Best Ways To Connect With College Students When Choosing Online Jobs

By Danielle Wirsansky on August 24, 2016

Different people have different kinds of job requirements, depending on themselves and their personalities to the flexibility of their schedules and the hours they can work to the kind of career field they even want to get into.

And for many people, working remotely and online is the best option! It’s a burgeoning field, with more and more companies offering online or remote positions to employees all over the country or even the world. College students are prime candidates for remote or online jobs because they are up to date on the technology required to work from home and are in particular need of opportunities with scheduling flexibility.

But with so many companies now offering these kinds of positions, how can you make your company and the online positions you offer more appealing? How can you edge out the competition so that you can attract and connect with the best and the brightest college student workers possible for your company?

Read on to learn how!

pexels.com

Perks

Consider what kind of perks you can offer to a college student that is contemplating applying or working for your company. Since you are offering an online job, these students will miss out on some of the ordinary perks that might usually be overlooked, like in-person networking and in-office perks, like events and equipment.

So offer them perks that they can use despite working remotely! Can working for your company give them discounts at local or national chains that they can use when they go out to eat or shop? Can they get discounted or free membership to organizations like AAA that can get those discounts?

Will you help them to upgrade their computers and other equipment or provide them with what they need if they are in need so that they do not have to dish out the money themselves? Will you pay for or provide a stipend to go towards a gym membership in order to promote fitness and healthy living in lieu of having an office with its own gym space?

There are a lot of opportunities and perks that your company can offer that will appeal to students and attract them to work for your company over others.

A Sense of Community

One of the biggest benefits to working in an office or going to a shared space to work with the other members of a company is the sense of community it offers as well as the networking opportunities. This advantage is usually taken for granted, but it is something noticeably lacking for those that work remote or online jobs.

It is hard to get to know your coworkers when you are all in different cities, states, countries, or time zones. Your workers want to develop relationships and know their co-workers by more than just their email address. College students are also usually very social, and missing out on the opportunity to connect with their peers and fellow workers can be a drag.

Creating opportunities for co-workers to either meet or connect and just get to know each other a little better is a great way to remedy that. Have a weekly Google Hangout for all of your company’s workers to get online together and meet and just chat. Make sure employees from different teams meet each other. Organize get togethers every so often for workers in the same area or region.

Allow your employees to connect with each other despite working remotely and more college students will be eager to join your organization.

pexels.com

Hour Flexibility

Since you are allowing employees to work from home, you will appeal to a wider range of potential employees and particularly college students by also allowing workers to have flexibility in the hours that they work. There already must be a certain amount of flexibility since workers might be working in different time zones.

But allowing workers to set their own hours will garner you many more college students applying for your company than they would otherwise. Students are often in class during the day, and the scheduling of those classes will often come first. They might have plenty of time after completing their obligations and be able to work unorthodox hours, or be able to work sporadically in small shifts spread out throughout the day around their other commitments.

So while students might not be able to work as traditional hours as other employees, they can work other shifts that might be otherwise harder to staff. Students will appreciate the greater degree of flexibility that working for your company will offer them and be much more likely to apply and stay. You want to attract more than temporary employees, so by offering them the opportunity to have a flexible schedule, and even one that can change every semester will be a huge draw for students.

Follow Uloop

Apply to Write for Uloop News

Join the Uloop News Team

Discuss This Article

Get College Recruiting News Monthly

Back to Top

Log In

Contact Us

Upload An Image

Please select an image to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
OR
Provide URL where image can be downloaded
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format

By clicking this button,
you agree to the terms of use

By clicking "Create Alert" I agree to the Uloop Terms of Use.

Image not available.

Add a Photo

Please select a photo to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format