How Student.be brings young people and companies together

From first student jobs to fully stepping into the professional world, Student.be supports young people throughout their entire initial career journey. The platform has just signed a promising partnership with Beci.

When Florence Loumaye co-founded Student.be in 2014, it was primarily to address a gap in the market. While social networks, Facebook in particular, were already there to foster peer-to-peer conversations, there was no single platform connecting young people, student housing landlords, employers, and academic institutions. "We wanted to bring these communities together to simplify a phase of life filled with major choices," she explains. The director was spot on. Today, Student.be boasts 600,000 members and registers 450 new sign-ups… every day.

Interview

Has the platform evolved a lot technologically?

Tremendously. From the very beginning, we have had three developers continuously improving it. This year, we launched the "CV checker," which allows students to have their CVs analyzed and improved by AI before sending them to employers. We have this somewhat utopian ambition to contribute to equal opportunities in the job market. A tool like this can help bridge the gap.

More broadly, how is AI impacting you?

AI tools are establishing themselves today as an additional channel alongside Google, which previously drove a massive portion of our traffic. An AI user often goes much deeper into their research before clicking through to a site. However, when they do reach us, we notice that the click is higher quality and leads to higher conversion rates, particularly for account creations. The challenge is therefore to ensure that Student.be is present in these new search journeys. It’s a new way of building our visibility, alongside Google.

Has the youth job market become more difficult?

Some students chose fields, especially IT or graphic design, expecting a job to be waiting for them almost automatically upon graduation. For them, AI has radically shifted the landscape. Conversely, shortage occupations are facing even greater deficits. Furthermore, an aging population means fewer people are entering the workforce than leaving it. We are left with a two-speed market. In certain professions, AI reduces pressure on employers and makes securing a first job more complicated. In electrical engineering, electromechanics, or nursing, demand remains extremely high, yet few young people are opting for these training programs.

Over the past twelve years, how have you seen the relationship between young people and employers evolve?

Generation Z, which places a much higher value on purpose, authenticity, and work-life balance, has shifted the paradigm. Companies are taking this into account, leading to much less impersonal relationships. It’s no longer just companies communicating; it’s the people who work there. Some create TikTok videos where employees share their daily work life. This level of transparency hardly existed when we started.

So employer branding has changed significantly too?

Completely. Companies have realized that simply posting a job ad and waiting for applications is no longer enough. Besides, not everything happens digitally. On-campus career fairs continue to draw crowds, especially final-year students.

You are also developing initiatives around startups. Why?

Not all young people necessarily want to launch their own startup, but many appreciate an entrepreneurial mindset and environment. With the Belgium Startup Awards and other events, we aim to inspire them and help them discover internship or first-job opportunities within this ecosystem.

Is Student.be competing with recruitment agencies?

Those agencies are actually our clients. Many publish their student jobs on our platform. Our role is more about connecting these different players rather than replacing them.