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key topic Topic 11 - Employers and Contacts

The Employer file - called Employer.skl - contains records for companies in your region, including companies who provide work-based learning, those who are involved in committees, career fairs or other activities, or simply those who you would like to have on a mailing list or phone list. Within the database, each employer can have one or more Contact names (which are stored in the related Contacts.skl file).

The information about employers can be entered directly on the employer screen or it can be entered in the School to Career Participation screen when you are entering Internship information. Either way it is stored in the Employer file.

For Connecting Activities reporting you are required to enter:

  • Name of the employer
  • Employer type (private, public or nonprofit)
  • An Employer ID is generated automatically

The other information on the screen is optional, but is useful for your own marketing, outreach, mailings, telephone lists, reporting and evaluation. Some of the information - such as employer size and industry - is not used in the quarterly reports but is used in the special reports that we do each year (such as the Work-Based Learning Skill Gain Study or the Project Success Study).

Exploring the Database
  1. When you have time to explore, open the Employer file and use the Layout button (gray button in the top left) to explore the different layouts within the file. These include several different employer lists and an employer history screen. Use the layout button to return to Layout1.
  2. Open the Contacts file using the "Open Contacts File" button at the top of the screen or the "Detail" button next to each contact name. This screen provides more detail about each contact. You can create a mailing label for each contact and use this information to print labors, envelopes or fax cover sheets. Use the layout button to explore the different layout buttons
Background Reading, Software Skills and More

Find Mode. Use the employer files to practice using FIND mode. You can use FIND mode to find all the employers in a particular city , all the employers who participated in your summer program, all the nonprofit employers, or any other set of employers.

See How to Use Find Mode and then see Twenty Examples using Find Mode for ideas.