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Pros
We thought it would help our members see the value in a system like this. Above all, their customer support has been incredible, and we really appreciate their continued support of our efforts.
What most impresses me about Firsthand is the dedication the entire company has to help their clients solve solutions.
Great team with a great product, innovative ideas, clever tech, and great user experience.
Super tool, good feedback from users, who are extremely satisfied about using the tool.
Cons
It is difficult to navigate the search. Because terms are not customized, there is a big variation of search outputs.
Can discourage users from using the tool as they mistakenly think there is no one that fits their interest area.
There was also missing functionality, such as a count (total number) of advisors after entering search criteria.
There were no specific features I felt were lacking.
Showing Most Helpful
Showing 25 of 41 reviews
"Excellent Client Experience"
Pros: The software works really well and has helped thousands of students and alumni at our university connect to have meaningful conversations. What most impresses me about Firsthand is the dedication the entire company has to help their clients solve solutions. This spring Firsthand helped my university deliver a virtual career fair for the first time. This event would have been otherwise canceled, and hundreds of teaching credential students would have missed out on the opportunity to connect with potential employers. [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] and his team worked tirelessly to support us. They were innovative, problem solvers, that were not afraid to dive into a new project with us. I would full-heartedly recommend Firsthand to any university.
Cons: I have no cons to report. My experience was positive all around.
"A Platform That Has Extended the Value of our Organization"
Overall: Overall, as mentioned previously, the platform has been invaluable. We're very happy with what it is doing for us and our organization and the potential it creates for connecting members with like-minded professional aspirations or skill sets.
Pros: With Firsthand, our organization was able to launch what we call the Delta Chi Mentorship Network. This created an opportunity for us to connect our members throughout North America with one another to offer coaching or mentoring and to seek professional guidance and advise. It has been invaluable in expanding the experience associated with membership in our organization. Thus far, the user-friendly interface has been one of the biggest selling points.
Cons: As we continue to seek ways in which we can contour the platform to our needs, we've seen limitations in the way we, without the assistance of tech support, are able to customize the platform. For some of the pages, we've had asks about enhanced visual customization, from using images as title banners, etc. Currently, we cannot do that.
"A platform with great potential"
Pros: -Very easy account registration process. -Intuitive user interface - mimicking a 'tinder' approach to mentoring. - Takes out a lot of the fear of being rejected when it comes to networking. Makes it very easy and 'risk free'. - Flexibility for students to select what sort of outcome or conversation they want with their mentor. - Convenient scheduling tool to allow students to find a time to speak with a mentor without having to play - diary 'ping pong' between them and advisor. - Dial-in option easy to speak with advisor and retains students privacy of personal number. - Access to global network of advisors.
Cons: - Very U.S centric, so less relevant for those seeking mentorship within a U.K context. - Could benefit from a wider range of mentors across different roles / industries / sectors. - Webinar content appears to be more targeted at more experienced hires - could benefit from more content focused on early careers.
"An excellent way to engage your community"
Overall: It has been great, for us it's a really cost-effective way to engage with our most engaged alumni, to promote engagement with the school since the time our cohorts are studying and make sure that employability and visibility of our graduates also keeps very high.
Pros: Firsthand is easily one of our best sources to source people that are very committed to our brand and values. It also provides a better student experience to RSMers that can find fascinating people and get to know about their journey after university and how to get there.
Cons: The internal e-mail tool is fantastic to engage people however, it is VERY limited in the customization and branding that you can use. This tool only has very basic text options to engage your community which is a shame because the response rate is great.
"Firsthand Platform"
Overall: Firsthand has helped us streamline our mentoring program, but it could still use some improvements. The customer support should be a little better and faster. Also, I feel like the users should have an option as to whether to contact the admin or the user support directly through the platform.
Pros: The combination of features is helpful for different purposes other than mentoring, but it especially drives those one-on-one mentoring connections.
Cons: The current registration process is a little long and tiresome. Additionally, it needs to be more customizable, which I know the developers are working on, but the original product we started using over a year ago was very rigid.
"FirstHand for MBA and alumni networking & advising"
Overall: It's been a very good experience. We have had the most issues with lack of student use.
Pros: The platform puts the students in the driver's seat to engage with alumni for flash networking and career advising, while at the same time allowing the alumni to control the number of consultations and scheduling.
Cons: Technical issues with phone calls that were reported to us by alumni advisers.
