The pros and cons of university career portals

As we transition from traditional face-to-face interaction with recruitment advisors to technologically-advanced career portals online, we may lose important benefits along the way.

For example, meeting with a careers counsellor at university helps you to speak openly about what you are searching for in a job and the counsellor can recommend potential roles based on your personality and professional approach.

Whereas, online career portals at university may be faster. By filling in a few forms or clicking a couple of links around the website, you may be taken to your dream job.

Job hunting can be tough these days. Source: GIPHY

So, to discover how effective these online career portals can be, here’s a list of advantages and disadvantages of the tech-savvy service.

Pros of online career portals at university 

1. You can discover your future career from the comfort of your home

That’s right! You don’t even have to move an inch. By logging on to the careers portal, you can discover your dream job in seconds.

2. Your university knows where your degree will take you

Before you, there may have been hundreds of other students that graduated in your selected field of study. Therefore, the university has a rough idea of where your degree can take you. With this information, they can tailor your job search to suit your expectations.

3. Your university will have illustrious industry links

Realistically, your university should have thousands of industry partners that have potential job openings. Therefore, if you utilise these connections, you may end up working for a cool company that appreciates your academic background.

Networking is the way forward. Source: GIPHY

Cons of online career portals at university 

1. You’re disconnecting from reality 

Sometimes, it’s better not to depend on virtual services to guide you through your career. The advice can be limited and presented in a rigid format. By speaking to a careers counsellor at university instead, you’ll get to express your concerns in person and receive valuable feedback.

2. Repetitive advice 

Another problem you’ll find with online career portals at university is that the information provided is often repetitive. By using the same words of advice for everyone, how will your career guidance be a personalised experience?

3. Large response rate

If there are hundreds of other students from your course viewing the same roles over and over again, surely the response rate will be high? Perhaps it’s better to conduct your own search and find niche job openings.

Interesting Survey from @hackerrank : The best ways for candidate sourcing

1) Internal referrals
2) Job portals
3) Coding communities
4) University recruiting
5) Social media, blogs
6) Company career page
7) Meetups
8) Hackathons#sourcing #Hiring #SocialMedia #Branding pic.twitter.com/QjE6Av2jxN

— Sathish Ganesh (@sathish_ganesh) August 31, 2018

As you can see, university recruitment tools are still an average job hunting alternative for most. Whereas internal referrals and official job portals are in popular demand.

So, which one do you prefer?

Liked this? Then you’ll love…

Fundamental things you should know about Freshers’ Week

Slowdown in rate of growth of international students applying to work in US