Best College Sites for New Grads

Finding a job after you graduate college can be very difficult. It is only becoming more difficult  now that most people graduate college.

Your parents generation could often find a job just by answering a posting in the newspaper—but those days are long gone.

Now, the job market is hyper competitive. And for college students who graduate with a degree in the liberal arts or even the business field, it’s tough to find work. It is often made only more difficult because the job sites are so confusing, and there are so many of them.

In a prior article publsihed on this site, Chris covered some of the best job sites to use when job hunting--and specifically how to decide which site works for your particular career niche. What I wanted to do with my artilcle was cover a very specific segment of the population: New Grads.

So, what I’ve done here is a breakdown of the more popular ways for college students to search for jobs online.

This won’t cover the important things such as networking—which is a big reason many college grads get work right away (the all important saying “it’s now what you know, it’s who you know”).

Craigslist: Where Anything Goes

If you’re looking for a job—not necessarily a career—then Craigslist can be a good place to start. It’s one of the older platforms online, and it’s also one of the cheaper ones for companies to use.

The thing to be aware of is that all types of jobs are posted on Craigslist: Nursing Jobs, Day Labor work, Restaurant Work, and everything in between.

Recruiters and HR teams for companies use Craigslist as well as individual companies such as Contractors and Restaurants.

If you are a college graduate looking for professional work, it’s an avenue to consider, but it’s more appropriate for quick work.

There are some people who criticize Craigslist for having too many hospitality jobs, but the truth is that a lot of large companies and recruitment firms use Craigslist as well.

One thing to be wary of when searching Craigslist (or Indeed, or any job posting site) is when you come across “work from home jobs”. While some of these are legitimate (such as remote telephone operators or online chat support) many work from home jobs are scams.

While it might not yield a IB job or a Corporate Communications role, you can certainly find work there if you’re looking for entry level office administration.

College graduates need to know how to search Craigslist. First, the good news is that they filter out non-professional work such as Medical, Labor, and Hospitality. These jobs have their own sections.

So college graduates can focus on the sections that pertain to office work and other professionally related work.

Indeed: Modern Day Monster                                                

If you were to look online for job sites, realistically the first one that comes up is going to be Indeed. For many people, Indeed is the go to job posting site. They have commercials on major television networks, and have a huge presence on search engines.

But is Indeed a good job site? Well, that depends on what you need. If you are looking for entry level work, or temporary work, or medical work, then you’ll see a lot of postings there.

Companies use Indeed to post jobs. Recruiting firms also use Indeed. And temp staffing agencies also use Indeed.

There are several advantages to using Indeed as a job search platform.

• Indeed Has So Many Postings (this means you can search through endless jobs)
• Indeed lets you apply without a resume (this is great for people who don’t have a current resume)
• Indeed has an email system that you can use to communicate with the clients.
• Indeed has a variety of roles (Medical, Labor Roles, Tech Roles)
• Indeed has a built in resume builder

If you’re a new grad, then odds are you can find something that you can apply for on Indeed. It might not be a “dream job”, but because the site is so easy to use you can certainly find something that fits your interest.

It’s important to rember that one of the downsides to using any job posting website is that anyone can apply for an open job–even if they are not qualifed. This means the the hiring manager will be inundated with resumes and might not read them all.

LinkedIn: Corporate Work and Connections

If you are looking for a corporate role, then LinkedIn is your best option. Corporate roles are going to be one of the major attractions of LinkedIn.

Unlike job posting sites, LinkedIn is more of a networking site—with job postings.

It’s primarily used for corporate roles. Medical and Labor roles are still found primarily on places like Craigslist and Indeed.

The benefit to using LinkedIn is that you can connect and get a more personal approach to the job hunt.

Recruiters get to see who you are, where you went to school, etc…all laid out in a more visually appealing and interesting method than a traditional resume.

This is why it’s so important to spend time making a good LinkedIn profile. In fact, many colleges make  it a priority that people create a LinkedIn profile during a course (it’s a common in marketing courses).

