I will admit that I don't have much of a background in the business job search, so most of your site content is relatively foreign to me. That's okay, though. I'm not who you're targeting! That being the case, a good deal of my critique will be focusing on your website design and the flow of navigation and design on your site. Let's get started!
Your site color scheme and design work very well. The consistency of design between pages is especially good.
Upon first navigating to your site, the title "U-WIG" may be a little bit disorienting if the user doesn't read farther into the page, for a couple of reasons:
In 1984 Charles Murray published a book called Losing Ground, which popularized the term underclass. This was far from the first time the idea of a group of people below or outside the class structure was discussed. Karl Marx referred to a group he called the lumpenproletariat. He described this group as
This scum of the depraved elements of all classes ... decayed roués, vagabonds, discharged soldiers, discharged jailbirds, escaped galley slaves, swindlers, mountebanks, lazzaroni, pickpockets, tricksters, gamblers, brothel keepers, tinkers, beggars, the dangerous class, the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society."
Many other terms have been used to "describe a section of society which is seen to exist within and yet at the base of the working class."
Assuredly, this is not the first impression you want to give to your audience! In fact, your website's main "thesis" insists that women have a first-class place in the business world! I think the word "undergraduate" would serve your purposes better.
- Also, "Industrial" has a connotation of being the segment of the economy concerned with production and manufacturing. I know that "industry" is also a term used inside the business world to refer to itself, but the scope of that particular meaning may not include your young professional target demographic. "Internship" is one word that will still work with your acronym that I could come up with.
Remember that it is completely your choice as to what to call your website, but those were just two things that jumped out at me.
Sub-Headlines
I would like to add that you follow up your site title on the front page with a more directly-stated description of your site in the sub-headline. That is a very good strategy, as it clarifies the intent of your website in a concise and clear way. In fact, having a sub-headline that describes each section of content in your site in a similar way may be beneficial. The sub-headlines on some of your pages seems a little confusing or irrelevant. For example, "How many ping pong balls fit in a 747?" under "Interview Prep" may leave someone who has never been asked such a question in an interview scratching her head. If you are going to put something in a site sub-headline, it should be important enough to be mentioned at least one more time on that page. Even putting a small note about riddle questions in interviews would make this subheadline instantly more relevant.
Graphics
I enjoy your use of graphics on the site, and your decision to unify the theme of your graphics with Catherine Harrell's work is a nice touch. One thing I might note, though, is that all of your graphics link to the images themselves; when you click on a graphic, it just opens up that image in the window, which isn't useful at all. I would either remove those links, or make them point to more relevant destinations. For example, on your "Finance" page, it seems logical for the logos along the left side to directly link to those companies' websites.
Navigation
Your site could use a little work in terms of navigation. Ideally, your site title should be shown on all pages of the site, and you should be able to link to any of the sections on the site (and the front page) from any page. This is best achieved through the use of a constant navigation sidebar like you have used on your main page displayed in the same place on every page. As it is right now, we have to rely on the browser's back button to get back to the front page - but what if someone enters one section of your site from a search engine and can't navigate to another part of the site by clicking "back"? They won't have any way of accessing any other information on your site!
"Issues"
The site section "Issues" is very vaguely-named. There's no way of knowing what "issues" means in the context of the main page of the site. A more specific name would be helpful in this case. As it stands, the "Issues" page seems to be a bit of a miscellaneous bin of advice and resources for internship-seekers. The page should either develop a more unified theme, or it should be divided into relevant sub-issues.
Sidebars
The sidebar of any page should hold content that is relevant for all parts of that page. On the "Issues" page, for example, the sidebar holds some links that would be better-suited for being under the headings for "housing" and "transportation." Those hyperlinks are potentially useful, and they deserve to be placed under the heading where people seeking them would expect to find them. I would recommend a navigation bar in place of these on the side of each page, as I mentioned earlier.
Use of Video
Your use of YouTube resources is great! They are good, relevant sources of information for your site. My only concern is that it's difficult to determine the content of a video before watching it. It would be nice if I could read a small caption or a title next to the video to determine if I actually want to watch it.
Content Separation
Make sure that your content, if it should be separated into sections, is clearly separated. On your "Issues" page you do a good job with this, putting sub-headers in bold face. It would be helpful if the sections were divided similarly on your "Industrial Alternatives" and "Interview Prep" pages, though.
Site Content
Your site content is still relatively small, but I realize that it is very much a work in progress. Just a few notes... As you go, consider who your audience is. Do they already know a good deal about the business world and its lingo? For example, would you anticipate a user who is simply curious about what consulting is and would like to learn about what the field even is? If you would like to include this group of people, you could create a page that basically answers the question "what is investment banking/consulting/finance, etc.?"
I am also naturally suspicious of claims that don't have references. For example, your opening note about sexism in the workplace reads as follows:
Rumor has it that New York's male McKinseyites used to frequent a strip club called Scores when they did deals in the '80s.
This is true.
It leaves it at that, and now I wonder how you know it's true. Getting a firsthand quote from someone or a pointer to an article about this would be nice. It is a question of ethos, really. Skeptics may dislike unsupported statements like this. Be careful with pointing out claims like this one (especially rumors) as "true" without showing that it's true in some way or another. Adding some reference links or quotes will only enhance the ethos of your website and boost your site's effectiveness.
Overall, your site is well on its way to being an awesome place for undergraduate women to find information on summer jobs. Keep up the good work, because I'll be telling my friends who are interested in such work about U-WIG! Feel free to let me know if you have any questions!
