Careers office - your thoughts

Xios

Hey guys, i got the AIB research job in the careers office, i'll be in charge of integrating social media into Maria's list of resources to communicate with students.

Of course, making facebook and twitter accounts will take only half an hour, i got 3 months of time to work with.

Is there anything you guys would like to see from the careers office that you feel its lacking? I feel like we could use a private jobs database for students, similar to jobs.ie or other employment sites that can be access via your student number.

Lola92

I was just thinking the other day about how beneficial something like that could be. A database of available jobs and internships by department would be ideal I think. If you can work in an e-mail alert subscription to a particular category of jobs, e.g. humanities related - social care, child care etc. that would be even better.

Lola92

Lola92 wrote: »

I was just thinking the other day about how beneficial something like that could be. A database of available jobs and internships by department would be ideal I think. If you can work in an e-mail alert subscription to a particular category of jobs, e.g. humanities related - social care, child care etc. that would be even better.

Yeah, would be a very good idea. Shouldn't be too hard to implement neither. Simple database, and web interface.

Maybe specific careers for specific students in emails, if a database isn't setup. For example, only computing students would get emails involving computer jobs. It's a bit annoying, being a computing student, and getting email for social care jobs, and I'm sure it visa versa to for social care students getting computing jobs.

Oh, and congrats on getting the job!

Xrox

Ok be warned I'm going to vent here about this but its only in the hopes things will improve...........

The career office emails are aweful. They are unformatted, impossible to read and are sent out on a student wide email. Most of them are just copied and pasted from jobs websites and FÁS, then sent on. Alot of the time the same job appears a few times, as it is present on a few sites they copied from.

I must state i am comparing them to the ones i get from 2 other college careers offices, as i've attended UL and DIT. There each class has its own class list email address and each class ONLY gets relevent targetted emails i.e. graduate and full time jobs only to those in their last year and intern jobs to first and second years.

The careers offices in those 2 colleges go to the trouble of finding out about, not only jobs but graduate positions available within a student sector and talks/seminars that may be of interest.

Now I know blanch doesnt have as big a careers office as these college but, they have the time and budget to go to the trouble of actually formatting the emails so they are actually readable.

Also something that really annoys me they are a careers office so stop sending out emails about jobs in KFC, Burgerking etc. as I'm sure no one is spending time in college to work at registers in these fine establishments.

We are well capable of finding part-time work ourselves. The careers office should be using their industrial or health care or sports contacts to find out about positions before other colleges to give ITB students an advantage.

*vent over* ah that feels better

Xios

Xrox wrote: »

Ok be warned I'm going to vent here about this but its only in the hopes things will improve...........

The career office emails are aweful. They are unformatted, impossible to read and are sent out on a student wide email. Most of them are just copied and pasted from jobs websites and FÁS, then sent on. Alot of the time the same job appears a few times, as it is present on a few sites they copied from.

.....

I feel the same about the emails. But in fairness, the careers office is run by Maria on her own.

Although your rant did give me a decent idea, i'll go to the other careers offices and see what systems they use and see if it will work for our campus, see what they're doing right.

Xrox

I'm glad my rant helped :-)

I looked on the web for the DIT Careers offices and it only lists one employee for each department i.e. business, built enviroment etc. Considering that each individual department is probably the same size as ITB it shows the work can be managed by one person.

I do see the snag that this one person in ITB will have to manage jobs/oppertunities for many departments so they would be stretched a bit but with your help I'm sure ye'll be able to set up systems that will vastly improve the state of careers in ITB.

Keep up the good work youve done, just by starting this thread.

p.s. if you want a look at some of the DIT careers emails let me know as i still have acess and forward you some samples if it'd help

Xios

Xrox wrote: »

I'm glad my rant helped :-)

I looked on the web for the DIT Careers offices and it only lists one employee for each department i.e. business, built enviroment etc. Considering that each individual department is probably the same size as ITB it shows the work can be managed by one person.

I do see the snag that this one person in ITB will have to manage jobs/oppertunities for many departments so they would be stretched a bit but with your help I'm sure ye'll be able to set up systems that will vastly improve the state of careers in ITB.

Keep up the good work youve done, just by starting this thread.

p.s. if you want a look at some of the DIT careers emails let me know as i still have acess and forward you some samples if it'd help

Ha, i haven't started work yet But when i do i'll have a chat with the DIT guys, maybe go to DCU, and UCD as well.

Xrox

Xrox wrote: »

I'm glad my rant helped :-)

I looked on the web for the DIT Careers offices and it only lists one employee for each department i.e. business, built enviroment etc. Considering that each individual department is probably the same size as ITB it shows the work can be managed by one person.

Hmm, seems strange considering DIT is probably 3-4 times bigger (in terms of student numbers) bigger than ITB...

Xrox

Deleted User wrote: »

Hmm, seems strange considering DIT is probably 3-4 times bigger (in terms of student numbers) bigger than ITB...

