Brown Graduate’s Jobzle Helps Students Find Internships, Jobs
Wednesday, October 05, 2011
In a day and age of continuously rising tuition rates, and high competition for a limited number of jobs upon graduation, Rhode Island’s college students find themselves needing to work while taking classes. They’re also facing new challenges in identifying internships that provide the invaluable real-life experience that builds on their academic achievements. Fortunately, thanks to the hard work of a recent Brown University graduate, there’s a new resource to help connect these students with the opportunities they need: Jobzle.com.
What is Jobzle?
Among the crowds of online job search-engines, Brown graduate Kevin Durfee is banking on the uniqueness of the product he created with friends, www.Jobzle.com, to change the way students, as well as colleges and universities, connect. Launched by Kevin and four other Brown University students, Jobzle is designed to facilitate the search for students looking for part-time work and internships.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“Jobzle is unique in that it focuses exclusively on college students. We make sure that every job-seeker on our website is a student at a college or university by forcing them to validate their user account using a school email address,” said Durfee. “While other job sites are inundated with spam from recruiting services and unqualified applicants, we are able to ensure that every resume an employer sees is worth their time.”
Jobzle incorporates opportunities for both students and the employers seeking them. Potential employers have the ability to reach students at all of Rhode Island’s eleven colleges and universities. They are also able to narrow their search and target students at specific institutions. Since many students attending school often look for opportunities within a commutable distance, the ability of Jobzle to make this connection easier has been well-received.
“We want to make sure students are applying to jobs that are geared towards young professionals and their career interests,” continued Durfee. “We don’t aggregate jobs from other websites, and we require our employers to check-in on their listings regularly to ensure they’re active and credible. Many other job websites take an unfocused approach, grabbing jobs from all over the internet. This makes it difficult for the right matches to be made. Our school focused approach makes it easier for employers to find the right students.”
Is It Working?
Since its launch two years ago, Jobzle has grown modestly, including a site redesign in 2010 that better enabled the company to handle increases in traffic. According to the company, more than 2,000 students are registered users who search for opportunities posted by approximately 500 employers.
“We have received extremely positive feedback from students, colleges, universities and employers,” says Durfee. “Employers love the idea of being able to post a job to multiple schools without having to contact each of them individually and learn a new posting process each time, and students are happy to find a website that keeps pace with the easy to use technology they are used to.”
Jobzle allows employers to try its services free of charge. Every interested employer is allowed to receive two applicants to a job listing before they are required to upgrade their registration for the reasonable price of $30. Student job-seekers do not pay for Jobzle, and can search by location, job type, industry, and pay.
“It's important that students have a targeted resource because the larger job websites can start to seem like a "black hole" where resumes go in and nothing comes out,” added Durfee. “As a general trend, the web is becoming more and more focused by user group in order to maximize efficiency. In the same way there are job websites specific to baby-sitters, and social networking sites for people to share and stay in touch, Jobzle is a resource that focuses on students.”
Moving Forward
With local colleges and universities well back into the swing of things, and students looking for opportunities to generate income and gain practical work experience, Durfee is hopeful that Jobzle will not only maintain its success, but continue to grow.
“We currently we have a solid foothold in Rhode Island, and are certainly looking to expand throughout the rest of the New England. There are a lot of great connections still to be made,” finished Durfee.
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