"A great tool for your University community to network; get and give career help"
Pros: I work on the admin side for the alumni and professional volunteers who sign up to become "advisors" in Firsthand. That's what we named them but you can customize using your own info and school branding. We have looked at other platforms but we realized we are happy with Firsthand and think it is great for the price. Also, unlike Graduaway and Peoplegrove, you can run reports to see who connected with who, what they thought about it and share their feedback to the alumnus and/or to the student. It's great to be able to quickly and easily email from the platform and load our own webinars we offer with the existing national webinars offered in the platform. We can post jobs and the connections made are recorded for quality assurance. I love the groups feature and we are using it to bring in more alumni and students by school, region and student group or program as well as building and enhancing our campus partner relationships as we offer this in place of a them having to create a separate, manual mentoring program for their community. On a monthly basis, I send a video-embedded email to our advisors who have helped someone in the platform (message from a student advisee). I also can look at the leaderboard on the admin side and know who the top users, advisors and advisees are in the platform. We also have a close working relationship with our customer success liaison at Firsthand. Their [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] is very, very accessible too! Like Firsthand the best!
Cons: I have to say that, after comparing the other, similar platforms, Firsthand offers the same if not more due to their reporting capabilities. I really don't have any cons. If we have suggestions Firsthand always tries to make accommodations and they are constantly making improvements.
"Good option for mentor programs but better search required"
Overall: We are trying to link university students and alumni with mentors. Many people have positive experiences with it. Overall, the experience has been positive, with exception of the search functionality that I find frustrating. There have been a few times when my customer service request went unanswered. Overall it is easy to use.
Pros: I like the user interface with LinkedIn functionality to include in profile. I like the videos as well. The new function of being able to email direct has been great- previously it was an inconvenience with having to login first to send a message.
Cons: It is difficult to navigate the search. Because terms are not customized, there is a big variation of search outputs. Can discourage users from using the tool as they mistakenly think there is no one that fits their interest area.
"Firsthand/Evisors"
Overall: It has been very positive so far.
Pros: The User Experience for the match-making between advisors and advisees, easy way to connect and to pay/get paid.
Cons: The functionality of connecting through my mobile phone wasn't working properly.
"Firsthand and support"
Overall: I've really enjoyed working with the Firsthand team. They are quick to respond and focused on service.
Pros: When looking for a mentoring program, we did look and research a variety of options. We like the look, feel, and resources provided by Firsthand. We thought it would help our members see the value in a system like this. Above all, their customer support has been incredible, and we really appreciate their continued support of our efforts.
Cons: Like many new initiatives, we've been continuing to work on our rollout and getting our members to use a new platform. However, Firsthand has been great in working with us to brainstorm ideas and help however they can.
"Firsthand: An Excellent Tool for Online Career Education"
Overall: Firsthand allows me to extend the Career Services we offer our graduate management students. We have a small team and over 600 students, so having a team of high level professionals from all over the world that our students can reach out to, for free (for them), is invaluable. Like anything else there have been ups and downs with the career advisors sometimes not being available. But they are professionals with real jobs, so this is not surprising. Firsthand is also expanding its offerings and has built a platform enabling Career Centers to set up virtual career fairs and recruiting. It's amazing.
Pros: Firsthand is an excellent tool for online career education. My favorite feature is the online Career Library where professionals discuss their careers in a wide range of areas. I use this Library extensively in the career courses that I teach to support the career exploration process. My students love the Career Advisor platform where they can connect with over 2,500 mentors from all over the world and get live help with learning about different careers, mock interviews, resume reviews, etc. Implementation was easy and fast.
Cons: The only thing I would like to see would be even more videos in the Career Library, addressing some of the newer types of roles, like business analytics, social media influencer, etc. Some of the material is a bit dated. But Firsthand is investing in other areas that are more focused on live interaction with alumni, recruiters, etc., which is a good thing.
"Invaluable Product"
Overall: I've been subscribing to Firsthand (Evisors) for over 10 years. It's a valuable service in any career management office. It's also a pleasure to work with the friendly, professional support staff at Firsthand.
Pros: Students need career advice from professions in their field of interest, as they respect the advice from a professional more than that of their school career advisor. Firsthand makes connecting with these professionals easy and unintimidating.
Cons: A few students have complained that the professional does not respond to inquiry; but, this doesn't happen very frequently.
"Chico State Review"
Overall: Great
Pros: Affinity Groups are included in price. PeopleGrove charged a separate fee for each group
Cons: Nothing - I think it is a great product.
