Students: Two Ways To Improve Your Prospects on OrangeSlyce

Our new matching system takes effect today. If you're a student, this can be a great boon–what better way to find work than having the employer come to you–but only if you've taken the necessary steps to make yourself an attractive candidate. With an eye towards our matching algorithm, here are two simple actions you can take that are guaranteed to improve your job prospects.

1: Fill Out Your Profile

What's the first thing anyone does when someone tries to set them up on a date? They ask a bunch of questions about the person they're being set up with. People do this because they don't like to make decisions without having as much information as possible; this is doubly true when those decisions involve committing your time to a person.

Employers do the same thing when they're looking for someone to work with (they're just like us!). The more information you can give an employer, the more comfortable that employer is going to feel about hiring you (and yes, this does include putting up a picture of yourself, even if just to prove that you're smart enough to avoid posting an unprofessional photo). When you leave information out, it leaves the employer wondering why you didn't put in that information (in much the same way that you'd get uneasy if your friends tried to set you up with someone and then started dodging questions about the person they wanted to set you up with).

Our algorithm is programmed to take this into account. Holding everything else equal, a student with a complete profile is always going to get recommended over a student with an incomplete one. So go fill out your profile right now!

2: Keep Looking for Jobs on OrangeSlyce

Businesses don't want to find a great student and contact her only to find out that she's not really looking for work at the moment. Also, businesses, much like Mr. Miyagi, don't want to waste their money breaking in workers who are ambivalent. They want students who are driven; students who really want to work.

Our algorithm takes this into account by tracking the activity of every student profile. The student who logs into the site frequently and who actively looks for jobs is generally more likely to be serious about finding work than the student who created his profile two months ago and hasn't logged in since, and this understanding is built into the way our algorithm formulates matches. If you want to improve your chances, make sure that you're logging in at least a few times a week to look for work (this has the side benefit of actually helping you find job postings that you weren't automatically matched for). On the flip-side, don't bother trying to "cheat" the system by logging in 100 times in an hour or something–it doesn't work that way.

So there you have it: fill out your profile and keep looking for jobs. It's simple, but quite a few people neglect to do it. Differentiate yourself from those people, and you're on your way to finding work.