Best tips for College Students on Internship and Job Search Platforms

 LinkedIn:  

LinkedIn is a great resource when it comes to the job hunt. A study shows that 112 million people get an interview through LinkedIn and around 35.5 million people get the job. When it comes to personal experience LinkedIn has opened doors for me that I never even knew existed. As a college student I used to be very timid about LinkedIn because there were so many professionals with pages of work experience, but I have come to find that LinkedIn is one of the best platforms to get hired from. Like all websites LinkedIn also has its cons but we are here to give you the ultimate guide on how to successfully use LinkedIn to your advantage as a college student, so here are some do’s and don'ts; 

Do: Reach out to people who are working for the company you are applying for; it is more than likely there will be at least two people working at the company that have either attended your university or have worked at the same company as you previously. Having a reference during an interview will set you apart from all the other candidates and you can ask the person prior about the job and any tips they offer to ace the interview. 

Connect with people, LinkedIn is all about connections so don’t be afraid to connect with someone even if you do not know them. You should challenge yourself to reach out to at least two different employees who are already working at the company you are interviewing for. It makes a great talking point during the interview, and it shows the recruiter that you have genuine interest in the company. 

Research the company on LinkedIn before you apply and before you interview. LinkedIn will tell you a lot about a company such as headquarters location, what industry it is in, an about statement, company size, what kind of people work there, and different posts the company has made that you can reference in the interview. LinkedIn will also show you the company's website and jobs that are currently posted that have an easy apply button.  Make your online presence stand out. If you want recruiters to find you on LinkedIn, you want to have keywords in your biography that resonate with what kind of position you are trying to obtain. Let's say you are looking for a digital marketing job, in your biography you should have something along the lines of “motivated and ambitious in digital marketing media.” This was when recruiters are looking for people based on a keyword search it will more than likely bring them to your page.

Questions you might ask someone on LinkedIn:  

How does your day-to-day look like?  

How is the work culture? 

What is the most important skill to have in this role? 

 

Don’t: Look at people's profiles if you do not have the intention of looking at their profiles because they will get notified. One way to avoid this is by putting your account on ghost mode, that way you can search anyone up and the other person will not get the notification. 

Be inappropriate on the platform, LinkedIn is not a regular form of social media you have to remember it's not Instagram. You should not be messaging people in hopes of a relationship or if you have no genuine connection strictly for a workplace. Don’t send spam messages, sometimes it may take a recruiter a few hours or even a few days to respond to your message. You don’t want to come across as bothersome because it might steer away the recruiter. If a recruiter is taking longer than usual to respond send them another message in case they missed your initial one and if you don’t get a response then try finding someone else you can talk with about the role. 

Questions you shouldn’t ask: 

What is the pay, I heard it was low? 

Who did you vote for? 

Any question that does not relate directly to the job is an inappropriate question to ask during a conversation on LinkedIn or during an interview. 

 

Glassdoor:  

Glassdoor is one of the most helpful platforms available online for a recent college graduate or a seasoned professional. The focus of Glassdoor is to provide good and bad relevant information about companies so that you as a job seeker can make the best-informed decision about who you would like to work for. The information on Glassdoor includes information about current company ratings, reviews from current and former employees, CEO ratings, salary reports, benefit package reviews, and even job openings. Additionally, Glassdoor has information on international companies as well. Some international locations include, South American, Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, and even New Zealand. Glassdoor’s unique aspect is transparency. The company prides themselves on providing helpful information relevant to the user. Here, we would like to continue providing relevant information to college graduates. Here is a complete guide to get started with best practices on using Glassdoor to its full potential. Also, we have included some practices to avoid.

As a recent college graduate job searching is not exactly easy to navigate and it can become overwhelming. Let us focus on the Do’s and Don’ts of Glassdoor.  

