Jobboard Finder’s opinion
Summary: CollegeRecruiter might have been a big player once upon a time, but it is losing ground to some of the younger student job boards. Created back in 1991, only 208 010 visits per month to the website have been recorded over the last 6 months according to SimilarWeb, and the guests haven’t stayed for very long. Furthermore, over 30% of the job board activity is coming from overseas. Don’t give up hope on CollegeRecruiter just yet: they actually did a lot of things right.
Design: The crimson colour is reminiscent of the 30 something colleges in the US that boast the colour. Jobs are listed for entry-level students by city, for recent graduates by Majors and then there are jobs in growing industries. The blog is separated into many parts (for recruiters, for jobseekers and even job search advice), which makes information very easy to find. A list of big companies advertising on the job board is also visible and leads to the different opening they wish to fill (with job offers ranging from “bell attendant” to “executive accountant”).
The job board objective: CollegeRecruiter aims to connect entry level and graduate students with the right companies to start their careers.
Recruiter observations: The job board includes a long list of “awards” (but let it be known, that most of them are internet lists and some don’t even mention CollegeRecruiter). You can pay US $75 per posting, or contact the website for a more personalized offer. However, you should know that no matter how much job advertising space you purchase, they will only display 100 offers per search (even if they indicate that there are many more). There is a lot of useful information in their “frequently asked questions” section, but don’t bother with their recruiter events (the link doesn’t work).
Jobseeker observations: There is no visible date of publication on the offers in the results, so you’ll need to click on each offer you’re interested in for that information. Most of job offers redirect you to the website application page, which takes even longer. It’s nice to know they keep their social media websites updated, but they have very few followers (under 4 000 on Facebook). And it’s best to be wary of a job board which isn’t GDPR friendly (“For technical reasons we do not delete candidate information but you can unsubscribe from our emails”).
The job offers: The large majority of the jobs on their website are for surveys, waitressing, delivery services, etc. That doesn’t mean that, among the 152 835 jobs in the US and 7 610 in Canada, you can’t find what you’re looking for. You can include keywords and a location to help. There aren’t really any international jobs.
Reactivity: Automatic e-mails as well as personalized e-mails are sent out quickly. To discuss payment, you will need to call them though.
Special features: A salary calculator; free resume builder; testimonials from recruiters; the blog (one for recruiters, one for jobseekers); frequently asked questions.
Verdict: Even if the job board is simple to use, it feels like it is nearing retirement. Some things need to be updated (like keeping in line with the GDPR), and others need to be removed (like the recruitment bootcamp). In the US, collegegrad.com and aftercollege.com are more popular. Hopefully, it can still live off the interest from foreign students/companies.
