2008 Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair Winds Down this Weekend

As we move toward the conclusion of this year's Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair ending this coming weekend at THE BLACK COLLEGIAN Online, co-presented by IMDiversity, we are pleased to announce the addition of new opportunities links and recruiter's messages by additional participants including..

Citizen Schools National Teaching Fellowships
Civilian Opportunities with the Department of Navy - Naval Inventory Control Point
New opportunities added by IBM

Additionally and simultaneously, a number of fresh featured Internships/Fellowships and Entry-Level/New College Hire/Trainee Jobs have been posted the job channels at IMDiversity.

These free seasonal features are intended to connect diverse students and new college graduates to employers who are currently publishing opportunities available to students or to entry-level candidates just before graduation. In years, the editors jokingly referred to them as "the procrastinator's special," as in, where were you when the career center was holding all those campus job fairs last semester?

Of course, by this time, the opportunities we were featuring with early summer start dates are few on our jobs databases; over the past couple weeks, they've been replaced by many more that are already being filled for next fall and winter.

But these features this year also dispel the myth "employers have filled their college hiring needs" this close to graduation. We've heard from college recruitment professionals at a diverse range of companies and organizations -- from multinationals to non-profits to government agencies -- who told us the campus recruiting season definitely left them with remaining openings. Others had extended application deadlines for some frankly amazing opportunities, as well as well-paid fellowships, leadership projects, and internships offering substantive work experiences coming up quickly for the summer.

This year's virtual career fair was one of the liveliest and most well-trafficked we've hosted in some time, and also had some of the most robust participation by the companies. We definitely appreciated the time jobseekers took to fill out our Career Fair survey to tell us about which sites they visited and which had scheduled interviews with them. We also appreciated the input of employers who often provided very detailed, helpful advice about applying to the specific opportunities they were hiring for.

We feel that the active participation of both helped make the 2008 Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair a real success, and are considering making such a feature a regular event on our sites for the future. Meanwhile, we'll continue to welcome feedback, suggestions or success stories from all who participated, and hope others still seeking a job will visit the fair in its final weekend.

Seasonal Internships and Entry-Level Opportunities Feature

The editors announce that they have updated the IMDiversity.com seasonal feature Summer Gigs - Internships and Entry-Level, an annual special section that highlights readings and opportunities for college students and new graduates. Although the hiring season for summer jobs and internships is winding to a close, the editors decided to update the popular feature, and to spotlight a handful of internship, coop and job postings in our database that have been identified by employers as still open for the season.

This year, we have tried to make things easier by splitting the section into two separate flows -- each with readings and feeds of featured opportunities appropriate to the interests of our readers, whether they are students seeking internships/fellowships or are new grads or college hires seeking entry-level or other trainee positions.

Additional internships and opportunities that do not have imminent deadlines for summer start dates will also be posted and searchable from the special, starting this week and will continue to be posted this spring as the summer-start jobs are phased out.

This feature is in conjunction with THE BLACK COLLEGIAN's Pre-Graduation Virtual Career Fair, which is co-presented by IMDiversity.com, as we described in our previous announcement.

New Jobs Section: "$100K-Plus Jobs" featured on IMDiversity

IMDiversity.com is pleased to introduce our new prominent jobs feature, $100K-Plus Jobs (www.imdiversity.com/100k+.asp).

Expanding upon our new Featured Jobs section as announced in our previous post, the $100K-Plus section provides jobseekers with easy access to select positions with salary ranges extending to $100,000 annually or above. A pre-programmed quicksearch link at the bottom of the feature displays additional jobs in this category that are not featured, making it easy for returning visitors to get updates (or save a customized job auto-alert agent).

Try IMDiversity's $100K-Plus Jobs now.

Winter Internships Special

Beginning on the long holiday weekend and the rest of November, IMDiversity will be running a special for student and entry-level jobseekers visiting our site. Posted on our Internships and Coops page will be a number of Featured Internships, some of which are, yes, already coming up on application deadlines for the summer. For the industrious students looking to line up their ducks with plenty of lead-time, stop by and check them out. For the procrastinators among us, it looks like there are still some great employers accepting applications for spring as well, but they're going fast. If you don't see any you like right off the bat, try one of our pre-programmed internship quicksearches on that page to find more opportunities.

Introducing IMDiversity Featured Jobs

We are pleased to formally introduce our new IMDiversity Featured Jobs section, now available to help bring together the most active, direct employers and active jobseekers on our site. Offered by IMDiversity in beta form and refined since this spring, Featured Jobs was developed at the suggestion of the site's jobseeker-users and employers alike.

A prominently placed special jobs section linked throughout the extended IMDiversity.com network, Featured Jobs allows returning jobseekers quick, easy access to a shortlist of jobs posted by direct employers where the hiring managers have indicated their active interest in locating diverse candidates for the position. Because Featured Jobs are posted on IMDiversity by direct job posters, and not through automation, a position's appearance in this section lets you know that an employer has taken an extra, active step toward filling the position with qualified, diverse candidates.

For employers, including smaller and non-commercial organizations, it provides a chance to let your high-priority or time-sensitive job postings stand out from the pack. While still accessible in our regular database searches, your upgraded job posting allows you to spotlight a single opportunity in your organization that might otherwise get less notice in regular searches because of the high volume of jobs in search results.

Featured Jobs is accessible on nearly every page including our Villages, Career Center, blogs and even select partner sites. We encourage all users to visit the section, and as always to send us your feedback or ideas.