Here are the best things to do while using Glassdoor: 

First, if you are still a student that has not graduated and you would like to explore the opportunities that Glassdoor has to offer, they have a student account available for you to use. The account is free for 12 months when students sign up with their university (.edu) email address. They also have a Glassdoor for students to explore jobs, companies, salaries, and read interview questions from employees. This student account is extremely helpful for two reasons. First, an account is required to use Glassdoor and maximize its potential. Secondly, it bypasses Glassdoor’s request for your previous employment history such as, location, salary, and position, which may or may not be relevant for every college student. Additionally, Glassdoor even has information on their website for college students looking for internships and entry-level positions. Take advantage of this account and sign up early before you graduate! Start your search early!  

Visualize your career using Glassdoor. Glassdoor offers their users the ability to see their chosen career path from start to finish. This tailored approach provides the user with a detailed insightful step-by-step guide. This guide highlights some key skills that are relevant to the selected career field. This may help you refine what is important to you and your future employers. You may not have considered a program or skill to be relevant in your related field, finding this information out sooner rather than later will help you eventually. Additionally, Glassdoor provides various seniority levels that are associated with the career you are interested in. You can identify expected salary projections and required years of experience for entry, mid-level, and senior positions in the field. Lastly, if you find that your career interest resides somewhere else, Glassdoor provides information on related career fields in your desired industry ensuring you are well informed on the flexibility you have for your future.  

Explore the reviews from past and present employees. Transitioning from an academic life to a career may seem difficult at first and a lot of questions are left to be unanswered about life in your career field. Look at the reviews from current and former employees from companies you may be interested in representing one day. These reviews are here to help you identify various aspects of a company that other employees have experienced first-hand. These reviews have a wide range of information that identifies both the positive and negative areas of a company. This is important to consider when you are attempting to find a company and aligns with your personal values. The average reviews may have the most honest assessments that may encompass both positive and negative aspects of the job position. Glassdoor’s extensive list of resources are available to help you through this process, make the best use of this research.  

Observe company benefits. Something to consider as a college graduate transitioning into a professional setting are the benefits that each company provides their employees. Glassdoor provides you with information about the benefits that are available for that company. Additionally, there is also information on what benefits the company does not provide to their employees. Research what is valuable to you. Health insurance, dental insurance, eye coverage, 401K retirement packages, and paid time off are all other things to consider outside of the range of your salary. Lastly, if an employer is a contracting company, ensure your benefits will be available throughout the lifetime of the contract.  

Here are the things college students need to avoid while using Glassdoor: 

Do not take every company review seriously. Some reviews may not be entirely accurate or comprehensive of the company. Current and former employees may use Glassdoor as an outlet to discuss their grievances of the company publicly without any reprisal from their seniors. This may provide you with an inaccurate view of the company. Additionally, it is important that you do not mention these reviews directly with recruiters or during interviews. You may be inclined to ask about issues that are often brought up on Glassdoor. You should carefully craft your question about these concerns and ask if these company issues have been resolved. Lastly, depending on the company those issues in the reviews may be in very isolated areas or locations of the company footprint. 

Do not use Glassdoor to insult another company in your career field or industry of interest. Every company endures a lifecycle, some companies have a healthy lifecycle while others may not. These lifecycles are natural as new leaders take over, companies merge, or companies rebrand. The information available to you on Glassdoor is to help you decide which company is best suited for you. Glassdoor is not there to be used to talk about how poorly companies manage their business. Do not talk about other companies that are performing poorly while attending job fairs, talking with recruiters, or during interviews.  

Do not use Glassdoor as a bargaining chip while discussing information with a potential employer. There is nothing worse than making it to the finish line only to come in second place. For example, if you have been successful in your initial recruitment, made it through your rounds of interviews, and have now been provided with an opportunity with the company, do not mention competitive wages or benefits from other employers into your negotiation. You may be tempted to talk about how another company offers their entry-level employees better salary benefits, better paid time off, or some other incentive you find beneficial. You should avoid using this information in a manipulative manner. If you find that something to be less enticing in your job offer you could ask your employer about other options that may be available during negotiations.