Serious companies and serious recruiting firms (especially headhunters) use LinkedIn. If they see that you have a bad LinkedIn profile (fake jobs) or no LinkedIn profile, then you are likely not going to be able to land a corporate gig.

LinkedIn is probally the best for people who are tired of being burned by fake recrutiers and scam companies. With LinkedIn, you can tell if a recruiter is fake of not very easily.

So, get a jump start on this by connecting with recruiters and agencies while in college before graduating

CoolWorks: Non Traditional Work

If you’re looking for outdoors work, such as adventure guides or tour guides…then CoolWorks is a great starting place.

The website is designed for companies that operate non-traditional businesses (wilderness camps, ski resorts, whitewater outfits, and everything else you could think of).

The ideal person for this website is someone who is up for adventure and looking for a non-traditional location and job.

There are administrative jobs (such as client support for a lodge) and also Food and Beverage jobs.

The website is not for people who want to work in major cities and work in large corporate office like settings.

If you’re thinking about “adventure” and want something that is going to excite you, then it’s a good place to check out.

A lot of recent graduates want to travel, but feel that they need to “get a job”. Well, this is a perfect compromise. You can search for a destination job (working in a state park, or a resort) and combine your wanderlust with a job that can pay the bills.

You can check out CoolWorks here.

Idealist: Non-Profit Spot

If you’re someone who wants to work in a organization that does good work, then you’re best bet is going to look for a non-profit organization.

While not all non-profits are well run, or even do good work, there are many that do.

And it’s also important know that people can make excellent money working in a non-profit. In many instances, the people who sit in the leadership roles in a non-profit make more than what most corporate workers make.

In recent years there have been many stores that cover the excess and enormous salaries for the non-profit executive staff, so it’s important to realize that you don’t have to sacrifice money for principal. There are many executive level roles where people are making 7 figures (here’s a good list of the top earners in the Non-Profit world).

With all of that said, it is important to get your foot in the door. Most people who work in the non-profit sector have some relationship with the staff or the board, or else they’ve started from the ground up.

In general, non-profit employees come from one of two backgrounds: return to work, or college graduates.

The return to work crowd includes people who opted out of schooling for many years. These people might have been incarcerated, been struggling with addiction or homelessness, or else have simply chosen not to work. Once they are on the path to employment, there are very few areas outside of the social service world that will employee them.

The second type of person who goes into the non-profit world as an entry level worker is a college graduate who has studied social work.

Idealist is a great place to find companies who focus on issues and causes. These roles might be anything from an administrative to case management roles.

The good thing about Idealist is that you can search by cause.

If you want to work with the homeless, you can search for that. If you’re someone who wants to work with immigrants or drug addicts, then you can set your filter with those issues in mind. Likewise, you can search for IPV or Domestic violence based programs.

There is no end to the number of causes that you can find and work with if you look at the non-profit landscape.

It’s also important to realize that not all of these jobs are mission oriented. If you are someone with a degree in accounting, it might seem like an odd place to look for work—but realize that funding and financial reporting are a vital part of the non-profit community. Hundreds of millions of dollars flows into non-profits (in some states and cities like NYC and LA it is on the order of billions) and there is a serious need for people with accounting degrees

Handshake: Internships That Might Lead To Jobs

One area that should not be overlooked are Internships and internship websites such as Handshake. These websites can be used to get a foot in the door. This is especially true for corporate work where there is a highly competitive application process.

If you’re working in a field such as Medical (Nursing, being a great example) there is no shortage of work—one of the main reasons why people become a nurse. You don’t even have to apply for work in many instances, hospital recruiters will reach out to you.

However, if you are looking to work in a competitive industry such as Public Relations, I-Banking, or Marketing—then you are going to have to stand out and do a lot of outreach.

Handshake can be a bit hard to navigate when compared to basic job sites like Indeed or Craigslsit, but they are also more likely to have legitiamte internships and entry level paid roles. This is because the vetting process is quite through.