Spotlight Online for Employment and Recruiting Professionals, May 12, 2010

In a recent discussion on NACE’s JobPlace listserv, career services practitioners noted student frustration with employers who refuse to accept resumes at career fairs and instead direct students to apply online. According to practitioners, students are confused by the behavior and don’t understand its purpose. 

Mary Scott, president of the Scott Resource Group, began collecting data on this topic in 2004.  

“Although the practice has become far more widespread since I first started reporting on students’ frustration with employers’ refusing to accept their resumes, the consistency in the negative reaction has actually strengthened lately,” Scott says.  

Scott says students draw two conclusions when an employer tells them to apply online: They simply don’t understand why the company would bother to staff a booth at the career fair; and they consider it a waste of their time to have talked with the employer’s representatives.  

“Students believe that the staff will have no recollection of their conversation and that applying online with their resume not having been tagged in some way is a ‘blow-off,’” she says.  

As a former recruiter, college recruiting director, and director of employer relations in career services, Steve Tiufekchiev has unique insight into this issue. Regulations are at the core of most employers’ requests for students to apply online.  

“In many cases, it’s not so much the EEOC as the OFCCP regulations that seem to scare employers into thinking they can’t take resumes at career fairs,” says Tiufekchiev, chief strategy officer at RECSOLU. “OFCCP sends shivers down the spine of every recruiter that is held to its account.” 

During Tiufekchiev’s time as a recruiter, his employer brought in a consultant to demystify OFCCP regulations relating to resumes and career fairs.   

“The guidance we received was that in most cases when evaluating students for multiple positions as opposed to one specific job requisition or opening, it is perfectly acceptable to take resumes,” he says. “The Department of Labor has a statement of exactly what needs to be done regarding how to treat student resumes and the conditions that surround when to keep them.” 

This explanation can be found on the Department of Labor’s (DOL) web site at www.dol.gov/ofccp/regs/compliance/faqs/iappfaqs.htm#Q16RK.  

“It is precisely because of the nature of a career fair—that is, to generate interest in the mind of the candidate—that this makes sense,” he adds. “If recruiters really want to accept hard-copy resumes, they need to ensure that everyone in their organization understands that taking resumes, under specific circumstances that are very typical at college career fairs, is an acceptable practice per the DOL. Of course, they will need to seek the proper guidance on this.” 

Scott says a large part of the problem with accepting resumes at career fairs stems from the application of the OFCCP’s definition of an online application.   

“The interpretation of these regulations varies significantly among employers, leading those who adhere to a strict analysis to cite that ‘the law forbids us to accept your resume’ at a job fair,” she says. “In fact, when the regulations were first enacted, one employer instructed its representatives to not touch students’ paper resumes, and to stand at their table with their hands behind their backs.” 

So, despite student disapproval, the policy prevails. Tiufekchiev and Scott recommend that companies that don’t accept resumes at career fairs open the lines of communication to demonstrate an understanding of what this decision means to students, and to help them better grasp the reason for the policy and the online application process.  

“Companies need to show they understand how much work some of the online application processes are,” Tiufekchiev says. “Every time a college student is told to apply online, they have to go through this rigmarole again, which can take anywhere from a few minutes to much, much longer. The result for a company with a limited employer brand or campus presence may be minimal applications as students perceive the process not worth the effort because their time is limited.”  

Recruiters should also apprise students that there are benefits to applying online. For one, it guarantees that they will be in the organization’s applicant tracking system.   

“After all, if I want an ‘in’ to my dream company, I’m not leaving it in the hands of just one recruiter to enter me into the system,” Tiufekchiev explains. “By applying directly online, students can be assured of being considered by other recruiters in the company as well.”    

He recommends career centers create a handout based on employer information and input for distribution to students at career fairs that explains the reasons why companies may not accept resumes at the fair and why it is important for students to apply online, and offers them tips for making a positive impression regardless of whether a resume is accepted.

“This way, if students are going to get pointed to a web site, they will be expecting it and can efficiently plan their interactions with the organization’s recruiters to make a favorable impression,” Tiufekchiev says.  

Scott says, above all, employers need to be honest in these explanatory communications. 

“If their motivation is ‘green’ or their process paperless, they need to be able to state their policy in a credible way,” she says. “But there’s no benefit to students, from their standpoint, if they know the representatives will not have a way to locate said students’ online resumes that they’ve posted to the employers’ web sites. For that reason, they see the whole exchange as a waste of their time.” 

Scott says that, based on students’ focus group comments on the topic, she believes employers should offer students a viable alternative to providing their representatives with a paper resume.  

“Options include a special e-mail address reserved for students at a given career fair, or accepting a PDF of their resume from a flash drive,” she offers. “The problem with both these options and other similar suggestions that students find amenable is that, for many employers, their interpretation of the OFCCP regulations preclude any ‘special treatment’—and thus resume acceptance in any form.”  

One way recruiters can help students understand the process and its purpose is to work with career services practitioners, explain the policy to them, and enlist their help in educating students about the practice in general and how it applies to their particular organization. 

“Because there’s such a wide variation in employers’ practices, I’m not surprised that career center staff can be hard-pressed to explain resume refusal to their students,” Scott says. “It has to be confusing at best, because there’s such a wide range of employer behavior at career fairs.”