Event has 25-year history

By Phil Witte
Daily Forty-Niner

For 25 years the Career Development Center has been hosting campus events to bring Cal State Long Beach students and potential employers together, increasing the employment opportunities for thousands of students.

"In the first year, 79 companies were here recruiting, with a breakdown of about 50/50 between technical and non-technical," said Hal Schaffer, the CDC recruiting coordinator who is coordinating this fall's fair.

"In the beginning, neighboring aerospace companies were heavily represented and that continued until the late 80s," Schaffer said. "This year we'll have about 175 companies with 5,000 job and internship opportunities, with about 60 percent non-technical and 40 percent technical."

The format of a career day during the fall semester and a job fair in the spring continued until this year when counselors saw a need to adjust the format to change with the times.

"Usually we would hold a career day in the fall, where employers would come and talk to students about opportunities in that field, and then we would have a job fair in the spring where employers recruited students," said CDC Director Paul Fornell.

"We've found lately that the traditional job doesn't exist anymore. With the booming job markets now, employers are looking for students constantly," Fornell said.

One unfortunate aspect of the job fairs is the difficulty the CDC faces when judging how successful they are.

"Once a company fills the vacancy or the student gets the job, neither one is likely to get back to us and let us know," said Fornell. "We have started working with Jobtrak on our Beach View Web site and we hope to be able to track job placement activity soon."

Job fairs at CSULB grew steadily through the years, moving from the original spots in front of Brotman Hall plaza and Friendship Walk by the University Bookstore, to the current location in the University Student Union.

"We send out about 600 invitations to companies, but we only have facilities to accommodate about 180 now," said CDC Recruiting Secretary Marie Burks. "We can't accommodate every company that's interested right now, but we hope the event keeps growing. We might even have to move into The Pyramid someday."

In an effort to meet student needs, the CDC works closely with various campus organizations to tailor the job fair to their needs.

"We get feedback from student organizations at their events and they refer companies to us that they'd like to see at the job fairs," said Burks.

"We also work with the various departments that do not have as many majors so we can have representation in those fields," said CDC Associate Director Ruby Leavell-Hartley. "For example, we recently worked with the family and consumer sciences department to add some companies in the hotel-restaurant management field."

The future may hold even more changes for campus job fairs, with the CDC exploring the possibilities of online virtual job fairs.