By Olesya Minina
Writer
Recent changes have been made to the student employment process on campus to make it easier and more efficient for
“Overall, everyone benefits from a central housing place of available opportunities. The new process moves toward giving all students the ability to learn about campus opportunities, and to gain valuable work experience and money while they are here studying,” said Megan Adams, manager of recruiting, alumni relations and career services.
Effective Aug. 1, 2011, all student hiring is facilitated by the Career Development Center. The BRIDGE, an existing web-based employment management tool currently used by students for internship, externship and post-graduation employment searches, will centralize the employment process at the University.
“The BRIDGE will provide a vehicle to post all campus employment opportunities so that all students have one central place to see what jobs are available on campus,” Adams said.
This transition will also benefit first-year students because they can begin to familiarize themselves with the BRIDGE early, which will ease the process of their search for jobs and internships in the future.
“After talking to many departments about their employment process the students and task force found that the process was decentralized and needed change,” said Edward Loftus, director of the Office of Strategy Implementation.
Beginning last fall, the Business Process Review Task Force (BPRT) was asked to address the student employment system and to make recommendations that should be implemented by the Operations and Management Group at the end of spring semester. The student employment recommendations were researched and crafted by three people from the BPRT, as well as Professor Matt Bailey and his operations management students. They questioned various departments regarding the application processes and documented work flows which were used to find flaws in the employment process.
“Each employer had their own recruiting process for the students they were looking to hire and in this sense, it was very fragmented from department to department. One of our recommendations … was to utilize the Bridge to host on campus student employment opportunities. This enabled employers to reach a broader base of potential candidates while at the same time, allowing for easier access to potential jobs for students,” said Matt Goll ’12, a member of the task force.
According to Adams, feedback since the changes have been implemented has been very positive. The process is easy, efficient and quickly provides large applicant pools, thereby ensuring more talented and committed student employees. Students are able to have a better awareness of the part-time campus jobs available to them. These jobs provide work experience, something employers value when looking to hire recent college graduates.
“This process was a great collaboration among administration and students to find flaws and create recommendations in the student employment process,” Loftus said. “It is important to acknowledge the fact that students collaborated and found a process they thought would be most effective and that now the BRIDGE, with a tab separate for campus employment, is out there and is an efficient resource for finding a job that is right for you.”
The BRIDGE now makes communication between employers and students easier by providing more detailed job descriptions, including more standards, official descriptions, and expectations. The new employment process provides vast improvements, benefits, and department collaboration which opens up jobs to a larger pool of applicants through a more clearly structured portal. Students can login directly through myBucknell/BRIDGE and click the “Jobs On Campus” link on the home page.