Career Services is here to partner with you

From helping you find the right talent to you helping us shape our academic programs and curriculum, we invite you to learn more about the various ways we partner with organizations from around the world. We also invite you to put your name in front of 7,000 students and over 100,000 alumni and community partners by sponsoring our career guide.

It all starts with Handshake

Davenport's centralized platform offers employers the opportunity to connect with college and university talent and career services across the country. Key features of Handshake include:

  • Posting jobs and internships
  • Promoting company recruiting events
  • Ability to view student profiles and directly connect with them
  • Opportunity to register and attend our Career Services events, forums and fairs

Click here to view job and internship posting best practices

Earn our "Invests in Diversity" badge

Handshake is the #1 platform our students use to find jobs and internships. To help them with their search in finding organizations committed to DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), we add Handshake's "Invests in Diversity" badge to eligible company's profiles. This will promote your organization more often to our students in Handshake. Applications for this badge go out each summer and badges are active from September-August.

Click here to apply for the 2024-2025 Invests in Diversity Badge with Davenport University

Understanding Davenport's internships, practicums and course project opportunities

At Davenport, we consider valuable work experience an internship, regardless of the title. Students can gain academic credit for part-time and full-time jobs as long as they meet the requirements of their academic program.

Wondering what your responsibilities are as an employer? Take a look at this document for more information on the requirements of an employer when hiring Davenport University interns.

Learn how local Career Services professionals advise employers on internship programs through the West Michigan Internship Initiative (serving employers based anywhere).

Connect with a Career Coach at DU

How to create an internship job description

Creating an engaging and accurate job description is the best way to increase applications for your positions. Check out our job posting best practices for more information on how to create a job/internship description that will get you clicks!

We have developed program guidelines for our students to help in their internship search.  If you already have a Davenport intern selected, you can review the guidelines for their program to build a custom job description/list to duties to meet their academic experience needs.

Hiring international student interns

Hiring an international student for an internship is much easier than many think. It is at no additional cost and no extra paperwork for you. Check out the resource here to better understand the ease and benefits of hiring an international student intern. 

What is a practicum? 

Practicums (also called externships) are designed to provide students with practical work experience. They emphasize the importance of learning by doing. Students can expand their knowledge base from theory to practice and provide valuable contributions to their host sites. Practicums can also open networking opportunities and often allow making important contacts within the healthcare system.

Practicums are required of all Davenport University College of Health Professions Allied Health, HIM, and Mental Health Counseling students. Interested in hosting a student? Email a Career Coach.

Free business or technology course-based project consulting

Have a project that is bigger than one person? Groups of Davenport students can work on projects for your organization at no cost. If you would like to consider partnering with Davenport University students and faculty to help build your capacity through a course-based project, please complete this form to start the process

Additional information on this service can be found here.

Examples of previous projects completed include:

  • Strategic marketing and business plans
  • Feasibility studies
  • Application, prototype, and database development
  • Professional writing documents (reports, brochures, manuals)