![Students working with papers in hand.](/sites/default/files/styles/width_500/public/2024-05/languages_cultures_students_working.png?itok=mVU49BUw)
Student Employment
Student Employment allows students to earn extra money through on-campus job opportunities. Positions available across the Bloomsburg, Lock Haven, Mansfield, and Clearfield campuses allow students to gain experience, network, and learn time management skills.
Student Employment Program
The Student Employment program at Commonwealth University provides part-time on-campus positions, offering students the opportunity to earn income to support their educational expenses, gain valuable work experience, and engage with faculty, staff, and administration. A limited number of community-based positions are available through the Federal Work-Study program.
Who Is Eligible for Student Employment?
To be eligible for the student employment program, you must be fully accepted into a degree-seeking program and enrolled at least half-time (6 credits for undergraduate, 3 credits for graduate) for the current or upcoming semester.
There are different types of student employment programs: Federal, which is awarded to students who demonstrate financial need, and institutional, which is available to all students, regardless of need.
Student Employment Procedures
Before or at the start of each semester, various departments on campus post job openings for student employment on the student employment portal, JobX, accessed via handshake. It is your responsibility to secure a position by applying online to any of the departments with openings. We do not guarantee employment or place students in positions. Students should regularly check the online student employment job listings for available positions for the current academic year to see if new jobs have been added.
Student Employment positions allow students to work up to a maximum of 20 hours per week when classes are in session. The current base rate is $12.00 per hour. Students will receive a bi-weekly paycheck, which will be directly deposited into their bank account.
Questions
Questions regarding student employment should be directed to the CU Student Employment Coordinator, Mrs. Christina Preston at (570) 662-4418 or workstudy@commonwealthu.edu.
Commonwealth University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. The Financial Aid Office reaffirms the University's commitment to the policy that there will be no discrimination against any individual in educational or employment opportunities because of age, race, color, religion, national origin, sex, or disability.
Applying for Student Employment
Log-in to Handshake – and here are some quick tips to help you begin your search.
- Log into your Handshake account with your student email address & password (SSO option).
- Click on "Jobs".
- Click on the "CommonwealthU" collections filter.
- Click on "close to campus" & show results.
- Find the appropriate campus job posting.
- Review the short description.
- Click "apply externally".
- Click "external application".
- You will be taken to the application platform, JobX.
- You can search & apply for many jobs at one time!
Once you submit an application, an email is sent to the hiring supervisor for review. He/she will contact you for an interview if your qualifications and schedule match what the department is looking for.
* Departments have the discretion to hire students who they believe best meet the needs of the position.
- Once hired by the department, you will need to complete all necessary forms for employment on your JobX dashboard. The forms will be marked as "not completed," hyperlinked, and highlighted in pink.
- Once all required forms are completed, your application will then progress automatically to the student employment coordinator for awarding and then to Payroll for processing.
Please Note: Students should not begin employment until they receive an official Hire Approval Email from payroll stating they may begin work.