CCollegeJobs.com

by Chris Cumo and P.D. Lesko DIANN SCHINDLER-ENDER, the founder of CCollegeJobs.com, did not plan to become an on-line entrepreneur. An adjunct and then an assistant professor at Lorain County Community College in Ohio, and an administrator at community colleges in the Midwest, she rose to become president of Minneapolis Community College, in Minnesota. Then she married a man who himself wanted to become a community college president, and when he landed a post in New Jersey, Schindler-Ender decided one community college president in the family was enough. She resigned her position, but did not altogether leave academe. While helping a college conduct an executive search, she became aware of the dearth of on-line resources for community college job seekers and employers. Four friends convinced her to fill this gap by starting her own jobs page, and on May 1, 2000, she launched CCollegeJobs.com. Visitors may search jobs for free, and the site receives about 150,000 hits per week. The total number of jobs posted is relatively small, however. As of June, 179 positions had been posted by 71 member institutions. Visitors may post their resumes for free, and currently, there are about 150 resumes posted, a number Schindler-Ender attributes to the fact that job seekers remain reluctant to post their resumes on-line. However, "user reluctance" doesn't ring true as an explanation. Millions of jobseekers have posted resumes on-line at Monster.com. A more likely explanation has to do with the fact that the CCollegeJobs.com site has little content other than faculty and staff job postings. Thus, the average user has little incentive to post a resume. In addition, given the small number of colleges which have signed on as members, the site is a far from geographically comprehensive resource. This may change as CCollegeJobs.com establishes itself in the marketplace. The question is, of course, whether or not there really is a spot for CCollegeJobs.com in the higher education jobs marketplace. On the Web these days, a niche just isn't enough. CCollegeJobs.com is competing with some high rollers: The Chronicle of Higher Education's on-line job list (which has posted over 22,000 jobs already this year), as well as HigherEdJobs.com. Its 577 member institutions post, on average, 2,000 jobs each month, and there are a good number of community colleges which post to this list. The Chronicle's award-winning Web page is rich in employment-related content; HigherEdJobs.com is rich in postings. A search for adjunct postings on the CCollegeJobs.com site came up with 41 jobs, half of which had been posted by one college. In addition, e-mail and Web page addresses are not linked on the CCollegeJobs.com site. There are even places where the site's slip shows, if you will, and one sees the actual HTML coding on the results pages. The former is a major inconvenience, and should be corrected. To register, a community college must pay an annual fee of $1,295, which entitles it to unlimited job postings on the site. Colleges that anticipate only a few vacancies pay $100 per 30-day posting. The cost is comparable to most of the other higher education on-line job posting providers. Schindler-Ender said she particularly wants to attract underrepresented ethnic groups to her job site, and is exploring a partnership with Kaleidoscope, an organization for minority women. To this end, she mails a brochure advertising her service to historically black and Hispanic colleges, puts ads in newspapers with minority readers, and has linked her site "everywhere on the Web." Again, though, there is little content to draw minority candidates, and in the United States it is illegal to recruit solely on the basis of minority status. Schindler-Ender sees the trend toward on-line job advertising as inevitable. Job boards are a permanent feature of the on-line landscape. "It won't be a question of being on-line," she says. "Everyone will post jobs there." She is absolutely right. What remains to be seen, though, is whether CCollegeJobs.com will be the on-line site where a large number of community colleges post jobs, and where thousands of jobhunters search for employment. As things stand now, CCollegeJobs.com does little to differentiate itself from the well-established competition, and in any business (on-line or off) creating a strong and unique brand is crucial. Schindler-Ender's site, at this point, cannot be recommended as one to bookmark. There are other, more comprehensive, sites available.