While Wildcat JobLink can be a helpful tool for students looking for employment, it can also be a misleading one. Posted jobs are not always what they seem to be, say some students.
Wildcat JobLink is a career management tool that offers UA students and alumni access to jobs, internships and other services like campus interviewing and resume referrals. Students can only access JobLink with a UA NetID and must have a UA email address.
Victoria Tsze, a UA alumni who graduated in August 2011 with a degree in psychology, used JobLink to land an account executive position with D & G Concepts, a marketing consultant firm, after graduating. Tsze said the job description omitted that the position was door-to-door sales and 100 percent commission-based.
“They (JobLink) fluffed it up to make it flowery and pretty,” she said.
In addition to feeling cheated by the job description, Tsze also said she felt the company itself was not honest. She said during the interview, the company explained she would be talking to individuals interested in the selling product, and that she would receive marketing and account managing experience. Tsze said after a week of training that neither was the case.
“I would have to tell people in the area that we (D & G Concepts) set up a new Internet line and that service will be a lot faster, even if that wasn’t true,” she added.
Nearly every “legitimate” company can register to be posted on JobLink, according to Karen Bartos, a senior office specialist at Career Services. Bartos explained her department does not reach out to potential employers because they usually apply to be posted on JobLink, and she tries to post any jobs that could be good for students.
“Applicants range from private residents looking for people to work in their gardens to people looking for CEOs to work in Europe or Asia,” she said.
Bartos said once a company registers with JobLink, she looks at their website and if the company is local, she checks the Better Business Bureau. Her department does not post jobs asking for student photographs because that can lead to things like profiling.
“We keep an eye out for the students so it’s a safe place to work,” she added.
Other alumni like Sarah Sussman, a 2011 graduate with a degree in political science, said she found JobLink to be “very helpful” because it gave her the opportunity to interview with many different companies. Although she did not find her current job at Charles Schwab through the resource, she said she would still recommend using it.
“It gives students a lot of exposure to companies that are specifically recruiting new college graduates,” she said.
Bartos said sometimes students call with concerns about misleading job descriptions on JobLink, and she encourages them to do so.
“We (Career Services) can only do so much checking outside of meeting with every single employer,” she said. “When there is a concern, we investigate further.”
Bartos added that while JobLink is a good tool for students to use, it’s important for them to research potential employers and complete their own “due diligence.”
Tsze said she blames herself for not researching potential jobs enough because she was too caught up in finding a job after college.
“You overlook the fact that you have to research the company,” she said. “As much as the job websites are there to help, you have to investigate the company’s legitimacy yourself.”
