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Twenty-seven employers paid $150 apiece in March at an annual career fair targeting Longview Community College students and the general public in Lee’s Summit, Mo. The total number of exhibitors declined more than 40 percent from the previous year, college Employment Resource Coordinator Linda Anderson said – despite Anderson making personal calls to the previous year’s attendees.

“Last year I had 65 employers and a waiting list to get in,” Anderson said. [This Year] “they just said, ‘We’re not hiring.’ I know some of them wanted to participate, but they just had no vacancies.”

Nationally, the combination of fewer career-track jobs for new grads, high unemployment and generally gloomy economic conditions has created a dilemma for some fair organizers: While more job-seekers are going to career fairs, they’re finding fewer companies with jobs to offer.

The turnout for Longview’s fair is typical of what’s happening in Kansas City, as well as in job markets as diverse as Lincoln, Neb.; Boise, Idaho; Washington, D.C.; San Francisco; and Houghton, Mich.

Despite recording the highest percentage enrollment gain in Kansas City’s five-campus Metropolitan Community College system, MCC’s careers-oriented Business & Technology Campus is finding it hard to reach its goal of 100 exhibitors for Careers Unlimited, a first-time fair scheduled for April 16.

In a recent “At Work” column in The Kansas City Star, the city’s daily newspaper, Columnist Diane Stafford noted that just 15 employers had committed through mid-March.

Lelain Lorenzen, Director of Marketing for the school, said organizers are still hopeful of recruiting additional employers for the event. But even some long-standing career fairs have found that companies without jobs to offer are reluctant to pay entry fees, travel and commit employees for a day-long event.

“The Kansas City Star cancelled a job fair that we were planning to be a co-sponsor for and they’ve held that for several years,” Lorenzen said.

There are exceptions. Bill Gentry, Regional Sales Manager for Career Fairs Global in Omaha, Neb., said the company’s January fair attracted 32 exhibitors – in the ball park for fairs it sponsors four times a year.

“That’s about what it’s been,” Gentry said. “We try to keep it in that range, from 35 to 40.”

Exhibitors included corporate entities such as Qwest; Verizon and AFLAC; an Air Force base; and two schools, Bellevue and Kaplan universities. The exhibitors pay $695 to participate, down from $1,595 a few years ago, Gentry said.

While the price “has come down drastically in the past few years” as the result of career-fair competition, Gentry said that companies participating this year all had job openings.

“The one in January, all the people there were looking to hire someone now,” he said. “The problem was that there were 150 jobs and 1,500 people looking.”

Gentry said the number of job-seekers typically ranges from 500 to 750.

One past employer, the Missouri Highway Patrol, declined this year because its travel budget had been cut, Gentry said.

Edwin Koc, Director of Strategic and Foundation Research for the National Association of Colleges and Employers in Bethlehem, Pa., said that feedback from the organization’s 1,800 college members – traditional four-year schools, career universities such as University of Phoenix and DeVry, community colleges, and a smattering of online schools – and its 1,100 employer members shows that career fairs have experienced a fall-off in exhibitors.

“What we are seeing is a considerable drop-off in career fair attendance,” said Koc, who put the figure at around 10 percent. “That’s pretty telling because they view career fairs as a great way to brand their business.”

Koc’s organization conducts annual surveys of member schools and employers to gauge the job market – the number and quality of jobs being offered and what students are looking for and earning in their first jobs. Many of NACE’s member schools host their own career fairs, Koc said, and can provide feedback, both statistical and anecdotal, on the job market.

While career fair attendance has increased in many locations, a sampling of published reports shows that employer participation has declined.

• In its article “Sour economy boosts attendance at job fairs,” TheHill.com reported in February that an unemployment rate above 9 percent in the District of Columbia drew more job-seekers to area career fairs. Although the site made no mention of employer participation, it did note that job-seekers packed the lobby of the Hamilton Crowne Hotel, “with a line that ran all the way downstairs to a conference room at the bottom of the stairs.”
• The American Physical Society (APS Physics) reported in its online story “Job Fair Attendance Lags in Gloomy Economy” that both the number of job-seekers and employers registered for the 2009 APS March Job Fair in Pittsburg, Pa., was lower than in previous years. “Job seekers are finding it hard to make the trip,” Fair Coordinator Alix Brice was quoted as saying, as are some employers reluctant to spend money on travel.
• The Idaho Business Review reported in February that the Idaho Business League’s Job & Career Fair in Boise experienced a surge in job-seekers, but registered five fewer employers than the previous year. “Notable in their absence were many of the state’s relatively high-paying technology companies, which had been fairly consistent participants in the past,” the online story “Job fair sees higher attendance but fewer jobs” quoted an Idaho Business League organizer as saying.
• Both exhibitors and students looking for jobs declined at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln’s Spring Career Fair in February. First-day student attendance was down 25 percent from the previous year, The Daily Nebraskan campus newspaper reported. More telling, perhaps, was that the number of recruiters fell from 125 in 2008 to around 100 in 2009. The university’s Assistant Director for Career Services told the newspaper that some exhibitors explained they had fewer positions to fill, while others said they opted not to pay the entry fee and expend travel costs to set up a booth.
• Results were much the same at The University of San Francisco, where the campus newspaper reported that financial-services companies such as Charles Schwab were among 20 exhibitors who attended USF’s annual Career and Internship Fair in 2008 but were absent this year. Attendance by current students and recent graduates did set a record, however, further indicating intense competition for fewer jobs.

Both Koc and Anderson agree that while employers may not have jobs to
offer, they have viewed the fairs as a boon for visibility and future
hiring. But this year, Koc said, it’s a mixed bag

“We have heard, at least anecdotally, that some employers have shown
up with no jobs available,” he said. “That’s a good way to brand their
companies, but (we’ve heard) that students who attend have been
frustrated because they’re looking for a specific job.

There are other benefits to exposing a company’s name to the traditionally young career-fair attendee, Anderson says.

“That recruitment can serve as a tool because our students are future consumers, and good ones,” she said.

It’s also been reported that schools, including career colleges, have been invited to fairs to replace company recruiters.

Enrollments are up at career colleges, community colleges and
four-year public universities, indicating that many students have
chosen to continue building skills and resumes while keeping an eye on
the job market.

It’s a positive strategy, said Career College Association
President/CEO Harris Miller, since skills and degrees tend to serve as
a hedge against unemployment in uncertain economic times.

“To be successful in this environment, skills come to the forefront
of every employer’s thinking,” Miller said. “Those who lack skills or
whose skills are out of date are at a distinct disadvantage. Those who
have them are still finding opportunities, especially in areas such as
healthcare.”

Koc said he doesn’t expect career prospects to improve across the board until the spring of 2010 at the earliest.

“From the sampling of college hiring, it’s obviously going to be a
difficult year for the class of 2009 and it’s likely to be a difficult
year for the class of 2010.