In an attempt to increase collaboration and communication among students, alumni and the Career Development Office, the Tuck School of Business has launched two new technology platforms, according to Rebecca Joffrey Tu'97, Tuck's director of career education and innovation.
Tuck Jobs, a career management system, and Chatter, a private social network, were designed in collaboration with Salesforce, a company that offers cloud-based computing resources. Tuck partnered with Salesforce vendor RoundCorner, which specializes in higher education institutions and non-profit organizations, Joffrey said. Both websites can only be accessed with a Tuck username and password.
Tuck Jobs, which officially launched on Oct. 22, is an online portal in which students create custom "playlists" of companies, resources and people, or use pre-compiled playlists provided by the Career Development Office as starting points, Joffrey said.
Current playlists on the Career Development Office's website include "Companies Planning to Recruit T'13s for Internships," "Hired International Students Full Time (Past 2 Years)" and "Top Hiring Companies of T'09s and T'10s," according to a screenshot of the office's website provided by Joffrey.
Within the playlists, students can click on company names to view additional information, including currently employed alumni, relevant links and "inside scoops" detailing recruitment and interview information. When individual students or student groups compile playlists, they can mark them as private or share them with the Tuck community.
"This system has a lot of flexibility, and it's much more interactive than a traditional website," Joffrey said. "The Career Development Office has a lot of resources to offer students, but our information was all over the place [before Tuck Jobs]."
The second platform, Chatter, was launched this June for incoming first-year students and is integrated into Tuck Jobs. Users "follow" different clubs and groups most of them career-related and contribute to conversations based on those particular interests, Joffrey said.
These groups are more efficient than mass emails because they allow the Career Development Office to communicate directly with students based on their individual goals, Joffrey said. When users "follow" a group, they can also view all the previous messages in the "conversation," she said.
Because both Tuck Jobs and Chatter are new platforms, many Tuck students have not yet formed opinions on either, according to Tuck students interviewed by The Dartmouth.
"It's not the buzz right now," Mukul Kumar Tu'13 said.
So far, reviews have been mixed about both services.
"[Tuck Jobs] looks nice, and it's pretty clean," Kumar said. "I haven't used it much, but those are my initial impressions."
One drawback of Tuck Jobs is that the homepage is too "static," Kumar said. The system would be improved if the page was updated more frequently with recent notifications, he said.
The information-packed Chatter interface is not as user-friendly as Tuck Jobs, according to Peter Fabbrucci Tu'13.
"There's too much going on with Chatter," Fabbrucci said.
Sophie Roux Tu'12 praised Chatter for the way in which it facilitates collaboration among students.
"Learning one more program is always a challenge, but as one of the finance club chairs, I have been able to post a lot of information over time without spamming people's mailboxes, and anybody joining the process a little late has been able to catch up on the entire discussion without having to contact me," Roux said.
Tuck's dedication to technology exemplifies the school's emphasis on providing the best possible experience for its students, according to Joffrey. Tuck Dean Paul Danos has been "instrumental" in fostering better ways to deliver information to students and create additional social tools, Joffrey said.