"Great Benefits for Students, Difficult to Increase Usage"
Overall: In theory, I love the potential benefits of the platform. But without a dedicated marketing staff member, it quickly became static and not an immediately used/intuitive system for students to pursue with their own initiative. For example, we use CandidCareer, and that seems to be easier for students to find and use on their own.
Pros: Webinar library (especially now that users can search by keywords)
Cons: When we were using the Advisor platform, it was difficult to use the platform and when they did, many requested meetings were never completed, which made it seem static and an unreliable place to ensure mentorship was taking place. There was also missing functionality, such as a count (total number) of advisors after entering search criteria.
"The students that use it, love it"
Overall: Firsthand provides a wealth of professionals at the finger tips of students to connect with. This is invaluable in an age where making online jobs applications alone is not enough.
Pros: The students that engage with Firsthand love it. Students were able to access professionals at short notice and even at weekends and were impressed with the their knowledge and willingness to help. Being able to have these conversations with friendly professionals is a great starting place for students new to networking to have a go in what feels like a safer environment.
Cons: We're in a very 'noisy' digital world so getting students to engage with the product is our biggest challenge. Firsthand have been supportive is supplying promotional materials which has been useful.
"Global Coaching Platform"
Pros: We have been using Firsthand for more than 3 years. It allows our students to talk with coaches all over the world for industry knowledge, mock interview and beyond.
Cons: We hope the popular coach can open more coaching slots.
"Not an employee anymore"
Overall: It was great but I'm no longer working with it so I don't know how it's working now.
Pros: I appreciated the work that the firsthand team provided and their customer service skills
Cons: It was still not as customizable as we needed at the time
"Great product and team!"
Overall: Great team with a great product, innovative ideas, clever tech, and great user experience.
Pros: Firsthand is a great product that is easy for students and alumni to use and complements our on-campus offering. What I most like is how the innovative team are always looking to make improvements to the existing platform, as well as release new features.
Cons: I can't think of anything! Some of the pain points we had in the past have been solved, for example, we now have the ability to manage our own credits from within the platform.
"Firsthand has made my job easier!"
Pros: Firsthand helped make my job easier by allowing us to pair my program mentees and mentors in a simple way. Although my company uses Firsthand a little differently than most companies do, the Firsthand team was all ears and made small changes so the platform could be even more beneficial to us.
Cons: Some new features do not always work the first time around and updates/changes are not always done in a timely manner.
"Firsthand Review"
Pros: The thing that I like most about this product/software is the groups function. I think it provides a space for students that might be nervous about connecting one on one to start and then transition to the one on one interaction. It is also really nice for affinity groups on campus.
Cons: The part of the product/software that i like the least would have to be the reporting function. There is not a lot of options.
"FIrstHand for Mentoring "
Pros: We use FirstHand to administer all of our mentorship programs between students and alumni and it works perfectly. Super easy to set up access and to track engagement.
Cons: the videos on the plarform are a bit dated
"Love Firsthand!"
Overall: I'm still fairly new to using Firsthand but love it so far! Using the software is easy and customer service/support is amazing! [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN] has been extremely helpful in getting me set-up as an administrator and explaining all the different features. The whole Firsthand team is always willing to hold a private training session and give you their undivided attention. Very much appreciated!
Pros: I like how the software is simple and easy to use/navigate whether you are an administrator, student or alumni.
Cons: I have no complaints about the software.
"Students love Firsthand"
Overall: Students need to conduct a career conversation with an alumni of our university. Students can select the mentors based on their major, industry or job title. The software does a great job matching mentors with students based on student interests. Many students say this project is among the best they have ever completed while college. Being able to speak with someone in a position that they want to be in is invaluable to their growth. The advice provided is highly valued by students.
Pros: The software id easy to use and being able to link it to LinkedIn makes signing up very easy.
Cons: The only Con is on our end. We need more alumni mentors in our system.
"Great career services tool for students and alumni"
Overall: Super tool, good feedback from users, who are extremely satisfied about using the tool.
Pros: Easy to use, it's not complicated to use. It's also great that it has the feeling of an RSM Erasmus University tool
Cons: It's kind of hard to motivate students to use the tool. When they use it they are very satisfied! Users need to go through 'all' settings to ensure the best use, some of them like 'time zone' are beneficial but easy to forget
"A great platform to connect alumni, students and staff"
Pros: A customized alternative to LinkedIn that connects a global network.
Cons: Some functions are still not as comprehensive as LinkedIn.