University Career Services is kicking off the new school year with a career fair and a change in its online recruitment program.
Students can visit with 79 recruiters at the Campus Recruiting Expo at Norris University Center from noon to 4 p.m. Monday. But they can also post their resumes online through career services’ new association with the job search program MonsterTRAK.
Career services switched its online recruiting program from CareerCat to MonsterTRAK this summer after experiencing minor technical difficulties with CareerCat. The change to MonsterTRAK incorporates a system called “InterviewTRAK,” which gives students access to employers conducting on-campus interviews, said Lonnie Dunlap, director of career services. MonsterTRAK also offers a resume drop system where employers interested in Northwestern students can access student resumes, even if they are not conducting on-campus interviews.
CareerCat experienced difficulties in data storage that could not be addressed in time for this fall’s recruitment season, Dunlap said. She said many students were independently using MonsterTRAK before career services adopted the system.
“Students won’t notice a lot of difference, nor will employers,” she said.
Weinberg senior Jonna Ashouripour said she found CareerCat limiting and planned to upload her resume to MonsterTRAK before career services made the switch.
“I am an econ major but I was looking for – diverse opportunities. I’m interested in more creative things, like maybe marketing,” Ashouripour said. “(CareerCat) was more sheltered and you only had specific communities looking to recruit.”
Ashouripour said she was recently contacted by a recruiter from Ralph Lauren through MonsterTRAK.
Dunlap explained that while MonsterTRAK is its own entity, “InterviewTRAK” will customize its system for recruiters specifically interested in NU students, just as CareerCat did. Ashouripour said she thinks more recruiters that fit her interests will find her on MonsterTRAK.
“I’m really glad they did the switch to MonsterTRAK,” she said. “Clearly we were in a box, and now it’s possible we can get out of the box and get other careers because there aren’t just four kinds of jobs out there.”
Other students said they preferred the CareerCat system, such as Sinan Bastas, a Weinberg senior who helped prepare a presentation to University Career Services about how to better serve students through the Undergraduate Leadership Program last spring.
“We were able to see the employees available much more easily with CareerCat, but MonsterTRAK is much more complicated,” he said. “It gave you a sense of security to see recruiters posting on a Web site only your university uses – MonsterTRAK is much more global.”
Bastas said signing up through MonsterTRAK was time-consuming and he worried that it would put NU at a disadvantage due to the quarter system, since other universities begin to participate in recruiting earlier in the fall.
Several other universities have adopted MonsterTRAK, Dunlap said. She added that although signing up requires a few more steps than it did for CareerCat, the features each offer are the same.
Annie Whitten, part of a recruiting group at Goldman Sachs that previously recruited NU students, said the switch to MonsterTRAK has been helpful.
“The new system Northwestern instituted is much more user-friendly,” she said. “From the employer’s end, the old system was a lot more time-consuming as far as selecting students for interviews, and anything that can help make the process more efficient is beneficial.”
Career services is looking forward to have more students register on MonsterTRAK, Dunlap said. CareerCat registered 2,853 NU students, primarily undergraduate seniors, last year.
Reach Amanda Palleschi [email protected].
