Tina Moyer, Director of Career Development and Civic Engagement at Lehigh Carbon Community College (LCCC), was at the airport when she received a text from her institution that all events on campus would be canceled due to COVID-19. It was the middle of March and LCCC was one of many institutions around the world that was planning to close their campus to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Moyer said, “When I received that text, I immediately got on the phone with my staff to develop a plan. We had a job fair scheduled for April 2, one of our biggest events that usually draws between 300 and 400 students, that I really didn’t want to cancel. This event helps students who are looking for employment, many of them graduating, and it also helps employers with their recruiting needs.” Through conversations with her staff and with Symplicity, Moyer decided the best possible way to support her students and employers was by hosting a virtual career fair.
Virtual Career Fair is a module available within Symplicity CSM and one that Moyer had never used before but found it easy to navigate. “It was no different than setting up a regular career fair, with the exception that every representative had to be registered beforehand within the system. As a result, I was able to put the virtual event together in just two and a half weeks and let my students and employers know about the new date,” Moyer said. For Moyer, the ease of use was an incredible relief, especially since she was able to transition her April 2 career fair to a virtual one that was rescheduled for April 15. “I am so thankful for Symplicity. I have colleagues at other schools that are scrambling to find software that supports hosting virtual career fairs, because they are unable to host face-to-face events as a result of COVID-19, and all of that software will come at a cost. Having the ability to host a virtual career fair through CSM, a feature already included in the product, was great. I didn’t need to seek out any other platforms to be able to offer this to the employers and the employers already had accounts with us to registration was easy for them.” The virtual career fair Moyer hosted was a great success and she received a lot of positive feedback from both employers and students following the event.
“I greatly appreciate the partnership Symplicity has with its clients. Symplicity helps career centers leverage their system so we can better assist our students – this is clear, not just in how CSM is built, but in their support team as well.”
Tina Moyer,
Director of Career Development and Civic Engagement,
Lehigh Carbon Community College
On the day of the virtual career fair, Moyer reported that there were 90 employer representatives from 76 companies that participated in the career fair. Moyer said that she was surprised to have a good mixture of industries represented at the virtual career fair. “There was a little bit of everything in terms of industries such as manufacturing, healthcare, human service, and other industries as well as seasonal opportunities. A lot of the employers were excited to participate in the virtual career fair because I was the only local college that put something like this together,” Moyer noted, “I received several thank you messages from employers after the virtual career fair because they had never experienced anything like that before. Even though unemployment is very high right now, there are still a lot of employers that are hiring, especially essential businesses. All of my participating employers were grateful because many other colleges are canceling their career fairs instead of virtualizing, but those employers still have jobs that needed to be filled.” Even before LCCC officially announced that all classes in the fall of 2020 would be virtual, Moyer was already planning to host more virtual career fairs in the coming months.
While Moyer is sad that she won’t be seeing students in-person for a while, she’s happy to still be able to provide them with employability opportunities with virtual career fairs. Moyer also recognized another benefit of hosting a virtual career fair was the time and money saved compared to an in-person event. “When we host a job fair, we usually provide a hot lunch for the representatives that participate as well as print a bunch of flyers to hand out to students, so we experienced cost savings by virtualizing. I would also say that I saved a lot of time, too, since I didn’t have to do a floor plan for the employers,” Moyer added. Considering the savings and the relevancy of virtual career fairs this year, she predicts she’ll have an even more successful round of fairs in the fall.
Of all the benefits there are with a virtual career fair, Moyer shared why Symplicity excels as a career services platform. “I greatly appreciate the partnership Symplicity has with its clients. Symplicity helps career centers leverage their system so we can better assist our students—this is clear, not just in how CSM is built, but in their support team as well,” Moyer said, “I give Symplicity support the highest rating simply because, if you put in a help ticket or have a question, their staff gets back to you quickly, even if they don’t know the answer immediately. And my issue is always resolved in less than 24 hours. Having a quick and responsive support staff is so crucial—I really can’t say enough good things about this company!” Moyer enjoys using a system that lends itself to her institution’s needs as well as her students. She also noted that the support team has helped her maximize the use of CSM since she implemented the system six years ago and she’s excited to see what product updates will come next.
For more information about virtualizing student services, email info@symplicity.com or schedule a conversation.