Who cares about accreditation if you can connect students with employers?

This afternoon, Coursera launched career services, “with the goal of helping Coursera students find great jobs.” It’s an opt-in service for registered students. Once logged in, students can list their status from “actively looking for a position,” “not looking, but open to hearing about possibilities,” to “not looking.”

From there a student can upload their resume and link to LinkedIn and Github. Afterwards, a student can list their location, willingness to relocate or work remotely, and their working status in the United States.

After entering that information, there’s a section for highest education level completed, ideal company size, and expected annual salary. If one has not graduated high school, but has completed a number of Coursera classes, they need to leave the education level blank.

Next up is information about the job desired and skills. Students can pick from small, medium, and large companies. They may enter their expected annual salary and desired position. Last up, a student can list up to five skills they have. Any skill may be entered, but the form expects tech skills.

At the end of the form, students may elect to share all of the courses they have successfully completed or all of the courses they’ve taken. Coursera recommends listing only the successfully completed courses.

Once this information has been provided, the last step is to authorize Coursera’s sharing of information with companies and to submit your information. Information that will potentially be shared includes:

• Name
• Score and percentile ranking
• Percentage of assignments completed
• Forum points (a numerical value summarizing forum participation)
• Information provided in your Coursera profile and your Career Services settings.

In Summary

Overall, this is a smart move for Coursera. They are broadcasting their product, sidestepping accreditation issues, will be able to tell great success stories, and potentially make some money from companies. For students, it’s a bit of recognition for the work they’ve done and a step toward being able to showcase that work to employers. The courses are not listed on a CV, but on a profile page. It also has the potential to be a good resource for employers, as they are able to tap into a group of people who may be motivated self-learners. There’s a lot of soft language in that paragraph, because who knows how successful this service will be. But, if one MOOC company does it, how soon before the others follow along?