facebook & the career center

8/8/2019 Facebook & the Career Center

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Facebook & University Career Centers:

Looking at the past to determine the future

Executive SummaryThose wishing to reach a university-aged audience has, for the most part, begun to use Facebook toreach said audiences. University offices, including career services centers, must be able to communi-

cate with their students and are increasingly doing so using Facebook. Offices create a page not just todisseminate vital information but also to create a two-way communication with the student body. Socialmedia tools like Facebook make this two-way communication possible.

This paper explores how five universities/colleges in the United States have used Facebook to connectwith their respective student bodies. The paper also offers conclusions and recommendations for theSt. Bonaventure University Career Center to take. Some of these important recommendations include

Posting plenty of photographs featuring real people,Advertising upcoming events and being sure to invite studentsUsing the centers Facebook page as a career center newsletterCreating discussions and hosting contests for intern/employer of the month

Table of Contents

Introduction 2

Method 2

Results 3Canisius College 3

College of Saint Rose 3

Notre Dame College 4

Nazareth College of Rochester 4

Dominican University 5

Conclusions 6

Recommendations 6

Works Cited 6


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Introduction

Created in 2004 and now touting more than 400 million users, Facebook has evolved into animportant communication tool for numerous aspects of life (Facebook.com). It allows organizationsto have two-way communication with their fans and audience members. Facebook users can

share articles, opinions, photographs and everything in between with friends on the site. The toolis especially popular among college students. However, more older audience members are joiningFacebook every day.

The purpose of this particular Facebook research project is to identify Facebook opportunities forthe St. Bonaventure University Career Center. Also, the researcher considered implementationtactics and how they might be carried out in the near future.

Method

Overall, this is a benchmark research project of five university career services centers that haveFacebook. The researcher began to identify possible benchmarks using the list of centers thatparticipated in a 2009 NACE survey. Because St. Bonaventure is a private school, the researchereliminated state schools that receive more public funding. The researcher also eliminated anyschools that arent similar to St. Bonaventure. For the remaining institutions, the researcher con-ducted Facebook searches to see if each school had a Facebook fan page. Schools with onlyFacebook groups were eliminated. From there, the researcher pared the list down by determiningwhich sites had the most participation and appeared most appealing from a students point of view.

Finally, the researcher chose five schools to benchmark: Canisius College, College of Saint Rose,Notre Dame College, Nazareth College of Rochester and Dominican University.

Once schools were determined, the researcher created a set of criteria by which to judge each

page. Criteria included: date created, number of followers, number of wall posts, number and typeof links posted, number of events posted, amount of user interaction, number of notes posted andother.

Third and finally, the researcher contacted the university career centers to find out morein-depth information into why they chose to do what they did. She received e-mailresponses from Dominican University and conducted a phone interview with Canisius College rep-resentative.

Upon examining the data, the researcher offered conclusions and recommendations for the St.Bonaventure University Career Center.

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College of Saint Rosecreated its page in June 2009. Its page is linked on its website.

Article sources: Wet Feet, Gotta Mentor, St. Roses website, Yahoo Finance, HotJobs, MSN,YouTube, regional business journal sites and various blog sites

While the center has a significant number of eventsposted, no one has been invited or has said theyreattending.

Most page comments were created by the center toremind followers of an upcoming event.

The center has 45 favorite pages that are mostlycareer-related publications and organizations as wellas companies/organizations that may hire students.This is a good place for students to go when theywant more resources than on the page.

Results

Canisius Collegecreated its page in September 2009. The page is not advertised with a Facebookbutton on the centers website.

Link sources: MSN, HotJobs, Yahoo! Finance,government websites and event websites

On average, Canisius invites about 40 people toits events that are posted on Facebook.

Two of the three notes Canisius has posted areAlumni Spotlights and feature Q&A sessionswith successful Canisius alumni.

