As of Aug. 19, Binghamton University students have a new and improved way of finding jobs and internships.
HireBING is a website created by the Fleishman Center for Career and Professional Development, formerly the CDC, as a way for students to search for employment as well as upload resumes and information about themselves for potential employers to see.
The site allows employers to reach out to specific students and lets students schedule meetings with career advisors. Students can “save” their favorite employers’ information for easy access and can view upcoming campus job and internship fairs.
In addition to it being a platform for current students, hireBING is also open to BU alumni, as all students will stay in the system once they graduate and may continue using it to look for jobs free of charge.
Brandy Smith, an assistant director at the Career Development Center, helped oversee the transition to the new system, which was created after the company that ran eRecruiting, the old job and internship site, went bankrupt. Despite a few hiccups, like some students not being in the system because they registered late, she said so far they have gotten positive feedback and are working to improve it even further.
“We hope that the functionality for students is very easy,” Smith said. “When you come in and you want to search for a particular type of job or internship, you can log in and you can find what you’re looking for.”
HireBING also offers students the ability to sign up for meetings in which they can sit down with members of the Fleishman Center and get help finding a job or internship that works for them. Samantha Rettinger, a graduate student studying student affairs administration as well as the graduate assistant at the Fleishman Center, helps oversee students coming in to learn the new system.
“So far it’s been really effective,” Rettinger said. “We’re just trying to integrate it as seamlessly as possible by having students coming in and learning it and asking questions.”
Kelli Smith, who replaced Nancy Paul as the director at the Fleishman Center after Paul retired in June, is familiar with hireBING; she used a similar website at her previous job at the University of Nebraska. According to Smith, the transition to hireBING will help simplify the job search for BU students searching for employment.
“I hope it’s a system that students feel positive about,” Smith said. “It’s a real positive resource to connect students to opportunities.”
Molly Wu, a transfer graduate student majoring in accounting said that she was excited to find a job through hireBING.
“It’s the first year I’m looking for jobs,” Wu said. “I’m not so familiar with it; it’s a lot of information, but it provides a lot of opportunities.”
For Alyssa Lanoye, a senior double-majoring in environmental chemistry and English and a member of the Fleishman Center’s student staff, the promise of hireBING’s accessibility to all students is what is most exciting about the new website.
“I think it’s a lot more user friendly then the old eRecruiting system was,” Lanoye said. “I’m hoping that with the new system we can expand, so that it’s in freshmen orientation, so that you know about it the moment you get to this school.”