Off the Cuff
From erasers to e-recruiting
By Michael R.  Zimmerman
April 17, 2000 4:49 PM  ET

I can still remember the time I scored a big fat eraser my senior year in college.

You see, term papers were almost due, and an industrial-size eraser was going  to be a necessity. In those days, erasable typing paper was the rage. At last,  one could type a paper without having to worry about spackling mistakes with  white-out or, worse, ripping out the paper and starting from scratch. (This, of  course, was after writing the paper out in its entirety in long hand, from a  handwritten outline, drawn from handwritten notes.)

With those term papers out of the way, my job hunt began in earnest. That is,  until all of my professionally printed resumes turned up nothing but rejection  letters. Forced to get creative, and with some key advice from a friend, I  turned to the Encyclopedia of National Associations at my local library. After  printing out a few pages of publishing associations on the nearby copier (at 15  cents a pop), I headed home and started working the phone. Within a couple of  weeks I'd lined up several interviews, which subsequently turned into a bona  fide job.

Damn!

A new Web service/community from Experience Inc. prompted this painful  reminiscence. About two weeks ago, the three-year-old startup from Waltham,  Mass., turned on its college recruitment site, Experience.com. Here students and would-be  employers meet, arrange interviews, and swap resumes and job descriptions. But  there's a lot more. The site provides students with a community in which to  learn more about the process of securing a job in desired fields of interest, as  well as news and updates about companies in those fields.

For example, a quick drill-down search on, say, journalism offers CNN in a  list of 13 companies, including The New York Times and Newsweek. Click on any of  the companies and Experience.com offers straightforward feedback on what the  first year on the job would be like, the pattern of internal advancement, what  the culture is like, a quick description of compensation ("an unprecedented FOUR  weeks of vacation") and finally its stature in the industry.

Experience was formed by the January merger of Ivy Productions Inc. and  software developer Crimson Solutions Inc. Experience's President and CEO,  Jennifer Floren, founded Ivy three years ago to produce (in association with  Forbes Magazine) Experience Magazine, a quarterly devoted to providing college  students with stories about the job market, school and news that could affect  their search.

But it's not just about the kids. Through Experience.com, the recruitment  operations of universities are able to facilitate interviews, update students on  employers and vice versa.

Rapid response

"It creates new business that you need to respond to," said Lee Svete,  director of the Career Center at the University of Notre Dame, in South Bend,  Indiana. Svete said his office received a call last Wednesday from a Washington  legislator (and Notre Dame alum) who was coming for a visit and was interested  in speaking with some students. "He said, 'I'm sure it's too soon to get any  interviews set up.' I told him to give us a few hours," Svete said. In 3 hours  his office lined up 13 students for interviews last Friday.

One of the other benefits of the online system is that the number of no-shows  for scheduled interviews can be reduced dramatically. At least that's what's  happened at Notre Dame, which went from 260 no-shows in 1998, when the school  used no online software, to 40 in 1999, when ND began using Crimson's  e-recruiting software, which Experience improves upon.

On the employer side, Experience offers a way to target students with  specific attributes.

"It's exactly the audience we're trying to attract," said Lisa Zankman, vice  president and director of human resources at Circles.com. The highbrow  Boston-based online concierge service is turning to Experience.com in search of  a rather typical college student: one who is "Internet savvy."

"We love techies, but we will hire people that have phone skills and are very  Internet savvy," said Zankman. The 120-person company expects to expand its  ranks to 400 by the end of the year.

No doubt others will follow Experience.com's lead and begin offering equally  robust services. But Experience.com has a good head start. The company already  has tight relationships with 250 of the country's approximately 700 four-year  colleges, and about 30,000 employers are lined up.

Will there be a day when recruiting online and video conferencing replace the  face-to-face interview? Experience's Floren doesn't think so.

"I don't think there will ever be a time when an in-person interview will be  obsolete," she said. "You really have to meet that person. You can cut to the  chase online."

From erasers to e-recruiting. Now that's enabling technology.

Drop me a line at mike_zimmerman@ziffdavis.com. Off  the Cuff, an online exclusive column, appears Monday, Wednesday and  Friday