By Alaina Jones, Placement Inc.
Searching for a job is one of the most exciting, challenging, and emotionally draining processes students go through. There are so many components to a job search: perfecting your resume, figuring out how to write a cover letter, preparing for interviews, and… actually finding open jobs to apply to! With all of these moving pieces, it’s no wonder many people consider job searching to be a full-time job in itself and why it’s so challenging for schools to perfect.
How can schools help their students in a job search?
Providing job seekers with the right tools is such an effective way to add value and increase engagement – which is easier said than done! Students often use a variety of resources to job search. If done correctly, schools encourage students to have set notifications on popular sites like LinkedIn, prioritize networking, follow their top 20 companies, and more to secure multiple interviews at once, hoping one is an offer. Schools know a few criteria make a huge difference in a student’s search. Beyond straight-up perseverance, strong personal branding, referrals, speed to application, and fit can improve a job search pipeline. Job boards have become a popular resource for schools to help job seekers streamline their approach and land the jobs they are excited about.
Job boards, such as the ones made by San Francisco technology company Placement, allow candidates to find the right job in the shortest amount of time. Schools on the other hand, have the opportunity to showcase their network of companies and highlight insider knowledge into the hiring world.
What should you look for in a job board?
When selecting job board technology, you should consider the value to students, outcomes teams, and operational cost. For example, Placement uses cutting-edge technology that curates job boards based on company or attributes and then automatically filters through thousands of new job postings from 25 popular ATS’s and 30K company career sites based on the categories the board creator has determined to be a priority. A school might have several job boards with a range of filters, including:
- In-network companies hiring now
- Companies with Alumni
- Denver-based software developer jobs for entry-level
While access to in-network companies and relevant listings might be a slam dunk for students, operationally running a job board means structure and cost for a school. Be sure to weigh the features you find most important in a job board alongside the cost. Because Placement, a premier career coaching marketplace, has found that job seekers who have boards at their disposal feel more organized, they offer job boards free to anyone!
A powerful job board can help your school showcase its network of hiring companies and alumni success, reduce technical bandwidth constraints, and give students a tool they actually want to use. An early board creator, Sam Bhagwat, Co-founder of GatsbyJS, said, “This is such a cool product, I think basically every open-source company around would want this.” Like the open source ecosystem, schools can also leverage a job board to attract and retain great candidates and partners.
With a job board, the job search process goes from chaotic and unstructured to linear and controllable. And tailoring job boards to your audience will immediately provide value to the job seekers in your network.
To help students even further, you could create job boards that guide them towards jobs that are the best fit based on their skills. Students can filter to match their location, other skills, titles, experience, and specific companies. Imagine using a job board to attract better candidates to your school, build more company relationships, engage and empower students, and add value to alumni long after they are placed.
Go ahead, create a meaningful job board today.
*This is a guest post by Placement Inc. Placement Inc. is not endorsed by or otherwise affiliated with Climb Credit.