October 27, 2003

Recruitment consortium launches first northern California web site for jobs in higher education

By Scott Rappaport

The search for a job in higher education at Bay Area universities, community colleges, and professional schools is now a lot less labor intensive due to the development of a new web site.

The Higher Education Recruitment Consortium (HERC)—a group of 18 Bay Area campuses founded in 2000 by UC Santa Cruz—has just announced the launch of www.bayareaherc.org, the first higher education job web site in northern California.

The site is designed for a wide variety of job seekers to have access to thousands of Bay Area higher education jobs--all in one place.

“This represents a tremendous advance for people seeking a career in higher education,” noted HERC director Nancy Aebersold. “Before the HERC site was established, job seekers needed to contact 18 different job sites at individual campuses to stay abreast of employment opportunities.”

Job seekers have free access to the HERC web site and all of its features, including the “myjobs” area that automatically sends e-mail to potential applicants when jobs are posted that meet their profile. The site is supported by participating campuses that pay annual membership fees as members of the consortium.

At a press conference held on October 21 at UCSC Extension in Cupertino, Chancellor M.R.C. Greenwood and Campus Provost/Executive Vice Chancellor John B. Simpson joined speakers from Stanford University, San Jose State University, and Foothill-De Anza Community College District to celebrate the new web site and the diversity of HERC membership.

HERC’s member campuses cover the entire spectrum of higher education, including the University of California, California State University, California Community Colleges, private universities, and professional schools. The consortium draws its members from institutions ranging from Sonoma County to Monterey, and east to Merced. The participants work together to share resources, technology, networking, and outreach programs in order to effectively recruit and retain qualified and diverse employees.

Higher Education represents a significant economic force in the Bay Area. HERC member campuses have a combined overall budget estimated at more than $7 billion with over 20,000 faculty employees and 50,000 staff, administrative, and executive employees. Over the next five years, HERC campuses will hire an estimated 20,000 new employees. In 10 years, that number is expected to double to between 40,000 and 50,000 new employees.

Aebersold noted that higher education is a microcosm of the overall job market.

“Many job seekers may not be aware that higher education offers opportunities for employment in a wide variety of career fields,” she said. “In addition to faculty and research positions that are typically associated with higher education, there are also positions for lawyers, nurses, mechanics, engineers, web developers, accountants, psychologists, animal care specialists, medical assistants, and many others that can now all be found at one centralized web location.”

Aebersold added that HERC also specializes in helping spouses and partners of faculty and staff find jobs in the Bay Area, where dual incomes are often a necessity in order to afford the high cost of living.

For more information about HERC, contact director Nancy Aebersold at (831) 459-3891, or via e-mail.

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