Nobody Wants to Work: Is the Reed Student Job Pool a Lottery Now?

Before this school year started, first-year and transfer students were encouraged to apply to the student job pool run by the Student Work Office. 70 students applied to the job pool this year as of September 30, with 56 of the applications submitted by the priority deadline. According to the Student Work Office, 20 matches have been made between on-campus employers and job pool applicants. From an interview with Karen Garcia, Associate Director of Financial Aid, further information was acquired on why so few applicants received jobs. 

The student work-study job pool was created during the 2021-22 academic year, and it has averaged 68 applicants each year since. The Student Work Office re-informs campus employers of the job pool before the application is sent out, and on-campus employers can choose to be a part of it at any point throughout the semester, although no departments are required to participate. The current and previous departments which chose to be a part of the job pool include the Library, the Center for Life Beyond Reed (CLBR), Bon Appétit, Print Services, Science Outreach, Student Life, the Office of Graduate and Special Programs, Admission, Mail Services, the Registrar, Paradox Cafe, and individual major departments. However, each of these departments has limited positions and only hire a few applicants at a time. Garcia states, “If you are looking for your first on-campus job, do not rely on the work-study job pool.”

The work study pool currently has more applicants than available positions for them. So why don’t more departments want to participate? Garcia explained that the Financial Aid Office utilizes a matching system where they send each participating department a requested number of possible hires, which match a department's description. However, “most on-campus employers prefer to go through the hiring process themselves instead of receiving a match through the job pool.” There is also the less ethical reason behind it, where departments sometimes choose not to announce the positions that they have available through Handshake or otherwise. 

Instead, some departments wait for students to ask about possible opportunities within the department. While this under-the-table method is a good way for departments to ensure that applicants are truly interested in the position, it does lead to some equity issues. Many students don’t come to college with the understanding that employers can hire this way, especially if these students haven’t been employed before. Even if they do have this understanding, incoming and transfer students might fear that they come off as too forward, or they may ask about positions but they’ve already been filled. Garcia asks “that employers post through Handshake as doing so will expose their open position to the most students possible.” By posting jobs through Handshake and requesting student applications from the job pool, departments can make their hiring process more equitable. Overall, the hardship faced by many incoming students when looking for on-campus employment is more due to a lack of available positions and a lack of transparency from departments, rather than any failure of the jobpool.

But if not the job pool, what other options are there? According to Garcia, “Handshake is the most effective method for finding an on-campus job.” Most on-campus employers hire the bulk of their candidates through Handshake. If you have Federal Work Study (FWS), you also qualify for a program which is run by Students for Education, Equity, and Direct Service (SEEDS). The program is called the Community Engagement (CE) Internship, which allows students with FWS to get paid for internship-like positions that SEEDS facilitates through partnerships with local non-profits across Portland. More information on this program can be found on their website. 

Students can also utilize CLBR as a resource to find off campus job and internship opportunities. CLBR offers career advising, assistance with job application materials and facilitates a community job posting board for the local area. The Student Work Office is also a tool which students can use to aid with various student work needs. Garcia states, “We are available to meet with students individually if they have questions regarding student work and connect students to additional resources as needed.” 

However, the question remains as to whether or not these various methods will work in the long run. Given the larger class size of this year's incoming first years, and how few of them are currently employed through work study, only time will tell us how well these methods hold up. 

Rough calculations from the Student Work Office tell us that “since August 2026, a little over 600 positions have been filled by students” and “350 of them were filled by a student with work-study included in their aid offer. This does not include positions that students are returning to from a previous year with an older hire date, meaning that the actual number of filled positions is higher.” While many first year students are finding difficulty acquiring a job, through the job pool or otherwise, there is still hope yet.