Cartoon By: Victor Santander
There be jobs in them thar websites, but without the know how, Southwestern students will be digging blindly.
SWC’s online job website is a poorly-designed hot mess straight from the Dawn of the Internet. There are hundreds of jobs available on the SWC Student Employment Services/Internship web page, but flaws in the site drive students to use another websites instead.
Compared to modern job search websites like Monster and SnagaJob, the system that SWC expects to put students in contact with employers is inefficient and the website’s style has been obsolete for a decade.
The Internet has advanced enormously, but SWC’s website for student employment has not kept up. Ye Olde Internet aesthetics of the SWC job site fail to meet the bare minimum of website design quality. It cannot compete with another job search websites that make an effort to be attractive and user-friendly. Even rickety Craigslist allows its users to narrow searches by area, field and full- or part-time.
Colleges have an obligation to educate members of their community and to help them find employment. Part of SWC’s mission is to help the economic health of this region.
SWC certainly makes an effort to hire students and help them find work with other businesses, but its website falls short.
Our site is divided into “Job Seekers,” “Employers” and “Other Helpful Services,” but the links are not helpful. They provide only the most generic of advice for those looking for work. Information that connects students with employers is buried beneath the blocky design of the website. There are hundreds of jobs that are offered in the “All Off Campus Jobs” window alone, but they are barely organized by related field of education and worse, they are non-sortable. SWC has differing requirements from one job and another.
Searching for open occupations should follow a similar style as looking for classes online. There should be categories and options to modify and filter searches tailored for each student, but the web page only links lists of jobs. The good thing is there are a lot of offers for students. The problem is that the jobs are buried within a time-consuming list without the choice to narrow down the options.
Searching for work is tedious. It is a difficult task and the method through which SWC organizes its jobs data will discourage pursuers from using their site. First-time job seekers have little chance to navigate the site.
Internships and work-study programs are also available. Without proper organization though, attempts to find this vital data is constipating or worse.
The Cooperative Work Experience program (CWEE) advertises many paid and unpaid jobs, but these jobs are only available to students taking one of 11 specific courses at SWC. Students can only apply for these jobs after they have registered for one of the CWEE courses.
A similar program called Service Learning allows students to earn credit for community service. But there is not as much flexibility regarding what courses qualify and which programs they have ties to.
CWEE and Student Learning lists the various differences and requirements between the two programs, but the list is a poorly-formatted image rather than actual text.
SWC’s jobs website is expansive and hard to navigate. Over time administrators continued to add new pages without renovating the core design. Central parts of the website used the most often are navigable, but many of the data-rich areas lack a common structure with similar visual aesthetics. Not only does it look outdated, it looks deceptively empty and bland.
The Student Employment Services/Internship corner of the site needs the most work.
“Other Helpful Services” is also in bad shape. It has a list of links to search for advice and tips regarding jobs. Next to a square labeled “Job Search Videos” that links to five YouTube share tip videos are five blank squares labeled TBD (To Be Determined). This website is functional, but looks unfinished, unprofessional, unused and might drive students away. This unfinished, unprofessional appearance may also turn prospective employers away.
San Diego State University has a very organized Career Services website. It looks modern and professional, which inspires students to trust it.
SWC must take steps to improve its jobs site. This is doable. Let’s get it done.
