Ribit increases employer access to tertiary student talent with unpaid placements

Ribit now supports paid jobs and unpaid placements for course credit and remains free for students and employers to connect to hire talent, and fill future talent pipelines and graduate programs.

The addition of course credit placements on ribit.net opens more opportunities for employers to access STEM/Digital talent from across Australia’s tertiary education ecosystem, while at the same time increasing the chances for students to gain valuable work experience by putting their skills into practice to enhance their employability.

Course credit placements need to be reviewed by educational institutions to ensure they comply with the requirements for a particular course/degree before students can apply. This ensures the student receives a quality supervised experience, highly relevant to their studies and career path.

In addition to adding the course credit placement opportunity, and in collaboration with UNSW, Ribit also released a new Work Integrated Learning Triage module. This new management tool enables the WIL Central team at UNSW to see course credit roles as soon as they are posted and liaise with UNSW faculties to fast track the approval process, giving their students a time advantage to apply. Another benefit is the additional data insights that provide evidence of impact and data decision support to adapt quickly to changes in skills demand and supply.

Associate Professor Leanne Piggott, Director, Experience and WIL Central at UNSW commented: “The new innovative Ribit Work Integrated Learning Triage Module is a real value-add to the existing paid jobs board service. This will enable students to apply for unpaid WIL opportunities that have already been approved by their respective Faculty to undertake for credit. This latter process will enhance the student experience by reducing the administration of WIL activity approval time for both students and staff while also providing a greater opportunity for businesses to broaden the scope of their access to student talent.”

How the Work Integrated Learning Triage Module Works

Employers select the course credit role option and provide additional information needed such as who will supervise the student and if there is a stipend to help cover students’ cost of living. For more info on how course credit roles on Ribit work, see our FAQs.

As soon as the course credit role is posted, a notification is sent to UNSW WIL Central via email and the role appears on their Ribit WIL Triage Management dashboard. From the dashboard, the team at WIL Central can review the details of the role and the company. Using the contact details provided, they can connect directly to the employer to gather further information, as needed, before liaising with the relevant faculty, or school, to determine if the role meets course criteria for work-integrated learning.

Once a decision has been reached regarding the suitability of the role, the team at WIL Central can change the status of the role from pending to either approved or denied, and allocate specific courses the role would be suitable for from a pre-loaded list via their dashboard. The dashboard is how they keep track of the status of each role, and the sooner a role is approved, the greater the benefit to their students.

When a role is approved the student view of the role on ribit.net is updated to include a reference to which UNSW courses the role is approved for. This enables the student to immediately apply for the role via ribit.net and skips the process of each individual student seeking approval from their supervisor for every role they might think is relevant.

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Research by Jackson, Denise, and David Collings, “The influence of Work-Integrated Learning and paid work during studies on graduate employment and underemployment.” Higher Education (2017): 1-23 shows that WIL/course credited placements can increase student employability by 10% and paid work by 40%. 

What employers using ribit.net say

In a recent video interview with the founder of Fractonium working at the bleeding edge of technology and needing talent during COVID-19, Tim Lea commented:

“Ribit has interns with the right academic smarts, hungry with fire in their belly. The relationship Ribit has with all the universities provides a concentrated place to find students that are smart with fresh minds that can be shaped.” 

Caroline Trotman, COO of 1Wordflow who recently hired a UNSW Commerce/Computer Science student on ribit.net has this to say about her experience: 

“Apart from being easy to use, what impressed me most was the quality of students that applied for the role of Partner Development Intern. I wish I could have employed them all. The credentials of the student we hired are exceptional, Gian is a strong communicator with excellent analytical skills.”

How to give your students more job opportunities

Ribit collaborates with ANU TechLauncher, QUT Foundry, TAFE NSW Digital, MIT and UNSW through its cobranded partner program which is available to all Australian tertiary institutions along with the new Work Integrated Learning Triage module. Contact Annette.ribit@stoneandchalk.com.au for details on how to access these services for your university, faculty, or schools.

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