Abstract
The UC Davis Student Employment Center's mission is to assist students in finding employment opportunities to help with educational costs and financial obligations while attending UC Davis. The Student Employment Center provides on-line services in a market that faces increasing competition from other employment websites, an evolving technological environment, and changing student expectations. This project focuses on two major questions facing the Student Employment Center: are its services useful to students seeking employment and what employment factors are important to student employees and employers? In accordance with the project's purpose, an on-line survey was conducted for students to provide feedback on the use and usefulness of services provided by the Student Employment Center. The survey also featured questions about employment factors and skills important to student employees and employers. SurveyMonkey.com software was used to administer the survey for a period of six weeks during the Fall 2008 quarter. This survey used a convenience sample. The feedback collected from the survey shows that students value the on-line services offered by the Student Employment Center. Statistical analysis shows no difference in use based on gender or student status. Quartile analysis shows that student employees and employers rank the importance of skills similarly, except for customer service. The survey responses also indicate that the role of the Student Employment Center, outside of its on-line job website, is unclear in the minds of students. The recommendations from this project are to focus on improving on-line services, strengthen awareness of all Student Employment Center services, serve as an informational bridge for student employees and employers, and develop a way to track student use of services.