On-campus jobs are appealing to students since the maximum is 28 hours a week and are more understanding of students’ schedules.

“In a general year there’s about 5,000 students who work on campus and about 8,000 jobs,” said Keith Smith, associate director of Career Exploration and Development.

Smith said jobs open up progressively throughout the year. 

The primary website to apply for jobs on campus is through Handshake. Students can search for jobs on-campus as well as internships and student employment opportunities through the site.

“We have 3,078 students so far this fall working on campus,” Smith said. “It’s quite hard to track how many specific jobs are available.”

Smith said one posting on Handshake can be for a position that is hiring multiple people. 

“Say I’m looking for an RA, that’s one posting, but you could be hiring 150 RAs,” Smith said. 

Smith said that just because a submitted application on Handshake reads “pending,” it does not mean it has not been reviewed. Employers on Handshake can sometimes forget to manually switch the status of resumes. 

Career Exploration Services reported the rate of hiring is up 12% since the pandemic. 

“During the pandemic, like two years ago, it was a different market back then,” Smith said. “You had less people that were looking for a job and interested in a job, so you had employers on campus were, you know, desperate to find work.”  

Even with increased hiring, Smith said it could be more difficult to find jobs with more students looking for work. 

“Now the trend is flipping where there’s more people interested in working, but it’s a more competitive market,” Smith said. 

Handshake features a personal profile students can update with information about themselves for employers to see. 

Justin Edwards, executive director of Career Exploration & Development, said he recommends that students fill out their entire Handshake profile. 

“There’s good data from Handshake that shows that having a more complete Handshake profile more than doubles the likelihood of being viewed by employers,” Edwards said.

Edwards said having a completed profile is more attractive to employers off campus and on platforms like LinkedIn and Indeed, but the principle still stands for Handshake. 

“Rest assured that there’s clear, consistent data that indicates that there’s value to completing those profiles,” Edwards said.

He also recommends having a resume that is publicly posted to drive more interaction with employers. 

Career Exploration works to help students customize their applications to make them more personalized and meaningful. 

“One piece of feedback that can be really important is to think about how individuals can customize their application, their resume, to match the language that is being asked for in a job description,” Edwards said. “We want to hold a mirror up to those job descriptions and use some of that similar language.” 

Career Exploration and Development offers counselors to help walk students through the hiring process for internships and other jobs they have interest in. They also provide support to alumni to ensure they find success even out of college.  

“It’s going to take a little more time to invest, to customize and make those applications as meaningful as possible for that position, but that [return on investment] is going to pay dividends,” Edwards said.

Andrew Bowie is a reporter. Contact him at [email protected].