How to Make Your Job Listings Pop for College Students

By Danielle Wirsansky on February 17, 2017

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College is lauded as a time for education and socialization, but what about making money? Not everyone is fortunate enough to have their college education paid for, whether by parents, scholarship, or some other means. Many students have to work, even while they are in school.

According to one survey, nearly 4 out of 5 college students are working part-time while studying for their degrees, averaging 19 hours a week. With the number of college students working, this makes them a prime demographic to fill any positions your company may have available. Students often have to apply to many jobs before they hear back or even get an interview, which can make the application process grueling.

If you want to get the best pool of applicants and find students who are actually excited and enthusiastic to work for your company, you need to be sure that your job listing stands out. The college students are looking for very specific criteria when looking for a job.

Read on to find out how to make your job listings pop for college students.

Location 

A large percentage of students choose their housing by its proximity to campus. Many students also take into account the proximity of a potential job to their campus. That way, regardless if they live on campus or just spend the majority of their time in school, they will not have to travel too far in order to get to work. Students prefer not to spend too much of their time commuting as they have got homework to do and extracurricular activities to participate in. They do not have time to waste in travel. As the idiom goes – time is money.

However, another factor to take into consideration is that students may not have the means to travel to a job too far from campus. Many students do not have a form of transportation, and thus can only go to places within walking distance. Some students may have a bike, which can help them get a little bit further away from campus, but they will still be pretty limited. A few students may even have a car, but even if they do, they might not be able to afford the gas to travel very far away from campus. The money they earn needs to go towards their living expenses and tuition. If the job is too far away from campus, the student will end up spending all the money they earn from working on gas, which defeats the purpose of working in the first place.

Make your job listing pop by being upfront about the location of your premises. You can even go a step further and say what other options there might be to get to the location, whether this would be a campus or a public bus route. Are there bike racks on your premises? Are you willing to reimburse for travel? Being upfront about these issues in your initial job listing will weed out false hopeful candidates, ones who seem like they would fit the job requirements but have no way of getting there.

Students will not apply if they know right away that the job will not work for them. That way, you get the workers you need.

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Flexibility

Students have required courses that they have to take for their majors and have no control over the times that these courses take place. Oftentimes, their classes will be spread out over the course of the day, or be scheduled at sporadic times of the day. Students may want or even need to work, but can often have difficulties finding job opportunities that offer flexible hours.

If there is a way for the job you are looking to fill to be performed in non-traditional hours, you are more likely to get the position filled, especially by a student. In addition, you should include this flexibility in your job listing. Describe it — can they work on the weekends instead of the weekdays? Can they work early in the mornings, before class, or late in the evening — after classes are over?

Any and all flexibility that you can offer should be clearly laid out. Knowing this up front will make students much more eager to apply for the position that you need to fill.

Description

The most important aspect is to be clear, upfront, and as detailed as possible in your job listings. What you want to focus on are details about the job and what it entails, rather than on applicant requirements. You want to tell them what the job entails, and what it can offer them, rather than chase away possible applicants by listing very detailed and strict prerequisites.

You never know which applicants might be the best fit and you do not want to miss out on them because they thought they didn’t fit the requirements of the position and decided not to apply.

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