Career Services has revamped its offerings with new employees, new marketing tactics and a foray into social media, an office representative said.
Susan Nethery, associate director of marketing for Career Services, said office’s new marketing tactics involved greater use of social.
Career Services now has a Facebook fan page and YouTube website and sends e-mail blasts to inform students of upcoming events. Nethery, whose position at Career Services was created during the 2009-2010 school year, wrote in an e-mail that a career application is estimated to be incorporated into the iTCU iPhone application suite between the end of September and early October.
According to information sent by Nethery, the Facebook page offers daily FrogJobs intern and job postings, videos, photos, event information and career articles and links. The page also includes information on Career Services’ location and hours.
The YouTube site features nine playlists covering topics such as salary negotiation, interviewing, managing your money and information on Career Services. Each playlist then contains videos on a given topic. The site features 78 videos total and has just under 300 views.
Nethery said the overhaul was triggered because surveys found that previous marketing through the TCU Daily Skiff and fliers were not working. A fully revised website was launched last September and the new site has received a 288 percent increase in visits with a 416 percent increase in page views, she wrote in an e-mail.
According to data compiled by Career Services and provided by Nethery, renovations have yielded a 153 percent increase in attendance at on-campus workshops and a 23 percent increase in the number of active student and alumni accounts on FrogJobs.
Also new to the office, John M. Thompson III began serving as executive director of Career Services in April of 2008.
Since Thompson’s appointment as executive director, Career Services has revamped its website, made a shift in marketing and created a new marketing position to assist with all of this.
Thompson said the website won an award as the best collegiate website last year and is displayed at national conventions as an example of what a career services website should look like.
“We’re trying to go more directly to the student and not just be a bystander,” he said.
Thompson said the reason for the redesign was to get students to take advantage of the program’s services. There are 150 jobs on FrogJobs and rarely enough students to apply for them, he said. His goal was to get more students into “career thinking mode” and bring in more employers, Thompson said.
Thompson spent 31 years with the university in total, working first as an instructor of marketing in the Neeley School of Business. He said he moved to Career Services because he never liked the way the office was run. Thompson said he told the office, “Give me a shot at it.”
Samantha Jungman, a senior accounting major, said she finds Career Services really helpful when looking for internships and jobs. She said she has visited Career Services for help with her resume and information on potential employers.
