HireMason helps students find jobs, internships

Searching for a summer job in the midst of all nighters, exams, papers and group projects is difficult. Well, it was difficult, until HireMason came along.

HireMason, previously known as PatriotJobWeb, is an online job board that features job and internship listings for Mason students and alumni. The PatriotJobWeb program was created in 2004 by Simplicity, a vendor that provides job search engines to many colleges for Mason’s Career Services. The name was changed to HireMason in 2010 to avoid confusion with Patriot Web.

“It’s pretty much a job board that’s specific to Mason students and Mason alumni,” said Lisa Rodriguez Weyman, employer services manager at Mason’s Career Services. “What a student would do, is they would create a profile based on all their personal and academic information and based on that they would get a listing or do a search, they would find the jobs that are appropriate that they’re eligible to apply for.”

HireMason posts part-time, full-time, internships (paid/stipend or unpaid), cooperative education, on-campus and summer positions. Users can search by majors, keywords and position types. Job industry and location are also other search options.

Users can also view the events page which shows on-campus interviews being held. Employers would post positions and users apply to the position and a time slot. Users would then select the time slot they wanted, if approved for the interview. Career Services also posts many of their workshops on the events page.

“It’s kind of nice because it doesn’t involve lots of phone calls being made and students can select their time slot based on the [employer’s] availability and their [own] schedule, so it’s convenient for them,” said Weyman.

Many business management, information technology and engineering majors currently use HireMason. But, Career Services wants liberal arts majors to consider it as well. Those majors have had fewer applications since less people with them use the program. HireMason is helpful for those considering a different major to see job descriptions in their potential field.

Resume Builder is another application of HireMason. Resume Builder helps users make a first draft of their resume so they can go over it with a Career Services councilor.

But there have been a couple draw backs. Email verifications and confirmation emails can get lost in cyberspace. About twice a year the program is tweaked for user-friendliness. Spam can be a problem, and if you haven’t signed in in quite some time, your account may be locked in order to keep your information current.

Users have to sign up for the program because Career Services wants them to actually read the fine print. Not maintaining the correct academic information is a violation of Mason’s Honor Code. Privacy acts also require consent before HireMason uses a user’s contact information.

Mason’s University classes use the HireMason system. Ashley Simpson, an art history major, has used the program for her University 400 class.

“There are problems with the website when you search for something within your major, it gives you everything for every major. You have to look through pages of [listings] and there is no back feature,” said Simpson.

Despite HireMason’s shortcomings, the basic idea to have a job/internship search program can be helpful for many students.

“Students should try to do at least one internship related to their career goals…to make themselves stand out in above other applicants, students must have experiences like internships on their resumes,” said Jennifer Antonini, the assistant director for internships and employer relations at Career Services, in an email.

In the Fall of 2010, Career Services found that employers posted over 3,500 full and part-time opportunities and almost 2,000 internships for the over 4,000 users.

Photo Credit: Career Services' website