Fed up with what they say are difficult and inefficient campus job recruiting systems, a team of college seniors has taken it upon themselves to personalize the process that is the nightmare of every college student.
Joboozle.com, the brainchild of thefacebook.com co-founder Eduardo Saverin, was conceived almost a year ago as Saverin participated in corporate recruiting. Finding the job search process to be extremely impersonal and one-dimensional, Saverin set about to find an avenue in which students and employers can interact.
Pitching his idea to a group of fellow college seniors at Harvard University, Boston University and Dartmouth College, including Andrew Ace, Christopher Hill, Kwame Osseo-Asare, A.J. Solimine and Paul Rosania '05, the final product was Joboozle after almost half a year of effort.
"What really differentiates this site from others is just the high level of interaction with other students and employers," said Osseo-Asare, Joboozle's president of university and media relations. "This is something that's not been done before. It's totally new and uncharted territory for students searching for careers."
According to Rosania, Joboozle's webmaster, the site will address the lack of entry-level and internship opportunities outside of finance and consulting fields, which he said is an inefficiency of Dartmouth's Career Services Office.
"We want to cater to other students who are left in the dark," Rosania said. "There are so many jobs out there. Career Services is only able to cater to the big companies."
Nevertheless, despite the large number of companies featured, most companies connected via the Joboozle network are finance and consulting firms, according to Osseo-Asare.
"Eventually there will be representatives from all the other companies, but we know that the most popular are finance and consulting," Osseo-Asare said.
Those who blame their lack of luck in the job search on their unsatisfactory grades can access the newest feature on Joboozle -- aggregate statistics showing students how they stand in relation to other people at their schools and within their majors, Rosania said.
Often forgetful of job interview dates, Rosania engineered the calendar feature for the website, allowing students the chance to get a grip on recruiting schedules.
"The calendar will send out an e-mail reminder for recruiting deadlines," Rosania said, criticizing the stress involved with scheduling on Career Services' Monstertrak system.
For now, Joboozle creators have paid for the budding project out of their own pockets. In the future, they hope to keep the service free for college students and to rely on advertising to cover the several thousand dollar cost necessary to keep the site running each year, Rosania said.
The completed website now allows for three different spheres of communication regarding job recruitment. The first sphere centers on students and employers, as students can access over 2,600 company profiles, giving them information about company history and contact information for recruiters, past interns and interested students.
According to Osseo-Asare, the comprehensive compiling of employers stemmed from the previous job experiences of the Joboozle team.
"We used our network to get more companies and employees logged on," Osseo-Asare said.
Through Joboozle, students also have the opportunity to communicate and interact with both employers and students through a system of personal messages and message boards. Joboozle also provides forums, which offer tips on interviewing, resume building and advice regarding specific internships.
