Recruiters ‘Rush’ the Beach Again at Spring Break

Ah, the glories of spring break, that weeklong chance for stressed-out collegians to get away from it all. For many, it will include a trip to a popular resort area overflowing with sun, suds, swimsuits and, in the latest twist in the corporate employment wars, representatives from such Fortune 500 companies as IBM, State Farm Insurance and AT&T.;

Welcome to corporate college recruiting, late-’90s style.

This month, some of America’s most prosperous companies--faced with a highly competitive market for energetic young employees--have been holding huge beachfront job fairs at some of the prime spring-break spots in the country.

The latest corporate “rush” will happen over the next two days as recruiters toss aside their neckties and try to match suntans with a crowd of roughly 10,000 students partying at Lake Havasu, Ariz., 4 1/2 hours east of Los Angeles.

Students looking forward to a weekend of unbridled reverie on a beach crowded only with scantily clothed bodies may be surprised by what they find on Lake Havasu’s shores.

A huge, yellow-and-white tent will shade Spring Break Career Expo. Plopped on the sand will be a sprawling--21 feet long, 7 feet high--virtual-reality machine run by laptop computers. There will be booths and displays staffed by representatives from scores of different companies. Some of them will have recruiters, and cadres of young employees, playing beach volleyball and engaging in water-gun battles with students.

They will be giving out bushels of freebies: necklaces, key chains, lava lamps and T-shirts. A prop plane will buzz overhead with a banner touting IBM’s latest recruitment slogan, “Why work?”

The on-the-beach job fair concept was originated four years ago in Daytona Beach, Fla., with just over a dozen companies. In today’s job world--with unemployment hovering at about 4.6% and a glut of new jobs in a wide swath of professions--companies are seeking fresh ways to attract undergraduate students, and the beachfront job fair has taken off.

The Lake Havasu event is one of five this year in the U.S. Next year, job fairs may spread to the beaches of Jamaica and Mexico, according to organizer Scott Pressman.

Recruiters admit that most of the students at Lake Havasu will be completely unprepared for their presence. Students almost certainly won’t get job offers on the spot. A lot of them will be drinking and will simply be encouraged to learn something about a particular company and send in a resume later. “When they get back home and sober up,” one recruiter said.

The carousing is expected, said Angela Vance, manager of university relations for AT&T;, and it’s not enough to detract from the fact that the beaches at these events are full of the kind of active college students needed at her company. The kinds of kids as comfortable surfing waves as surfing the net, she said.

“They are at the beach to have fun, but we just want them to come away knowing we are actively looking to fill some exciting positions,” she said.

“Twenty years ago, everyone was looking at companies like IBM as great career destinations,” said Neil Goldstein, vice president of Vault Reports.com, a job service for college students. “Now, with all the employment competition from start-ups and an image that a company like an IBM is a stuffy place to work, it’s harder to attract the hip students. What these companies want is when the kids recover from spring break, they will think of the company as a fun place to work . . . it’s advertising, pure and simple.”