2008 Woodie Awards
Career Fair Cancelled
Alternatives Include: Job of Fortune!
By Matthew Pusard
9/10/07 - Fool's Gold
One of the oldest traditions at the CSM will be taking its leave of absence at the end of this year. After 113 years of operation, the Career Fair is being discontinued due to rising costs for participating companies.
The Career Fair originated in 1894 as an outlet for Union Pacific to recruit engineers. Less than a decade later, the fair had a dozen companies including US Steel, General Electric, and Snake Oil Inc, flocking to Golden to recruit one of seven graduating students.
Nowadays, costs have been driven too high. Companies have to pay for travel, lodging, overtime wages, free goodies, booth fees, a bribe to improve the placement of said booth, paper shredders for resumes, and the occasional lady of the night. These various costs end up totaling over $1 million per company. The base cost does not include interviews a month later.
This new cost of recruiting is coupled with the results of a study performed at the University of Southern Delaware. Researchers have found campus career fairs are only the 4th best recruiting technique with a 46% success rate. The top three successful recruiting methods were using a trained bloodhound (95% success rate), parties with free beer and pizza (76% success rate), and forcible abduction (49% success rate). The study defined success as finding an intern or full time employee who will do more than 10 hours of real work per week.
Researchers concluded that the bloodhounds worked best because they were able to sniff out desirable and undesirable traits alike. Some of the favorable traits these dogs are trained to smell for are work ethic, sociability, and good looks. Some of the unwelcome traits include poor hygiene, smugness, and the inability to discern satire from real journalism. Most companies appear to be interested in utilizing the trained bloodhounds, although an anonymous source stated, "Halliburton is looking very hard at the use of abduction."
Administrators at CSM have set up a forum for feedback on the future of recruitment at www.oredigger.net.
The Career Fair originated in 1894 as an outlet for Union Pacific to recruit engineers. Less than a decade later, the fair had a dozen companies including US Steel, General Electric, and Snake Oil Inc, flocking to Golden to recruit one of seven graduating students.
Nowadays, costs have been driven too high. Companies have to pay for travel, lodging, overtime wages, free goodies, booth fees, a bribe to improve the placement of said booth, paper shredders for resumes, and the occasional lady of the night. These various costs end up totaling over $1 million per company. The base cost does not include interviews a month later.
This new cost of recruiting is coupled with the results of a study performed at the University of Southern Delaware. Researchers have found campus career fairs are only the 4th best recruiting technique with a 46% success rate. The top three successful recruiting methods were using a trained bloodhound (95% success rate), parties with free beer and pizza (76% success rate), and forcible abduction (49% success rate). The study defined success as finding an intern or full time employee who will do more than 10 hours of real work per week.
Researchers concluded that the bloodhounds worked best because they were able to sniff out desirable and undesirable traits alike. Some of the favorable traits these dogs are trained to smell for are work ethic, sociability, and good looks. Some of the unwelcome traits include poor hygiene, smugness, and the inability to discern satire from real journalism. Most companies appear to be interested in utilizing the trained bloodhounds, although an anonymous source stated, "Halliburton is looking very hard at the use of abduction."
Administrators at CSM have set up a forum for feedback on the future of recruitment at www.oredigger.net.
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