Hiatt Virtual Support for 2020 Grads

Hiatt After Hours: Making the Transition to Online Work + Learning

In March, Hiatt launched Hiatt After Hours to better support students as they transitioned to the virtual world. Our first episode featured tips, advice and resources for learning from home (courtesy of our assistant director of marketing and communications who recently graduated from the Brandeis Graduate Studies program that was fully online).

Remote Programming

career trek Following the health and safety protocols set by the University, Hiatt transitioned to a fully remote office in March 2020. With two months of programming still set, including major career fairs, as well as the commencement of the current class, our staff moved to rethink and reposition our events, programs, fairs, appointments and resources.

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Appointments & Events

Appointments

Appointments transitioned to a virtual format offering students and alumni the option to meet with staff via video or phone. Of those Class of 2020 survey respondents, 51% said they utilized appointments to assist with their job search. Hiatt staff held over 1,000 video appointments.

Extended drop-in hours were also available for students to meet with our Hiatt Advisors (student career peers) for quick questions about application materials and to get career advice. Hours are available Monday-Friday, 11:00 am - 4:00 pm and Monday- Thursday, 8:00 - 10:00 pm.

Events

Hiatt staff, employers, and alumni shifted to hosting virtual events, more than 40 this fall. 179 Organizations were represented by recruiters and alumni in industries including: Computer Science, IT, Financial Services, Healthcare, Government, Graduate Schools, & Non-Profits.

Support for Summer 2020 World of Work Interns

Brandeis University's World of Work (WOW) fellowship supports undergraduate students who pursue unpaid summer internships. In the summer of 2020, 35+ students participated in virtual internship opportunities in various industries and sectors. Each student was assigned a Hiatt staff member to help support them through their experience and act as a resource for advice, questions and expertise. Read more about their virtual experiences on the WOW blog.

Employer Recruiting & Education

Virtual Recruiting

Hiatt transitioned from in-person reacting and career fairs to utilizing our career management system, Handshake, to host virtual fairs. In the fall, we held 3 virtual fairs with 97 employers recruiting Brandeis students.

Major Career Fairs:

9/16/20: Business, Consulting and Finance Virtual Career Fair
10/8/20: Technology + Innovation Virtual Career Fair
10/21/20: Government and Public Service Virtual Career Fair
2/17/21: Biotech, Health and Science Virtual Career Fair
3/24/21: Internship Virtual Fair

Career Treks

Career treks give Brandeis students the opportunity to visit various workplaces and explore different career paths. During a typical trek, students will tour the office, talk with employer representatives about their work at the organization and learn about internship & employment opportunities. Our employer partners hosted sessions via Zoom which provided a more personal experience for students to ask questions and learn more about the organization. In the fall, we doubled the number of treks we could offer.

GSK (biotech, pharma, research, healthcare)
Boston Children's Hospital (research, healthcare)
PTC (tech & business)
Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT (research, healthcare)
KPMG (Transfer pricing, finance)
athenahealth (tech, business & healthcare)

Internship & Job Postings in Handshake

Employers also shifted to offer remote opportunities for students, posting more than 5,800 internships and 9,000 jobs in Handshake.

Online Career Resources

Social Media

Hiatt has a strong social media presence and leveraged that space to better engage with our community, now that we are virtual. Some of the initiatives included:

Hiatt After Hours: Live Facebook video broadcasts featuring topics relating to job search, LinkedIn, applying to graduate school and more. Viewers at the ability to ask guests and experts in real-time.
Instagram Q+A's: On Sunday evenings, staff hosted live question and answer sessions via Instagram stories where followers could submit questions, ask advice or just share how they were feeling about the current COVID situation and it's impact on their professional goals.
Instagram Reels: Student workers created 30-second videos on the Hiatt Instagram page to share out quick tutorials and information.
Video Content: To help disperse information, Hiatt staff created video content focused on career fair preparation and registration, job searching, connecting with alumni and more.

Email Marketing

Students received weekly event emails each Sunday evening showcasing upcoming career events and programs.
Students received by-weekly emails from the employer relations team highlighting job and internship opportunities in their preferred areas of interest.
Students received additional messaging around resources, tutorials, updates about the office and more.

Hiatt After Hours

Hiatt After Hours: Working from Home

Hiatt After Hours: Law School + COVID-19

Hiatt After Hours: So You’ve Got a LinkedIn Profile…

Hiatt After Hours: Tackling Super Days

See more live career videos

Hire Brandeis 2020

Over 500 alumni and friends are helping the Class of 2020 find jobs. Join them. We challenged Brandeis alumni, families and friends to share job and internship opportunities, or other career guidance, to help the Class of 2020 find meaningful work during this historically tough job market.