Last thoughts:  

As you progress throughout your academic and professional career from college student to college graduate, to employee here are two last pieces of advice. First, the interview for the position you are interested in starts at initial contact. Maintain your image as a professional as you encounter various people from potential employers to include recruiters, building personnel, and administrative personnel. Secondly, stay curious about the position you are applying for. Employers appreciate a curious candidate because it demonstrates genuine interest in the position you are applying for. Here is some information to help you enhance this during the interview. If you are curious about any additional information related to interview preparation, a comprehensive guide to help you navigate the process from start to finish can be found here. 

 

Handshake: 

Among apps like LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and Indeed there remains one unique aspect of Handshake that makes it an essential pick for many college students - Handshake is foremost and primarily built for students themselves. The platform is one of the most seamless ways for employers and businesses to get a direct line to undergraduate, graduate, and doctorate students to post full-time jobs, internships, apprenticeships, and more. Not only that, but with universities also paying for the service of having Handshake as a CSM (Career Services Management) platform, they can offer unique events, career fairs, and resources all through the Handshake app. In general, Handshake is for students, and you should take advantage of it while you’re a student! 

Take advantage of your Career Center’s resources: When using Handshake, it’s important to understand its strengths and weaknesses, as well as understanding how to make it fit best within all the other job searching platforms you use. Career Centers will often put different resources or opportunities on their Handshake portal that will help you in either professional preparation or direct employer opportunities. Career Centers will host career and internship fairs through Handshake and now with most fairs being online it’s a great way to get your resume and name out to multiple different employers who, again, are there specifically for you the students. In addition, you can find alumni and other students from your school on Handshake too and network within other student circles.

Look at company reviews and apply for exclusive roles: One of the best and most impressive aspects about Handshake is that they make reviews from other user's public on their sites and post exclusive job openings for students on Handshake. The most attractive part of it is the exclusive roles though which allow students to take advantage of all the student jobs companies are posting there. Sometimes if you don’t find any job postings on LinkedIn or other sites it may be because they are posting the new-grad opportunities on their Handshake sites.

Upload your classes and extracurriculars as a student: As a student, it’s important to take advantage of all the Handshake capabilities they offer. One of the unique features is being able to upload all of your classes, professors, extracurriculars, and awards from university. This makes it easier to find other students with similar majors or interests, as well as tips off employers to who might be the best candidates for certain roles since, they can see exactly what you’ve learned.

Diversify your platforms, don’t use JUST Handshake: While Handshake has some unique features

that make it best for the student experience, it definitely should not be the only platform you use when searching for a job. Handshake only pulls from a select demographic so it’s important to go outside of that bubble when evaluating certain businesses or job openings that you’re interested in. 

Final Thoughts: Overall, Handshake is a uniquely positioned platform to offer specifically tailored features towards students and it does generally have a lot of upsides and benefits due to those features. The main pull that is also the deciding factor of whether it’s worthwhile to use or not though is how well your school utilizes their Handshake portal. It’s important to use all of these platforms, including Handshake, but don’t let it be your only method of searching for a job. 

 

Indeed: 

Indeed, it is a job searching platform for all people. Whether you are a high school student, college student, college graduate, graduate student, or a seasoned professional. Indeed, connects people to jobs, internships, and any company that you can think of big or small. They work across the United States providing you with available jobs within any state that you would want to work in. With that Indeed also supplies you with company reviews from current and former employees, salaries of different fields within a company and industries, career advice in articles, resume builder/review, certifications, company interview questions and finally skill assessments that you could add to your resume. 

Now the job searching process may seem overwhelming, stressful, and difficult for anyone and everyone but Indeed makes this process easier with all the resources they provide. What makes Indeed unique is the metasearch engine they use to connect you to all the available jobs out there and you can apply straight from the Indeed website. With all that Indeed provides for its users it would be a good idea if you have a better understanding of how to use the better ones to your advantage and the ones you might want to avoid. Here we will give you a guide so that you will have the best experience when it comes to using Indeed. 