Notes from Interview with Justin Johnston,graduate assistant

Canisiuss career center thought Facebookmight be a good opportunity to increase event attendance and office awareness. They realized its

basically no-cost, low-risk. If it doesnt work they had absolutely nothing lost except a little bit of timeput into it.To promote the site, the two graduate assistants invited all their friends. They also sent out e-mailblasts to the entire university and they have continued to send out e-mails once in a while. They alsomention the page to students who come in for appointments.To promote the page, the center tried to show up in others Facebook walls as much as possible.Example: Justin has become a fan of the Canisius career center comes up on Justins wall for allof his friends see.They said it took an hour or less to set up the page and however much time they decide to take tomanage it.When they havent posted an event in a while, they will post an article from MSN or Yahoo, etc. Justin advised against sending too many messages after the initial blast phase. When people feelbombarded by messages, theyll just un-fan you. He also said fan counts will eventually come to a

plateau and that shouldnt be discouraging.So far, Justin said it has brought marginal attendance increases to career center events. Not hugely

Followers 158 (About 3% of student body)

Posts 250-300+ posts

Links 293 (Many posts are links)

Events 59 (5 upcoming)

Comments 7

Likes 4

Notes 0

Discussions 1 (No respondents)

Photos 2 albums (7 photos)

FavoritePages

45

3

Followers 192 (About .04% of student body)

Posts 84

Links 16

Events 3Comments 4

Likes 6

Notes 3

Discussions 0

Photos 1 album (1 photo)

FavoritePages

0
http://www.facebook.com/StRoseCareerCenter?ref=tshttp://www.facebook.com/StRoseCareerCenter?ref=tshttp://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/canisiuscollegecareercenter?ref=tshttp://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/canisiuscollegecareercenter?ref=tshttp://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/canisiuscollegecareercenter?ref=tshttp://www.facebook.com/StRoseCareerCenter?ref=ts


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Notre Dame Collegecreated its career center Facebook page in September 2009. The center has aFacebook button link on its webpage.

Art icle/ l ink sources: experience.com,businessweek.com, jobchoicesonline.com,YouTube, glassdoor.com and company

websites (i.e., KPMG)

No one has been invited or RSVPed for events.

NDC has separated tabs by category: Info,Photos, Discussions, Events, Notes (interns &Employers), Photos and Discussions.

The discussion board allows students to posttheir internship experiences, but, unfortunately,only one student has done so.

NDCs notes feature an intern and employer of the month and monthly tips and questions.

The centers favorite pages are related to other offices at NDC.

NDC does not have a LinkedIn group or a Twitter account. The centers director said its moreimportant for the center to show/teach students how to use these other social media tools than touse these tools themselves.

Results

Followers 32 (.01% of student body)

Posts 32

Links 17

Events 22 (2 upcoming)

Comments 0

Likes 0

Notes 11

Discussions 1 (Only Career Center responded)

Photos 5 albums (60 photos)

FavoritePages

2

Nazareth College of Rochester created its page in August 2009 and has a link to the page on thecenters website.

Rather than posting links, Nazareth posts

notes that contain links. They also post acareer funny of the week in the notes section.

Although events are open, no one has beeninvited nor has anyone RSVPed for any of theupcoming events.

Someone has posted links about RochesterYouth Year a few times.

Most of the centers favorite pages are otherNazareth College organizations and schools.

They have a tab to NazLink, their version ofCollege Central.

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Followers 124 (About .04% of student body)

Posts 75

Links 0

Events 21

Comments 1

Likes 2

Notes 20

Discussions 0

Photos 1 album (2 pictures)

FavoritePages

11
http://www.facebook.com/pages/South-Euclid-OH/Notre-Dame-College-Career-Services-Center/130927057738#!http://www.facebook.com/pages/South-Euclid-OH/Notre-Dame-College-Career-Services-Center/130927057738#!http://www.facebook.com/pages/Rochester-NY/Nazareth-College-of-Rochester-Career-Services/54281286743?ref=tshttp://www.facebook.com/pages/Rochester-NY/Nazareth-College-of-Rochester-Career-Services/54281286743?ref=tshttp://www.facebook.com/pages/Rochester-NY/Nazareth-College-of-Rochester-Career-Services/54281286743?ref=tshttp://www.facebook.com/pages/South-Euclid-OH/Notre-Dame-College-Career-Services-Center/130927057738#!


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Results

Dominican University created its career center page in 2009, although it created a Facebook groupin late 2008. The site is linked on the centers website and the offices assistant director said thats oneway they spread the word about the Facebook page.

Link sources: Twitter, wsj.com, kaptest.com, Chicago Tribune site, Monster and events.

