By ALLISSA KLINE
akline@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1612

A popular job fair for college students and local residents won't take place this year now that the primary organizer has scaled back its involvement.

University at Buffalo officials said they are instead turning their efforts inward to re-evaluate career-services programming for students, new graduates and alumni. Arlene Kaukus, director of career services, said her department is focused on new events and opportunities that connect students to global - not just regional - jobs and internships.

But there's a chance that JOBSapalooza, which drew thousands of job candidates seeking employment with area companies, may be revived in the future. The Western New York Association of College Career Centers, a consortium of college career professionals, is considering ways to bring new organizers onboard or merge with existing job fairs.

"We're trying to look for strategic partners ... and we think this is an opportunity to reinvigorate JOBSapalooza," said association President-elect Michael Skowronski of Niagara University. "We'd like to bring it back next year, if possible, but it's important to work with strategic partners to make sure it makes sense and to make sure we're serving the community."

The first JOBSapalooza job fair, held in 1999 in downtown Buffalo, attracted 72 employers and 450 college students. It was scheduled during winter break to give students a chance to check out Western New York companies in a central location. The event ran 12 consecutive years before being called off for 2011.

Current WNYACCC President Wayne Porterfield of UB said the consortium was interested in taking the leadership role from UB, but it already was heavily involved in its own JobQuest job fair held this past November.

"The timing wasn't right ... and we were not able to manage two relatively large events within such close proximity to one another," Porterfield said. "But I would like to see if come back. Obviously, it has left its imprint on the community here, and there's a lot of strong employers who attend the event. I'd like to see some other schools step up in leadership roles."

WNYACCC is now working on collaborations with Buffalo Niagara 360, a group of young business leaders, and the Buffalo Niagara Human Resource Association that could affect any future JOBSapalooza events, Skowronski said. UB, meanwhile, will introduce two new job fairs this year: a global job fair that includes employers with operations around the world and a virtual job fair for employers who can't or don't want to come to campus.

"We spent time this summer looking at data utilization and trends in other career centers and solicited input from faculty, employers, administrators, students, graduates and industry colleagues," said Kaukus, who was hired as director a year ago. "As a result, we took a little bit of a step back. We want to know: What are the new areas to focus on and what do we need to emphasize?"