Upload your resume and use the resume builder/review. After creating your own personal account Indeed will ask for you to upload your resume. They give a few options after uploading it such as converting it to an Indeed resume format. This will make it easier to add any new skills or certifications that you have taken on Indeed and might want to add to your resume. It may even improve your job matches that Indeed searches for you. Now if you feel that you want to keep your resume the way it is or that you don’t need assistance updating it then they have another tool where they review your resume. Here they examined the resume to see if there is anything that they believe you could improve on, any spelling and grammar errors, and the content of your resume. You can even have an expert resume writer help you with your resume. Indeed, has three ways of going about this and the first is getting notes/review from an expert. Second is having a video call with an expert and getting live edits to your resume. Finally, they even offer an expert to write your whole resume, but all these options come at a price. It never hurts to have someone give a second look and thought at your resume. Remember though that your resume is an employer's first look at you so be confident in what yourself and what you put down on your resume. 

Look at company reviews and the interview process. When you’re close to graduating or have graduated you may have a company or companies in mind that you would want to work for. You may also have questions about these companies or more specifically questions about the field of work you want to work in within the company. On Indeed you can look up any company or a certain field within a company and there will be reviews left by current and former employees. Some reviews may be good, and some may be bad but it is a good idea to go through them all so you’ll have a sense of what the company may be like and if it matches your values. If you have a specific question in mind about a company, you can ask it right on Indeed with the Q/A page that they have. Each company that you look up on Indeed has an interview page where you can gain an idea on how the interview process will go and what questions the company may ask. This is an effective way to prepare yourself for an interview since you can practice answering the questions and you won’t be caught off guard by a certain requirement or question. The reviews, Q/A, and the interview process that Indeed provides to its users gives their users a unique understanding of a company and if used right it can give you a leg up when applying for a job. 

Pay attention to benefits and salaries of a company/industry. As most people graduate college, we tend to think only of how much money we are going to be making, which is not bad but there is more to it than just money. Looking at what benefits certain companies offer is something that every college student or college graduate should pay attention to. Such things as health insurance, dental insurance, Paid time off, 401k & retirement, and bonus pay. These benefits could put less worry on ourselves since we don’t have to find them outside of work. A good idea would be to think of what benefits you would like from your job and then go to the companies you’d want to work for and see if they have them. Indeed, it has a tab for this on each company page where you can look at what employers and previous employers have said about the benefits and there is a rating system included with it as well. With this Indeed also has available a salary tab on each company's page. Here you could look at the specific job that you’d be interested in working in and find the average salary that position makes. This would give you a clear idea of how much you’d make, and you could compare it to other job fields within other companies. It is always a good idea to have an idea of benefits and salaries because you’d want to make sure that you’re happy with what you are getting for the work that you put in. 

Things you shouldn’t do on Indeed: 

Taking unnecessary skill assessments and certifications. There are many skill assessments and certifications that would be highly beneficial for you take could make you a better candidate for that certain job you want. Keep in mind though that with there being multiple skill assessments and certifications that you can take it would be easy to get lost in just taking them. Doing this you might end up with certifications that don’t add any value to you or your job search. You would have then wasted time taking these when the time could’ve gone to something more beneficial to you during the job search process. To avoid this, what you should do is look at the specific job that you’re interested in and see if they have any requirements or interest in certain skills or certifications. 

Believing every review that you see about a company. With there being multiple reviews about companies it may be hard to choose which reviews to believe and which ones not to believe. There are always going to be good reviews and bad ones no matter what but each of these reviews come from someone who had their own personal experience. Not everyone's experience is going to be the same and there are always different circumstances in each situation. What you shouldn’t do is look at a company based on reviews and already have a biased idea about them because this may hurt your chance in the hiring process. It wouldn’t be the best idea to bring up negative reviews about a company during an interview but if you do, don’t say you read a review and be non-judgmental about it. When reading reviews about a company remember to have an open mind that your experience with the company could be way different. 

Final Thoughts:  

Again, the job searching process for a college student, college graduate, graduate, student, and even a professional with multiple years of experience can be a scary, stressful, and overwhelming experience.  When you take the necessary steps to prepare yourself and have confidence and faith in yourself then the process becomes easier. Take the time to know the ins and outs of Indeed and use it to your benefit as well as the other job searching platforms out there. Remember there are always opportunities out there for taking you just got to be willing to put in the effort, if you do that then the world is yours.