A firm handshake?
ORACLE PHOTO/USF CAREER SERVICES
The new Career Services program, Handshake, while claiming to offer a helping hand, may not be as useful as students are led to believe.
A database of employment options for students is certainly a handy tool. It can serve as a starting point to see the kind of places hiring or even offer somebody their dream college job.
Surely, Career Services would know better than any other group on campus that Employ-a-Bull wasn’t working.
According to Russ Coughenour, assistant Vice President of Career Services, the new program will be more specialized and track what jobs the student is applying for to suggest similar positions.
However, students are justified in having some concerns about it. Most significantly, needing to have an approved resume to embrace the benefits of the website can lead to a delay in applying for jobs and the likelihood of a generous handful of homogeneous resumes.
If the system gets backed up with resumes that need approval, responses may take days. In that time, opportunities can slip through applicants’ fingers.
What exactly needs to be in a resume for it to be approved? Should students be concerned about having their resume denied based on menial thing?
A resume is designed to show potential employers who you are and make you stick out. And monitoring to ensure that the file includes basic contact information and references can be a benefit for students who have never needed or created one before, but strict homogenizing is too far.
This new program is going to have kinks and it will take time and diligent fingers to knead them out for the best possible program.
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