How to Hire College Students?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>We recently made the decision to recruit and hire a college student - maybe even two - with the intention of working with them for a year or so, making some investment in their development, and then perhaps later, if the relationship goes well, bringing them on board as a permanent employee, full or part time. We have a LOT of work that we need completed, but it’s project work, in pieces, and we are not yet ready to bring on a full time staff person, mostly because we like to take the time to introduce people very slowly to what we do, and integrate them into our environment.</p>

<p>Problem is, we’re not exactly sure how to go about getting what we need and want, and we’re absolutely clueless as to how to keep such a person happy. </p>

<p>We want someone who’s sort of like a combination of Xiggi/FountainSiren, or someone like Marite’s or Berurah’s sons. We can pay whatever we negotiate, and the intention is that they can work remotely, using their laptops, etc. since this is all database/information sciences work and/or writing. </p>

<p>Should we go through the career services department at the local universities? This sounds sort of like a dead end to me - my gut sense tells me we’ll get tons of resumes that won’t fit, and we won’t find what we really want. </p>

<p>Would it make sense to send email inquiry to professors who are department heads in the fields we want? This is my favored approach, but, I have no idea if professors would be irritated by this, or if they get recruiting email all the time. </p>

<p>We thought about running help wanted ads in the student newspapers, but we doubt the person we’re looking for reads ads in newspapers.</p>

<p>Once we figure out how to attract the person, how do we keep them happy? When college students look for part time opportunities, can anyone say what tends to be important to them (outside of money, of course)? What makes them engage with an employer and remain happy, stay committed long term?</p>

2

<p>LTS:</p>

<p>I would suggest contacting Directors of Undergraduate Studies of the departments where you think your prospective applicants might be majoring: math, applied math, computer sciences, etc… with a description of the job qualifications you seek. They can post or send emails to the students in their departments. My S gets emails from his DUS about firms that are recruiting that way. As for keeping the students happy, it really depends on the actual personality of the student and how it fits with your firm’s own culture.</p>

3

<p>LTS:</p>

<p>I may have a candidate for you. One of my son’s friend is taking a year off to take care of some family situation. Very bright boy majoring in Economics at Princeton (3.9+ GPA and is close to you).</p>

4

<p>Simba, wow, you’re kidding. Is it o.k. if I send to you a PM, to better describe our requirements?</p>

<p>Marite, thank you for that - it gives me a starting place locally.</p>

5

<p>sure, please do.</p>

6

<p>Student oriented departmental bulletin boards are another option. Right next to “Ride needed to…” and “Volunteers needed for medical study…”</p>

<p>Most students do at least peruse such boards.</p>

7

<p>My son uses craigslist to find work & also to post his own resume. </p>

<p>(Also my son would be happy to telecommute, but he’s kind of busy as he has a half-time job and a heavy course load. Then again, he says most of his courses are too easy and he could always use more money. :wink: )</p>

<p>How many hours do you think this job will entail on a weekly basis?</p>

8

<p>Hi Calmom - I tried craigslist once, very experimentally, for another position, and didn’t really care for the results. But then I only advertised in one city, and a very transient city at that. </p>

<p>As to hours - we don’t count things in terms of hours worked - that doesn’t really work with our culture, because everyone is too busy to measure work that way. We typically will define a objectives, a project, set a budget, say “here it is, here’s what we’ll pay, here’s the deadline” and then let the person go do it however they want to do it. </p>

<p>We tend to work very, very long days, days on end, and then when we get tired, rest. The upside is a lot of freedom; the downside is that work and play sometimes merge, and people don’t get enough breaks from work, and, of course, people have to be very, very self-disciplined. </p>

<p>I cannot even really articulate income opportunity, because any of these projects can scale depending on the skill set of whoever we find - except to say that we’re not prepared to bring on a person full time at an “adult” salary, though this is more a function of our planning and full development of project goals vs. budgeting.</p>

9

<p>LTS, I don’t see how the intense project approach would work for a student currently enrolled in college, except as a summer job. Kids in college have a limited number of hours available for work each week – they need to be able to be disciplined about their schedule and budget time accordingly. (At least the kind of kids you might like to hire need that internal discipline). They also need to have time available for studying for mid terms, final exams, and their own school projects - so they can’t be ready to be on call for the week that your company is in a frenzy, if that happens to also be finals week for them. </p>

<p>Also, if you want to hire a student you will need to be very specific about the pay expected for each project – whether it fits your style or not, a student needs to know how much he is getting and have a sense of how much work is entailed. </p>

<p>Based on what you have said so far, I think that most smart students would steer clear, because they wouldn’t want to take on a bigger obligation than they could meet. I’m wondering why you want a student, as opposed to a freelancer who is more flexible in terms of commitment of big chunks of time.</p>

<p>Anyway, I may be wrong, but it doesn’t sound to me like the time commitment you expect fits very well into a student’s schedule. “very, very long days, days on end” just doesn’t work for people who have classes to attend and reading to do.</p>

10

<p>Late:</p>

<p>I don’t see why you write off entire university career centers. They are professionals working hard to match students with employers. You can be as specific as to your needs as you want and tell them only students with such and such qualifications and interests need apply. They should be the contact points (not professors or departmental) where your search begins. My S’s school have strong industry internship programs with major companies and that’s been working out well for both the students and the companies.</p>

11

<p>I go to Northeastern, which has a coop program, and that sounds a lot like what you’re looking for. I don’t know if any of the universities near you have coops.</p>

<p>It’s a program organized through the school where the student does not take classes for six months, but goes through a (usually) paid internship. THe standard NU schedule includes three, and some students will do all three with the same company and be hired after graduation. This also allows employers to have a no-stings-attached way to check out prospective employees.</p>

<p>I’d see if any of your local universities have the program, and want to work with you. Even if local ones don’t, I know NU students often live at home for their coops, so we’re always looking for places that aren’t necessarily local.</p>

12

<p>S’s coop program has him work full-time in the Fall, return to study in the spring, and work again in the summer. The summer before coop program starts, students goes thru an accelerate summer session for coop students only, to make up the classes he/she would have taken during the fall (yes those classes are intense, so prospective students be aware, this is the price you pay). Because these are national companies that canbe anywhere in the US, students live in company-sponsored or referred housing, and they get paid fairly well,too. This program is well-established at S’s school and many students take advantage of it. Of couse they go through a real job interview, so that’s good advanced training in additon to job skills and networking you can only pick up in a real, professional enviornment.</p>

13

<p>LTS:</p>

<p>If your work involves projects with hard deadlines that require putting lots of hours, a college student may not work out for you. At exam time, even the students on work/study are not available as they have to cram, write papers, etc… If these times coincide with your own company’s time crunch, it would be a disaster for you.</p>

<p>Instead of undergraduate students, try graduate students. Their time is often more flexible after they have taken their General Exams.
Another possibility is short term consultants.</p>

14

<p>Hiring in-school students are really tricky. Ones who have plenty of free time to work you would wonder why. Ones who are serious students have serious study hrs. Not much they can give you and their #1 pri is school (should be).</p>

<p>The coop program I mentioned couple of posts ago is one way. Grad students is another way. If your company’s goal is to nurture the undergrads, you should consider offering summer interns or build a coop model.</p>

15

<p>USC has a great internship program for is engineering school. You might want to contact them about getting an intern to see if this works out. I know a lot of other engineering schools also have internship programs, if that was what you’re considering. USC engineering interns generally make about $20/hour, we’ve been told. I believe computer science interns at UW in Seattle are paid similarly.</p>

16

<p>How do you keep college employees happy and interested? Pay them well and give them challenging work with advancement possiblities.</p>