Assessment Details
Academic Year: 2020-2021 Level: Undergraduate
Campus Department: Student Affairs [UG and Grad]
Program Type: Co-Curricular Program [UG and Grad]
Program Name: Career Fairs (Link)
Description of Data Collection:
The employer survey is standardized across all fairs and assessed the employers’ perspective on student preparedness and employer satisfaction. In addition, we measured operational outcomes for the fairs, based on Handshake data.
Review Process:
The survey questions were created in Campus Labs using a Likert Scale. In the past, we would collect paper surveys at each event but we collected responses this past year via an email survey and the data was inputted manually into Campus Labs. After each event, an Assistant Director or Associate Director who oversaw the specific event interprets the evidence and makes recommendations for improvement in collaboration with colleagues, the office leadership team, and leaders in appropriate academic departments. The Associate Director, Employer Engagement usually looks at the evidence collected across events to compare data, find common trends, and identify overall areas for improvement. One of our assistant directors of employer engagement took the lead on the analysis (Caroline Meditz) but others on the EE team contributed as well.
Resulting Program Changes:
Employers continue to give BC students high marks for student preparation but we would like to make these numbers even stronger. We also need to increase the percent of AHANA and first generation students who attend our fairs because we did not meet our goals. Our goals for FY21-focused on these two areas. Since all of our career fairs had to occur in a virtual format for the first time given the pandemic, we also wanted to measure how employers felt about the Handshake Career Fair platform.
For FY21 , the following changes were implemented.
– We conducted on-line workshops to help students prepare for the fair and provided targeted email to students illustrating how they can use online resources to more effectively research companies prior to the fair.
– We conducted targeted outreach and held tailored preparation events for AHANA, First Generation and Montserrat students to help them feel more prepared for the fair based on feedback from previous years.
-We broadly advertised our Career Closet to ensure that lack of access to professional attire would not be a barrier to attending the fair for these groups.
Because of the unusual nature of our career fairs being entirely virtual, we did not have specific expectations around attendance and do not know how much are changes impacted our learning outcomes.
– 94.7% of respondents indicated that they did meet with as many diverse students as they expected and 89.47% agreed or strongly agreed that they met with students in their target academic background. This is a more positive experience than FY 20 when 85.3% said they connected with a diverse candidate pool and 79% were satisfied with the academic blend.
– 92.1 % of employer respondents said that they agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “The students with whom I met had researched my organization and developed appropriate questions, which representing a significant increase from FY20 (82.3%); 55% of respondents strongly agreed a substantial increase from the 39% of employers in FY20 who strongly agreed; and
– 94.7% agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “The students with whom I met were able to articulate how their experiences, skills, interests, and values relate to the opportunities for which I am recruiting”, almost identical to last year’s percentage.
In terms of operational outcomes, our career fair attendance declined 37% which we attribute in large measure to the pandemic. We also did not meet our AHANA proportional attendance goal but AHANA career fair attendees experienced a slight increase from FY21 (27%, 1% increase). We did meet our first generation goal (12%), an increase of almost 4% from FY21 (8.20%).
Date of Most Recent Program Review:
Employers continue to give BC students high marks for student preparation but we would like to make these numbers even stronger. We also need to increase the percent of AHANA and first generation students who attend our fairs because we did not meet our goals. Our goals for FY21-focused on these two areas. Since all of our career fairs had to occur in a virtual format for the first time given the pandemic, we also wanted to measure how employers felt about the Handshake Career Fair platform.
For FY21 , the following changes were implemented.
– We conducted on-line workshops to help students prepare for the fair and provided targeted email to students illustrating how they can use online resources to more effectively research companies prior to the fair.
– We conducted targeted outreach and held tailored preparation events for AHANA, First Generation and Montserrat students to help them feel more prepared for the fair based on feedback from previous years.
-We broadly advertised our Career Closet to ensure that lack of access to professional attire would not be a barrier to attending the fair for these groups.
Because of the unusual nature of our career fairs being entirely virtual, we did not have specific expectations around attendance and do not know how much are changes impacted our learning outcomes.
– 94.7% of respondents indicated that they did meet with as many diverse students as they expected and 89.47% agreed or strongly agreed that they met with students in their target academic background. This is a more positive experience than FY 20 when 85.3% said they connected with a diverse candidate pool and 79% were satisfied with the academic blend.
– 92.1 % of employer respondents said that they agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “The students with whom I met had researched my organization and developed appropriate questions, which representing a significant increase from FY20 (82.3%); 55% of respondents strongly agreed a substantial increase from the 39% of employers in FY20 who strongly agreed; and
– 94.7% agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “The students with whom I met were able to articulate how their experiences, skills, interests, and values relate to the opportunities for which I am recruiting”, almost identical to last year’s percentage.
In terms of operational outcomes, our career fair attendance declined 37% which we attribute in large measure to the pandemic. We also did not meet our AHANA proportional attendance goal but AHANA career fair attendees experienced a slight increase from FY21 (27%, 1% increase). We did meet our first generation goal (12%), an increase of almost 4% from FY21 (8.20%).
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