Students looking for jobs at SF State have just received a new, streamlined platform to make finding employers easier.
The SF State Career Services and Leadership Development, or CSLD, partnered with the jobs site Handshake to make connecting students with employers more efficient.
Handshake is a university recruitment platform that the director, Orlando Harris, calls a cross between LinkedIn and Facebook. The website was designed to help students find jobs across the country, targeted to the fields they want to work in. It provides students the opportunity to view jobs from around the country that specifically apply to their current and future career goals.
CSLD launched access to the platform on Aug. 16 and since then around 1,500 SF State students have logged into the site.
Orlando Harris, Director of CSLD, has been working with his team all summer to get this program up and running for students. The team chose this particular site, in part, due to the extensive use by other universities throughout the Bay Area, including UC Berkeley, Stanford, Saint Mary’s, among others.
The program is free to students and employers. Handshake has over 200,000 employers using the site to find student around the country. Additionally, employers looking for students specifically from the bay area can join the site, which should help them connect with students more easily.
On Aug. 30, the CSLD team attended a job fair at SF State in Malcolm X Plaza, which was put on by the College of Business to help sign students up and inform them about the program. “What we’re doing is ensuring that we offer a portfolio of opportunities for our students,” said Harris.
One student who signed up to use the platform is Kristy Chi, a second year pre-design major from Bangkok, Thailand. She said that her experience with the program has been positive so far.
Chi said that she was merely looking to see what opportunities were available for her. Because Chi is an international student, finding jobs that work for her is slightly more challenging. She is limited to the amount of hours she can work, and often can only take jobs that are available on campus. Additionally, she said many employers were specific about the experience or GPAs of potential hires.
“It’s a pretty good program,” Chi said. “I looked through about 10 jobs, and two were a perfect fit.”
According to Cori Miller, associate director of Career Services, one of the ways students can make the job search easier is to properly fill out their profile.
“It is a machine data driven platform, so the more information you put in about yourself, it’s going to be suggesting things that a(re) more relevant to what you are looking for,” said Miller.
As the CSLD team spends more time with the site, they will able to learn more data about the program. According to Miller, because the site has only been available for two weeks, they have not been able to read all of the analytics provided. But the data Handshake provides was a large part of why they chose that platform.
“This office is where talent and opportunity connects,” said Harris. He want to take the holistic approach to student’s career experience. “Whatever an opportunity may be, we want (students) prepared for that opportunity.”
