Wonder
Sign up
Log in
Research Outline
Prepared for Susie H. | Delivered July 22, 2019
College/Career Fair Market Overview
Review your project details
Goals
To understand the college/career fair market, including revenue generation (e.g., how much they charge vendors or participating firms), profitability, scale, competitors, events hosted per year, and associated expenses.
View less
Early Findings
REVENUE GENERATION
The California State University (CSU) system generates revenue by charging companies a
per-table fee
of anywhere from $175 at the Bakersfield campus to $900 at Cal Poly.
Searching the
CSU financial statements
does not provide enough information to determine if their career fairs would be deemed profitable.
The Minnesota Education Job Fair
charges exhibitors for booth space, electricity, carpet, interviewing areas, and hospitality/lunch.
Most colleges charge fees
to participating private-sector companies (77.4%), nonprofit organizations (71.2%), and government agencies (71.0%), according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).
Colleges measure the
success of their career fairs
by the satisfaction of their students and participating employers, rather than a dollar amount. A Net Promotion Score (NPS) can be one way they assess this satisfaction.
Organizations that host college fairs (seeking college students) will charge a fee (perhaps
$500
) to participating schools.
NUMBER OF FAIRS PER YEAR
According to the summary of the 2017-18 NACE Career Services Benchmark Survey,
92%
of colleges responding offer career fairs, holding an average of four fairs with 214 participating organizations.
EXPENSES
According to vFairs, a physical career fair will incur
average costs
associated with venue rental ($8,400), parking ($1,000), marketing ($5,500), technology ($1,000), insurance ($150), hospitality, such as catering ($4,200), staffing ($4,000), and event manager ($3,615), totaling $27,715. By comparison, a virtual fair may cost as little as $8,000.
COMPETITION
As
most career fairs
appear to be offered by
colleges and universities
for the benefit of their students, competition is likely occurring at a regional or state level. Therefore, identifying competitors likely is not feasible unless a specific geographic region is specified.
In terms of college fairs, competitors may include the
NACAC
(National Association of College Admission Counselors), but again the
competition
may be more regional.
View less