In addition to typical posts, like links andphotos, DUs career center posts generalupdates, like Good luck with classes! at thebeginning of the year.

A decent amount of comments and likesfrom repeat users. DU actually has 5 uniqueusers (mostly recent alumni) who haveposted comments and 12 unique users(primarily students, some recent alumni) whohave liked something on the page.

DUs career center has posted a lot of

photos on its Facebook site. It has 5 albumscontaining about 135 pictures. Albums are:08/09 events, staff, fall 09 semester,around the office and spring 2010 semester.

E-mail interview notes, Jose Garcia, assistant director, career advising, Dominican UniversityGoal upon joining was to be visible on Facebook so current students and alums would be able tofind out information about our office though this channel, and not have to go to our homepage tolearn about events, programs, etc.

They have received mostly positive feedback from students who enjoy event reminders and seeingpictures from the events.

To promote the page, the center sent an e-mail blast to all students, added a Facebook link on thecenters homepage and used word of mouth at various events, particularly during summerorientation meetings with new students.

Two people manage most of the pages content, which takes less than two hours per week to do.

DU uses Twitter (www.twitter.com/ducareers) to communicate mostly with employers mostly be-cause they advertise employment opportunities there. They also participate in the alumni officesLinkedIn page, which is very active.

We know lots of good networking can be done on these social sites, so we keep up with thestudents and what theyre using! Jose Garcia, of the Dominican University Career Center.

Followers 278 (About 7% of student body)Posts 107+

Links 7

Events 22

Comments 10

Likes 23

Notes 0

Discussions 20 (Few responses)

Photos 5 albums (About 135 pictures)

FavoritePages

0

5
http://www.facebook.com/pages/River-Forest-IL/Career-Development-Dominican-University/141259211884http://www.facebook.com/pages/River-Forest-IL/Career-Development-Dominican-University/141259211884http://www.twitter.com/ducareershttp://www.twitter.com/ducareershttp://www.twitter.com/ducareershttp://www.facebook.com/pages/River-Forest-IL/Career-Development-Dominican-University/141259211884


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ConclusionsMaintaining a Facebook page takes little time, little effort and no cost.

Facebook offers a small analytical service that allows businesses/organizations to monitor how often

people are joining and viewing the page.

Balance is important! Too much of one this isnt good; people will become desensitized or will leave.

However, not enough of something isnt good either because then it will be forgotten.Through one method or another, all of these organizations used Facebook to distribute links

containing helpful career information.

A somewhat small percentage of students seem to have friended their colleges career center.,

perhaps because its still a relatively new concept and students are not fully comfortable with it.

Photos are vital and definitely help to liven up a page. Photos should contain people, particularly

students at the university.

None of the career centers studied here had a ton of student engagement.

RecommendationsFacebook has two main purposes: to share information and to engage or network with others. Its

important for organizations to not only share information but share conversation Facebook is atwo-way street.

Discussions seem to be somewhat unsuccessful, so it may be better to bypass that feature and

instead create discussions with students right on the centers wall.

Use plenty of photographs and create a staff photo album. This gives the career center a face forthose who have never physically visited the Career Center. Also, showing photos of students atevents may help encourage students to participate in future events.

Promote the page heavily upon launch with e-mails and word of mouth. Find any professors whohave a Facebook account and ask them to mention our page to their classes.

Place a Facebook button on the Career Centers website.

The SBU Career Centers favorite pages could be viewed as a resource for students looking formore in-depth, outside information. The favorite pages also allow for more career center integrationwith the university.

Notre Dame College had a good idea with the intern stories discussion. However, only one personhas participated. Perhaps to entice students to participate and post their intern stories photos, theCareer Center could offer a small prize to the best one.

The Facebook page could potentially become the student tips newsletter to replace Directions.Articles, tips, events, etc. would be posted on the page multiple times per week and then perhaps

every month the Career Center could create a small PDF/html document to distribute via e-mail as asort of This month in Facebook round-up.

Use analytics to adjust the page or to know what works.

Works Citedhttp://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics#!/press/info.php?timeline

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Research conducted and paper created by Ruth Harper

St. Bonaventure University Career Center, Spring 2010
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics#!/press/info.php?timelinehttp://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics#!/press/info.php?timelinehttp://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics#!/press/info.php?timeline

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