<p>I have a complaint about the career fairs this week. They are held from 11-4, right in the middle of the school day. Ds has classes and labs that he cannot miss. He has a brief window where he could rush over there (in a suit) for about 15-20 minutes before rushing back to next class. Just not worth it. I’m sure he’s not the only one with this problem. Why do they insist on holding these fairs when the very students they’re for have difficulty attending? What not make them earlier or later, when less likely to conflict with classes? Students are forced to choose between missing a critical class, or missing a critical job lead. That’s just not right.</p>
<p>I agree. Students often have to stand in line for a long time to talk with particular companies and packed class schedules make it very difficult!</p>
<p>agree. 11 - 4 is LAME. how about a full workday? most kids would have some time in there to make it if it were a full day. as it is, most kids don’t have much time at all to attend. </p>
<p>if my kid is supposed to use this avenue to help herself to find a job, i would like her to take as much time as she needs, not just 30 minutes or an hour. yes, they do have to wait in lines to talk to people.</p>
<p>if nothing else, the career fair should provide excused absences for those kids that have to miss class to attend.</p>
<p>some of my daughter’s classes that are pickiest on attendance are PE CLASSES. she will drop them before she will take a B for missing a class to go to the career fair. again, DUMB!</p>
<p>Have you contacted the woman I listed in that last thread? she’s the person to hear your complain as she and her dept are the ones who can make the changes. </p>
<p>She WANTS to HEAR concerns. She isn’t going to know about them if you post them HERE.</p>
<p>Career Center contact person:</p>
<p>Amanda Ingram, who is the Ass’t Director of Operations at the UA Career Center. She promptly responds to emails.
<a href=“mailto:aingram@sa.ua.edu”>aingram@sa.ua.edu</a> 205-348-3091</p>
<p>I just took a quick look at Purdue and Ohio State career fairs and they seem to have about the same time block. It seems like a crummy time. I wonder why they all do this.</p>
<p>i just emailed her the concerns expressed here. doesn’t matter much to me since my student is in her last semester, but this has been an issue every time. she didn’t (couldn’t) attend the general career fair today.</p>
<p>I just toured Tulane today. Saw signs for their career fair, same 11-4 time. Seems consistent. What’s with these schools?</p>
<p>I think it’s mainly a convenience for the companies and their recruiters. If schools begin to change their times to make them more convenient for students then less companies will register and pay the registration fee. Many recruiters that attend career fairs aren’t really looking for candidates but are there to direct individuals to available positions and ways to apply. I feel that individual appointments with career advisors at the Career Center are much better at finding job opportunities.</p>
<p>In short, I don’t feel missing a career fair due to inconvenient timing is detrimental to the job searching process if the student uses the other services the Career Center offers. </p>
<p>I echo what Chardo wrote. The other issue for my son is he missed classes on his Tues/Thursday rotations due to to those snow days. He is a junior and is looking for summer internships in engineering so this would have been a good op for him. I guess it’s plan B.</p>
<p>This semester is especially difficult because so many classes have been missed because of snow days. It will be unfortunate if students can’t come because they can’t miss some/all of a class. That will discourage companies from coming again if few students show up. 
Even if the companies are told about the snow day problem, it won’t make a difference. </p>
<p>I do agree that the schedule is for the convenience of the companies. It allows time for the reps to drive to the school from different areas. </p>
<p>DS said he will skip it. Said last time the employer reps were mainly hyping their companies and directing students to their websites to apply. Not exactly valuable networking. He considers today’s classes more critical for him.</p>
<p>This happens at other campuses. My son is a mechanical engineer major who will be graduating this May and his U held the engineering career fair on a Tuesday in the mid-day. Unfortunately for him Tuesday is his busiest day, with 2 labs that he could not miss. He could make it for 25 minutes right in the middle but decided not event to try after hearing last year’s feedback. This year his friends told him there were long lines, most did not get interviews, some companies did not have jobs at this point, and many companies told the students to apply online. Wish his U, and Alabama, would schedule these differently, although I don’t have any suggestion on how.</p>
<p>If you are a student in the career search part of your college career at UA, you ABSOLUTELY HAVE to register for Crimson Careers through the Career Center. This this is online talent mangement system that UA uses for companies that are serious about doing on-campus interviews. It is the only way to register for these interviews. Companies that are not doing on-campus interviews are simply there for show and to direct students to apply to their online job websites (which you could have done without taking the time to go the career fair).</p>
<p>Thanks feeno.</p>
<p>The Career Center has been extremely beneficial to my daughter. She met with them at the beginning of last semester and got everything set up before the Fall Career Fair. She had one on-campus interview the day after the fair, but it was not a fit. She had a phone interview yesterday with a company that pulled her resume from Crimson Careers. Not sure it will be a match either, but at least she is getting hits! She also skipped this week’s career fair because she researched the companies coming and their available openings and didn’t feel it was worth her time.</p>
<p>My S is also skipping career fair today (eng’g/tech). After 3 previous semesters of attending these, he echos what some have said here that he has only been directed to apply online, and that the reps for these companies are not the people who hire, but are PR/HR folks just giving general info about their respective companies. I still think that dressing up, pressing flesh, printing resumes to hand out are all good practices to still do for the experience…but he just isn’t going to ‘waste his’ time again (his words), esp given this screwy semester. I will suggest he uses Crimson Careers instead. <em>sigh</em> </p>
<p>“online talent man(a)gement system that UA uses for companies that are serious about doing on-campus interviews”</p>
<p>wow! this is encouraging. </p>
<p>Sorry for the typos. I’ve become so accustomed to autocorrect that typing on a regular keyboard withou making typos is harder that it should be for me. </p>
<p>^Case in point</p>