Challenge: The Swiss higher-ed university HEIG-VD offered its network an outdated career center which admins, students and employers alike found too complicated and inefficient to use.

Solution: Niceboard offered a cost-effective solution that was easily implemented and significantly reduced administrative workload while enhancing student engagement.

Impact: The new job board attracted top firms, created a valuable employer database with over 1000 firms and drastically cut management time from two full-time employees to just five minutes daily.
We used to have a career center before, but it was a bit old-fashioned and we were looking for something to plug-in to our website. We opened the new job board 18 months ago and we already have 1,000 job postings from companies, which is impressive given our small student population.

Sarah Turin on why HEIG-VD decided on Niceboard

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Challenge

The Swiss university HEIG-VD, represented by Sarah Turin, Head of Communications & Campus Life, faced significant inefficiencies with their custom-built career center.

Their previous job board proved to be overly complicated and time-consuming due to its outdated interface and poor visuals that made for a difficult user experience.

Interactions on the platform were highly unintuitive, requiring extensive information input, which discouraged both students and employers from signing up.

With a strong demand from companies eager to hire from their network of alumni, HEIG-VD sought a more user-friendly solution that could seamlessly integrate into their existing website.

The previous career center was really old-fashioned, with a bad interface, not intuitive at all, and employers and students had to put in a lot of information to get started. You really can’t compare it with Niceboard.

Solution

After HEIG-VD found Niceboard, the university was immediately convinced by how easy and cost-effective this new career center solution was.

The decision to adopt Niceboard for their new career center was based on several criteria:

  • Niceboard required a significantly lower budget compared to other software providers and HEIG-VD’s previous solution. Hence, it was easy to convince the university’s management to make the switch to Niceboard.
  • The platform was easy to implement, and required less time and effort to manage. Employers can now upload job listings in an intuitive self-serve interface, greatly reducing the administrative burden on university staff.
  • Niceboard provides a dedicated newsletter feature to automatically keep students and alumni in the loop about their job search, increasing engagement.

Ultimately, the transition to Niceboard not only simplified the university’s job board management but also garnered positive feedback from students regarding the user-friendly application process.

After benchmarking other solutions, we were completely convinced of Niceboard. Managing the job board now only takes us a few hours per month.

Impact

Niceboard had a substantial impact on the university and its career center, helping build partnerships with local companies, promoting events, and supporting the students’ job search.

  • Attracting top Swiss companies: With over 1.4k jobs posted, the new career center has already attracted over 1,000 of the most reputable companies in Switzerland.
  • Saving hours / month: While the upkeep of the previous job board required two full-time employees, HEIG-VD’s new Niceboard-powered job board only takes 5 minutes per day to manage.
  • Generating a valuable employer database: Niceboard helped HEIG-VD build a robust database of employer contacts, which the university leverages to place students in companies for internships or collaborative projects, enhancing students' practical experience.
  • Job seeker success: The university’s students and alumni appreciate how fast and simple the job search and application process is through the new career center.

Other educational institutions have even reached out to HEIG-VD, expressing interest in replicating the success of their Niceboard-powered job board.

It’s much easier and cheaper to use a plug-in solution like Niceboard rather than building a career center ourselves.

Sarah on the additional value of the job board…

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