John Mann
Features Editor

Finding an internship as part of a college education can be a daunting task, one that Troy University is hoping to make a little bit easier with its new Blackboard app powered by internships.com.
The app went live on Dec. 8, 2011, after collaboration between Internships.com, a company that works to help students find internships and jobs, and eTroy.
Available free to students, it provides a databank of internship positions from around the country that students can search through and sort by location, major or company.
“It’s obviously a dire economic situation in the country right now, and unemployment is becoming a big concern,” Internships.com chief marketing officer, Stuart Lander, said.
“The best way for college students to get jobs is through internships, so we tried to create a site and workplace where employers can post open positions for free.
“Then we got a chance to work with Blackboard, and now we have a great resource that just didn’t exist two years ago.”
The app currently contains a listing of 65,000 active internships from 20,000 companies and has already begun seeing use from current Troy students.
After the first 90 days of the Troy activation, nearly 2,100 students have used the service, staying an average of 8.37 minutes per visit.
Although searching for internships is the primary focus of the app, its just one of the many services that students now have access to.
There is a tool for building resumes, where students can create personal resumes for potential employers and download them for free to be printed for later use.
The app is also integrated with Facebook, allowing users of the app to see if any of their friends or friends of friends are working with the agency they are looking to apply for work with.
“This is an opportunity to and a resource to get careers started,” Lander said.
“People go to college for careers and new opportunities, and that’s what we want to provide with this service.”
Troy University was the first college in the nation to implement the app, and is now one of many schools that have started to use the service for their students.
Students who wish to make use of the app can do so simply by visiting their Blackboard account and clicking on the internships.com box, where they can then enter their name and email account to begin searching listings.
“There are two big pieces that make the site worthwhile,” Yair Riemer, the internships.com vice president of global marketing, said.
“One is the inventory and sheer number of places we have listed for internships, but it’s also the resource tools students may not have easy access to. It’s a great compliment to the school’s career center and the classes being taught.”
The internships.com app is now available to any current student with a Blackboard account, and all services are free to use at any time.