"There are 20,000 students registered in DIT" and 9 members of the careers office which breacks down to one careers staff member for every 2222 DIT students, compared to ITB's 2500 (could only find a wiki figure for this but the latest annual report put it at 1890 students in 2001) students with one member in the careers office.

So as i previously said the only difference is the fact that one member of staff in ITB has to investigate jobs, grad postions and internships covering 2 college schools/departments i.e. School of Business & Humanities and School of Informatics & Engineerin.

Xrox

Xrox wrote: »

"There are 20,000 students registered in DIT" and 9 members of the careers office which breacks down to one careers staff member for every 2222 DIT students, compared to ITB's 2500 (could only find a wiki figure for this but the latest annual report put it at 1890 students in 2001) students with one member in the careers office.

So as i previously said the only difference is the fact that one member of staff in ITB has to investigate jobs, grad postions and internships covering 2 college schools/departments i.e. School of Business & Humanities and School of Informatics & Engineerin.

I would say current ITB numbers have increased to around 4000-4500 (more than likely increase this year again, too. I asked them on twitter about current numbers, will post if they reply ). But, still, there is a team in DIT. So, while yes the numbers of students are probably the same, the staff in DIT have the support of another member in their specific field. Maria simply doesn't have that, and therefore I would consider it quite a difficult job.

I wouldn't blame the careers dept for not have specific mailing lists etc. Not sure who should sort this out (probably IT dept.?).

Xios

I'll update this thread when i learn a lot more on the subject, starting work in the morning.

Xios

Hey guys, just giving an update.

Had a long chat to maria today about the project. Looks like we'll initially be imitating the Dundalk System. DKIT Careers

This system seems fairly useful for how i see our office working. This bulletin style of database seems pretty good to me, it's simple to use and easy to link to when advertising with facebook and twitter.

I can't log onto facebook at the moment, but DKIT have a well presented facebook page and they keep it up to date using the above webpages.


What do you guys think?

Xrox

Xios wrote: »

Hey guys, just giving an update.

Had a long chat to maria today about the project. Looks like we'll initially be imitating the Dundalk System. DKIT Careers

This system seems fairly useful for how i see our office working. This bulletin style of database seems pretty good to me, it's simple to use and easy to link to when advertising with facebook and twitter.

I can't log onto facebook at the moment, but DKIT have a well presented facebook page and they keep it up to date using the above webpages.


What do you guys think?

It gives a good basis to work from but I would add some division i.e. separate out jobs regards areas engineering, health care, sport, business etc. This would make it alot easier for a student to find relevant jobs also in the little synopsis i would put the closing date for applications and location of the job.

Xios

Xrox wrote: »

It gives a good basis to work from but I would add some division i.e. separate out jobs regards areas engineering, health care, sport, business etc. This would make it alot easier for a student to find relevant jobs also in the little synopsis i would put the closing date for applications and location of the job.

I've been thinking about seperating the jobs into mailing lists and i think its a bad idea. The whole point of having a college and campus is so that we communicate and share information. While browsing the jobs, you might see something a friend from another course could use.

Now, i'm going to meet you halfway, how about in the bulletin post for the job, it says which area the job is for (as in each school), how about that?

Xios

Xios wrote: »

I've been thinking about seperating the jobs into mailing lists and i think its a bad idea. The whole point of having a college and campus is so that we communicate and share information. While browsing the jobs, you might see something a friend from another course could use.

Now, i'm going to meet you halfway, how about in the bulletin post for the job, it says which area the job is for (as in each school), how about that?

I think what Xrox meant was probably instead of a 5 page list of jobs like DkIT, it should be split into sections, which can be chosen with something like a dropdown box.

Xios

Deleted User wrote: »

I think what Xrox meant was probably instead of a 5 page list of jobs like DkIT, it should be split into sections, which can be chosen with something like a dropdown box.

That's reasonable, i'll see what can be done. Got to discuss the interface with who ever will be building the database.

Xios

Xios wrote: »

That's reasonable, i'll see what can be done. Got to discuss the interface with who ever will be building the database.

Cool, don't let yourself get ripped off by the person building the database. Shouldn't take too long (I would say max 1 day, but could be done in an hour or so with software such as phpMyAdmin). The UI on the other hand will take a good bit longer.

Xrox

Yup thats what i ment

Also another idea for you is getting external email addresses off graduates and contacting them say every 6 months to find out where they are working and any oppertunities they know of. (like an alumni network)

I thought of this as on my DIT email in the last day ive been given inside info on jobs (some which havent been advertised yet). All these leads came direct from past pupils that were contacted by staff.

Now this wont help straight off but will in 3-5 years and the more that get jobs this way the more will be willing to help when they get a job.

Basically we will be creating our own "Old Boys Network" which maybe frowned upon but i know most employers like to employe their own.

And the only resources this would use up is a little Database time to keep it up to date and to formulate an email every 6months.