Career centers can display information from Handshake on external websites. The most common external feed setup using Handshake is to display jobs and internships by major.
Chandra Lane, Associate Director of the Career Center at JMU, shared how her team led a cross-campus effort to incorporate job feeds on landing pages for every major at the institution. Watch a full recording of her presentation below. Here are three key takeaways:
Embedding career education on the institutional level helps prove the value of a college education at your institution
- National trends indicate that 80% of students report improving their career prospects as their number one reason for attending college. At the same time, rising tuition costs and shifting student demographics mean institutions must evaluate how they’re providing an inclusive educational experience for all students.
- Using technology to integrate career education on the institutional level is one step toward democratizing access to opportunity for all students.
Building job feeds onto departmental websites is a cross-campus effort
- JMU involved career liaisons and faculty to develop keywords, IT staff for technical assistance, and Admissions and Communications & Marketing departments to promote the job feeds to students. The project required a lot of upfront work, but once the feeds are set up, the jobs and internships are constantly updated without additional maintenance.
JMU saw a clear and immediate increase in student engagement through job feeds within one month of launch
- 57% more applications to jobs and internships on Handshake
- 77% more total logins to Handshake
- 378% more page views to the Career Center “Jobs by Major” website
Watch the full recording below for JMU’s tips and best practices on how to get cross-campus buy in, choose your job feed keywords, and build your first feed.
Timestamps
- Overview and origins of project 4:09
- Logistics of feed building 20:28
- Outcomes and takeaways 36:18
- Q&A 45:44
- What web platform do you use for your departmental website? 45:43
- Is the Google Analytics built into the Handshake RSS feed capability or is it external? 45:30
- Any recommendations for smaller career centers? What is the time investment for the IT department? 47:28
- How often do the feeds update? 50:54
- Can Handshake create the keyword list? 51:57
- Any concern that students who use job feeds will not explore other jobs on Handshake? 54:33
- How do you get institutional buy-in and support from across campus to make this project happen? 55:04
Resources shared during the presentation:
- Here is the slide deck from the presentation
- Read JMU President Jonathan Alger’s op-ed, “Bridging the Career Services Gap”
- See JMU’s website for an example of what an External Feed looks like
- Here is JMU’s sample list of keywords
- This Help Center article walks through how to set up an External Feed in Handshake