With many Yalies searching for summer jobs and seniors looking for employment, Undergraduate Career Services is working to make the hunt for employment less painful and provide more opportunities for work abroad.
This week, UCS will launch a new job-listing Web site called Yalelink, which will be a noncommercial, advertising-free Web site that will allow students to search for jobs, post resumes, and set up on-campus interviews. UCS is also working to expand international opportunities by researching options for jobs in other countries through international organizations, UCS Director Philip Jones said.
Jones said in the past students who worked abroad had largely done so through their own initiative.
“What we’re trying to do is systematize these sorts of opportunities. The U.K. is the first tangible, direct extension of this,” he said.
UCS has also been in contact with organizations such as the Association for International Practical Training, or AIPT, and CDS International to work on making it easier for Yalies to find positions in countries such as Spain, Germany, Turkey, Brazil and Argentina.
“We as an office are much more attuned to the international marketplace,” Jones said.
This year, 20 positions in France are being offered through the AIPT in conjunction with Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, and Rice University, Jones said. The preliminary applications for those jobs are already in, and 45 percent of the finalists are Yalies.
“This is a project that is something AIPT is looking to expand in the future as well,” Jones said. “We’re also looking at what we call emerging markets — we’re looking at South America [and] Southeast Asia, as well as European countries.”
Jones said he is particularly excited about the new Web site.
“It’s a brand-new thing,” Jones said. “We were involved in the design of it, so we have a lot of control over what it looks like. It’s not going to be covered in advertising; it’s a lot more user-friendly.”
To create the Web site, UCS officials worked with DirectEmployers.com, a nonprofit agency that helps develop recruiting software, and the National Association of Colleges and Employers, an association of career services practitioners.
Previously, Yale subscribed to a commercial service that provided job listings on a site linked to Yale’s UCS homepage.
DirectEmployers.com Executive Director Bill Warren said seven universities originally approached NACE Executive Director Marilyn Mackes to discuss concerns about commercial student services such as monster.com and monstertrak, particularly privacy issues. She suggested the group meet with DirectEmployers.com. After meeting in St. Louis last March with representatives from 27 universities, DirectEmployers.com began to develop the software.
About 40 colleges use the job listing software now, Warren said, and about 40 will be added each month from this point onward.
“It’s a common system that is provided for everyone; however, it can be customized to fit your school’s requirements,” Warren said. “It can be customized to look like it’s just part of your site — school to school it will look very different and even in some cases will be functionally different.”
Warren said it was exciting to see Yale’s site coming online after all that Yale contributed to the nationwide project.
“I think your student body should really thank Phil Jones and the people [at UCS],” Warren said. “They have really stepped out and played a big part in developing this system. It’s going to help students connect with employers a lot easier.”