Web Enables Painless Job Searches

Jennifer L. Morey

Career objective: to find a high-paying, high-level engineering job at a Fortune 500 company with as little effort as possible.
Some soon-to-be college graduates whose career objectives resemble the above statement, whether on paper or just in theory, are using the Web to make that goal a little more realistic. With the help of placement offices at colleges such as Purdue University in West Lafayette and the University of Illinois in Urbana/Champaign, engineering and business students can post their résumés to Web databases that reach hundreds of corporate recruiters, all from the cold comfort of the campus computer lab.
Though this more passive approach to the job search is not likely to completely replace tasks such as scanning job postings and sending out résumés via snail mail, it is certain to save students time, money and at least a little bit of frustration. One university representative said this program will prove particularly efficient when the demand for graduate student hires inevitably takes a downturn and companies make cuts to their on-campus recruiting budgets.
As the idea of Web recruitment catches on, many colleges are coming up with even better ways to facilitate the job search. For example, students enrolled in the manufacturing and technology management program at Purdue's Krannert Graduate School of Management have the added bonus of a résumé delivery system. The school sends résumés to all companies that a student shows interest in from a database of 1600 corporations that
accept résumés electronically.
With the barrage of follow-up phone calls likely to follow a mass résumé delivery, those graduating from secretarial school should also take note: Engineering students will undoubtedly need personal assistants to schedule those 1600 interviews.