New Site Expands Connections and Impact of ColumbusInternships.com

The Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services announced this week the launch of OhioMeansInternships.com (OMI), a Web site designed to connect businesses from around the state with college students seeking internships from all the state’s colleges and universities.

The site, which is powered by Monster.com allows businesses to post opportunities and search for talent for free. And it allows students to search for opportunities and post their resumes at no charge.  It is also the source for general information, news and items of interest about work-based learning.

The launch of OhioMeansInternships greatly expands the power of the region’s  ColumbusInternships.com program launched in 2008 to connect students and businesses in the Columbus Region for internship opportunities.  When ColumbusInternships.com was launched, it was the only Web portal connecting college students (regardless of school) to local employers for free.  Now that OMI is in place, program managers for ColumbusInternships.com say they hope to link the local site to the state’s site for seamless integration. The intention is to maintain ColumbusInternships.com, but information entered there will populate OMI. That way, students and employers will have only once place to enter information yet will have a greater chance of finding each other.

As an indicator of how OMI will help expand the reach and impact of ColumbusInternships.com, currently there are 77 active positions posted on ColumbusInternships.com as compared to 225 positions currently listed on OMI.

Since ColumbusInternships.com was launched, more than 13,000 students have registered on the site and more than 1,000 businesses in the Columbus Region have registered on the site posting more than 3,500 positions.

For more information, see the story in The Columbus Dispatch:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/blogs/the-eteam/2012/01/ohio-means-jobs....