Desk Assistant
Application Information & Eligibility
So you think you've got what it takes to be a desk assistant? To be eligible for this position you have to meet all the following requirements:
- You must demonstrate a commitment to customer service, positive attitude, strong leadership and interpersonal skills, a commitment to helping others, and a high level of maturity and responsibility.
- You must be available for all residence hall openings and closings throughout the academic year as indicated in the sample contract.
- You must be able to arrive on campus and attend Fall Desk Assistant Training on Monday, August 18, 2008 and be available to work through Residence Hall Opening.
- You are currently an undergraduate student.
- You are able to pass the pre-employment screening and criminal background check required by this position. Any offer is contingent upon a favorable outcome of the background check. For more information on the background check, please refer to Human Resources Classified Staff Policy and Procedures: Pre-Employment Screening Policy.
Application Information
The desk assistant application is authenticated through Student Link using a student’s University Student ID number and PIN. Since University policy places complete responsibility on the student to protect the combination of these two identifying elements from release to or use by anyone other than him/herself, it is assumed that the individual completing this application is the student who is applying for the desk assistant position. Given this, the student applicant will be held responsible for the accuracy and truthfulness of the information submitted on and/or related to this application. For this reason, many of these fields within this application will be pre-filled with student information on file.
The desk assistant application will ask the following:
Personal Information
Personal and address information displayed comes from your official University records. Residence Life systems are updated by central University systems daily. If any of the displayed information is incorrect, you may still complete the application and then make the changes to your University records. It will be updated in the Residence Life system within two days, including your desk assistant application.
Prior Work Experience
You will need to list previous jobs you have held and a summary of job duties, skills learned, and opportunities. For each position you will need to provide the following:
- Employer
- Start date and end date
- Position title
- Supervisor name
- Indicate whether or not we may contact your past employer (Y/N)
- Address information
- Phone number
- Description of duties
Scheduling Grid
Each desk assistant is asked to indicate the hours they are available to work. The application will include a grid to indicate the hours you are available, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Most desks are open from 10 AM until 12 midnight, but some desks are open 24 hours a day. Hiring teams will search applications based on candidates' availability to work open shifts. Please fill out the grid with your current schedule, and update your availability in your application as your schedule/availability changes (class schedule changes, new semester schedule, etc.).
Essay Questions
Each candidate is asked to answer three short essay questions during the application process. We recommend that prior to filling out the online application, you type your response to the essays in a word processor (i.e., Microsoft Word; WordPerfect) so that you will have time to think about your answers and edit for spelling and grammatical errors. The online form does not automatically check spelling.
- After reviewing the job description and Desk Assistant Agreement, what strengths do you bring to this position? What challenges do you foresee? (250 word maximum)
- How would you justify enforcing a University policy with which you disagree? (250 word maximum)
- Relate an experience when another person’s attitude greatly affected you. How did you respond in this situation? How should you have responded to achieve a better outcome? What did you learn from this experience? (250 word maximum)
