Howdy, Fellow Students at Illinois Tech!😊

I have stumbled upon a great resource for international students at Illinois Tech. Illinois Tech Career Services has a tie up with Interstride which is an online platform that is aimed at one thing and one thing only, making job search easier for international students.

It is an amazing service aimed at filling the gap that so many of us face. We spend umpteen number of hours reaching out, applying for jobs and networking with employers only to learn that they do not hire international students or sponsor them. That is where Interstride steps in.

On Interstride, you can create your job profile, you can look up companies for their sponsorship data, the salaries they offer and many other resources such as connecting with the community at Illinois Tech. You can even custom filter to get diversity data on the firms.

They offer workshops and info sessions with employers and coaches to help students learn about new jobs, get portfolio reviews and resume guidance. I find it extremely useful to view their on demand sessions on green card related topics that we are usually confused about.

As you can tell, I am an international student myself and am pursuing Masters of Design and this is how I use it. But first, let me tell you how I set it up. It’s as easy as it gets, I simply signed up and logged into www.interstride.com/IIT with my hawk id credentials. Once that was done, I explored the interface which is neatly tucked into 4 main categories of Jobs, Network, Learn and Tools.

I generally look up company data, so the Jobs panel is my most used tab. Since I am currently looking for an internship position, my go to search keyword is ‘Intern’ or ‘Design Intern’. It gives me options of choosing from the top 500 companies or to widen my search. Likewise, you can search for specific jobs that you are looking for, easy-peasy!

When the search results show up, Interstride makes it easy to select and apply for jobs externally by tagging them with terms like “sponsored last year” and “multiple locations”, so you know that you are applying to a company that will actually look into your application and not screen it due to sponsorship restrictions.

Although this might not be the most used feature, but Interstride also gives us data on the job markets in other countries. Say, you’re open to working and living in Canada, you can look for jobs that may apply to you right from your portal, with all other information such as cost of living in different cities layered in. Pretty handy, isn’t it!

My exploration with Interstride has just begun and it has already become my go to tool to apply for jobs and create my own library of companies that offer jobs and sponsorships to international students! I love to connect with experts and broaden my knowledge of the US job market too.

I would love to hear how you use it in the comments. And, if you haven’t yet used it, this might be that one tool that changes your future for the better!

Jasmine Sarin
MDes Human Computer Interaction
Institute of Design