Winona State University switched Warrior Jobs to a new program called Handshake. The new program will become active by April 15.

DeAnna Goddard, associate director for career services, said students and employers have expressed concerns about the usability of the current program.

“There were both employer and student concerns about the usability of Warrior Jobs not being easy for students to login and access what they needed and employers were kind of feeling the same way,” Goddard said. “[Handshake has] a nice user-friendly interface. It’s similar in nature to LinkedIn.”

Handshake is a program that was created by a group of college students from Michigan Tech.

“We liked that it was college students creating a system for college students, so they knew what college students would be interested in,” Goddard said. “They knew what kind of interface would be appealing and they knew how to make it user-friendly.”

With Handshake, students will be able to search for jobs on-campus, off-campus, internships and other jobs all over the country.

Goddard said with the new system, students can insert as little or as much information as they want and will still have access to all of the features. Goddard said students do not have to attach a resume to their account, as they did with Warrior Jobs.

“Our goal is to make it as easy and as accessible as possible for students to find what they’re looking for,” Goddard said. “There’s enough anxiety just around the whole process of applying and interviewing and finding that right connection, that if we can reduce some of that through the way the system is set up, then [we have achieved] our goal.”

The new system is not yet available to students, but there are few at the university who have experienced it.

Hannah Tong, clinical mental health counseling graduate student, said she likes the similarities to other job searching sites.

“I just love that it kind of combines what I like about Indeed and LinkedIn,” Tong said. “So just like the option of job search and the openness of it, because I feel like any job that I want, I’m going to be able to see on Indeed and then the connection with students and other people from LinkedIn.”

Next year’s university theme is career readiness, which Goddard said is perfect for the launch of a new program.

“It’s really advantageous for students to be able to get into the system now and get everything ready, so that when events will be happening, they can go into Handshake, and see what’s happening,” Goddard said. “I’m anticipating more employers than usual will be coming to campus, either to share their stories or to help students learn how to tell their own stories.”