Now that syllabus week festivities have ended and textbooks have been bought, students may not find much more than $1.27 and a receipt from the Union Bookstore in their wallets.

These students may come to the same conclusion: It’s time to find a job.

Campus and the surrounding Champaign-Urbana community offer thousands of jobs to students each year, from a cognitive neuroscience research assistant to math tutor for a high school student in Mahomet. Many of these jobs are posted on the virtual job board, a tool hosted by the Student Employment division of the Office of Student Financial Aid. The virtual job board includes jobs both on and off campus, and students can also narrow their search results by location, wage or employers accepting federal work-study. However, not all job openings in Champaign-Urbana, or

even on campus, are posted on the virtual job board.

“We encourage departments to post on our job board, but they’re not at all required to,” said Clarice Taylor, assistant director at OSFA. “Like most jobs, it’s up to the student to search for these opportunities.”

Taylor mentioned a number of University departments that do not usually post their openings on the virtual job board, such as housing, campus recreation and the library system.

Blaire Sambdman, junior in AHS, has had four jobs since she started at the University. She found two of those on the virtual job board, but the other two she found through word of mouth.

“(To students looking for a job), I would say to let people know that you’re looking, to tell your friends …. That’s how I found one of my jobs,” she said. “I was just talking to a friend about how I was looking for a job, and she recommended me.”

Sambdman discovered an opening as a personal assistant to a student with a disability while talking to a friend, and she found another position — a FYCARE facilitator — after talking to a professor.

Sambdman also recommended that students look for jobs within a department that may apply to their area of study or future career goals.

John Rhee, sophomore in Engineering, is also currently searching for a job by networking, but in a slightly different way. Rhee has been searching for an internship or volunteer position by posting on the Facebook group “Jobs & Internships,” a subgroup within the UIUC Facebook community.

“A lot of people were able to help me,” Rhee said. “They’d been here longer than me, knew the area better than me, and I was able to get a lot of tips.”

Rhee recently applied for a position at Provena Covenant Medical Center from the information that he obtained through the Facebook group.

One employer that often has its job openings posted in the “Jobs & Internships” group is the University of Illinois Foundation, which raises money for the University by having students contact alumni.

“We have had an immense amount of applicants from posting on the Facebook group,” said Terrence Thompson, junior in Media and student supervisor at the foundation, as well as frequent poster on the “Jobs & Internships” group. “We have a lot of spots to fill, so we are constantly hiring students at the foundation.”

Thompson began working at UIF the spring semester of his freshman year and was promoted at the end of his sophomore year.

Most of the posts on the “Jobs & Internships” Facebook group come from students who know of job openings on campus and in the Champaign-Urbana community. Jobs range from paid and unpaid internships to one-time odd job offers.

Zefan can be reached at [email protected].