eFair, a statewide virtual career fair taking place this April.
“The eFair is an entirely Web-based job fair exclusively for students from participating institutions,” said Diana Kircher, assistant director of Career Services.
The eFair is coordinated by members of the Nebraska College Career Services Association (NCCSA) and powered by MonsterTRAK.
“In a sense, we’re trendsetters,” she said.“MonsterTRAK has had one or two colleges go together before, but this is the first time that all of the colleges and universities in an entire state have gone together to host a virtual career fair.
“Our goal was to have 50 companies involved this first time,’ she said, “and we had 44 companies and 97 jobs posted after the first two days. As of Friday (March 23), there were 68 employers represented with 188 jobs.”
“And these are the most up-to-date postings,” she said.“Many of these jobs are posted specifically for this event, which is especially good for students who haven’t yet found a position. The eFair represents another opportunity for them. And it’s economical for employers as well.”
Employers and students will have 24/7 access to the event, and employers can post an unlimited number of positions for one low fee. Students will submit resumes to employers in real time.
Career Services has been promoting the event directly to UNK juniors and seniors using Lotus Notes e-mail accounts. There are also flyers posted on bulletin boards around campus.
“We’ve made it easy for students to use the virtual career fair,” she said. “Students can search by industry or browse all opportunities.”
Employers began posting internships and full-time job opportunities March 7. For their $200 fee, employers may post an unlimited number of internships and job openings. The eFair is free to students, who are able to view and apply for internships, and local and regional job opportunities, online anytime, anywhere April 2-30.
“Employers, students and alumni wishing to participate in the eFair will create an account through MonsterTRAK, which is a different site than loperCAREERS,” Kircher said. “Some of the campuses already use MonsterTRAK.”
To register, students go to www.monstertrak.monster.com, locate the “Get started here” box to select the college state and college name, and then click on [Search Now] and fill out the registration form.
“It only takes a few minutes,” Kircher said. “Students will receive an email confirmation of their username and password.” According to Kircher, the idea for the statewide event came from Jeremy Fisher at Creighton University, who had done an eFair last year. Fisher chaired the steering committee for the Nebraska Statewide Collegiate eFair. Kircher served on the employer marketing committee. And like the career fair, committee meetings were “virtual,” i.e., no one left the office to attend.
“No one traveled anywhere,” she said. “We met using speaker phones and the Web.We worked with two women from MonsterTRAK—one in California and one in Chicago—who joined us for the meetings. They also used speaker phones and the Web.
