Get Premium through your university
Activate the Premium seat your university has paid for, or request one from your careers team, and see what happens when that seat ends.
Sign up to FirstResume through your university and you never buy Premium yourself. Your university holds a set of seats and hands them out, which is why your sidebar shows Activate account or Request Upgrade where other people get an upgrade button.
Your account row in the profile menu reads something like "HKU · Premium" rather than "Personal · Free Plan". Refer & Earn and the offers in the Redemption Center are hidden, since your premium comes out of the university's contract. Which of the two sidebar buttons you get depends on whether a seat is already waiting with your name on it.
Activate a seat that is waiting
Your careers team may have listed your email address before you ever signed up.
- Press Activate account in the sidebar.
- The dialog reads "You have a premium seat available. Activate your account to unlock premium features." Press Activate account again.
- A toast confirms "Your account is now activated" and the premium features open.
Come back later and the same dialog reads Your account is activated, with the date your access runs to.
Request a seat
No seat waiting means asking for one from inside the app.
- Press Request Upgrade in the sidebar.
- Write something in the box marked "Leave a message for your administrator. (Optional)". A line about the jobs you are applying for is enough.
- Press Send, or Cancel to close without sending.
The dialog then reads Request Sent. Only one request can be open at a time, so pressing the button again shows you that same message rather than sending a second one. Your careers team reviews requests on their side; if nothing has changed, ask them directly. Seats tend to go out in batches, so a friend having Premium when you do not is a reason to send a request rather than to wait.
Starting and ending
Universities often set seats to begin on a date, such as the start of term. Until then the dialog reads Your {tier} access is scheduled with "It starts automatically on {date}. Nothing to do until then."
Open Settings on Subscription to see the whole picture.
Your current plan carries a Granted pill once the seat is live, or Scheduled before it starts. A scheduled plan row names the tier your organisation granted you and when it begins, an access row gives the end date, and Billing History stays at "No invoices yet." since a granted seat is never billed to you.
When that end date passes, your account moves to Starter (free). You keep the account and everything in it, under the Starter limits of 10 tracked applications and 20 jobs per search. If your university sets up another seat, activate or request it the same way.
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