The case for Colleges and Universities to prioritize intentional career services during and beyond the COVID-19 crisis
Career Services Staff from around the country at a Think Tank in 2019 on Reimagining Employer Relations

The case for Colleges and Universities to prioritize intentional career services during and beyond the COVID-19 crisis

by Jeremy Podany, CEO, The Career Leadership Collective

It is almost cliché to keep opening my messages with ‘these are certainly unprecedented times…’, and yet, they are. I write this with the COVID-19 crisis front of mind, but also with an eye toward what matters to students and therefore, universities, beyond our current state of affairs.

This is an open letter to college and university decision-makers, specifically Presidents, Provosts, Deans, Enrollment leaders, Marketing leaders, Development & Alumni Affairs leaders, and Faculty, in order to encourage you about why and how to prioritize intentional career services for your students.

My Hope

As you navigate your own grief and manage constant change alongside the incredibly complex upcoming decisions between competing priorities, please know that my posture in writing this is one of tremendous belief and support in higher education leaders. I have worked in or for higher education for over 20 years and in the last 3 years, my organization has worked with over 700 college and universities to expand Career Services capacity into the broader campus ecosystem. Our practice is to come alongside and provide custom and innovative solutions. I have no time or admiration for outsiders who are in the practice of slinging innovation guilt upon higher education from ‘the cheap seats,’ having not stood in the trenches. That being said, while I have recently seen incredible efforts created by career leaders around the country through the crisis, I am concerned by the lack of emphasis on career services by upper administrators in the crisis to date.

As the CEO of multiple enterprises, I very much understand the pain of pivoting, financial loss, and difficult staffing and structural decisions, so please know that I do not write this with a heavy hand, but rather with a spirit of hope and with the goal of providing practical insights. Career Services, well executed, can be truly magnetic for students and critical to your mission.

Career Services can:

  • bolster your prospective student recruitment efforts
  • help you retain more students
  • increase your alumni affinity
  • provide new revenue streams
  • strengthen your commitment to social mobility
  • enhance the value of your educational offerings

Your Students Demand Intentional Career Support

Much has been written in the last decade about the new and innovative era of career development in higher education. Since the last recession, the field has made great strides toward initiatives such as scaling career education for every student, integrated career communities, classroom to career integration, diverse industry connections, serving the underserved, the future of work, and more. It has been a decade of growth and prosperity in many ways, but now we find ourselves dealing with a global crisis that has so far yielded a troubling jobs and internships economy for college students at every level, among many other challenges to say the least. So, let us not forget what the student and family ‘consumers’ of higher education taught us after the great recession that began in 2008: Return on investment matters to their decisions and their loyalties.

Fortunately, higher education has had adequate time to get beyond ROI as an overly simplistic monetary transaction that yields a job. A more thoughtful philosophy about how to define and operationalize the concept of return on investment has emerged. But we need to lead the narrative through actions. It has certainly become more dimensional than the narrow narrative about ‘trade-school’ training. We know it cannot be built on a statement like, ‘learn for the sake of learning and of course you’ll be successful.' And, it must involve more data than the graduates first job/destination after graduation, because frankly, the mission of higher education is much bigger than a student’s first job.

You are probably well aware of that important 2014 alumni data from the Gallup-Purdue Index Report that shows a five to eight times greater satisfaction with institutions when faculty and staff display care about a students’ future. Soon to publish, the 2019 National Alumni Career Mobility (NACM) Survey shows significant increases in alumni affinity, up to 20 percentage points, among 2009 alumni that said they received career advice during their time on campus. And, approximately the same percentage point increase shows in alumni affinity when their institution connected them to employers. Further, we see from that 2019 NACM Survey, the top reason why alumni initially chose an institution: Career Success, with number two being that it was required for their career aspirations.

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The 5 reasons Career Services needs to be a priority

Please allow me to be more specific about the case for career services as a priority. I should caveat this by saying that I am not arguing that your current career center should stay the same through this crisis; I am not arguing for you to keep everything intact, as scary as that may sound to some reading this. In fact, it might be a great time to transform your career services operation and ensure mission synchronization and a strategic focus on these items. I argue that the five items that follow are critical priorities to current and prospective students and their families (your buyers, if you will), before, during, and after their experience on your campus.

If maximized, your Career Services priorities will positively impact the following:

1. Career Services can help increase enrollment

Ask any admissions counselor or enrollment leader what the two things are that parents want to know the most, and the answer is: finances and futures. I implore you to maximize your enrollment campaigns with big career data in ways that speak to your institutional mission, alumni career success stories, and specific career initiatives on your campus. The University of Miami Toppel Career Center has embedded career traditions into university traditions like welcome week, admissions tours, and awards faculty, staff, alumni, and employers. The Award winning UCONN Career Center showcases their ‘Career Everywhere’ movement that involves 100+ faculty and staff career champions. Loyola Marymount has Career Outcomes data on the university homepage. You cannot afford to bury career learning or career success. Gone are the days when, during an Admissions visit, you can answer a parent’s question about how you help with careers, by simply saying, ‘we have a career center,’ or ‘our placement rate is 90+%.’ It is no longer enough. (By the way, your first destination job data is going to be in the gutter for a couple years, so I highly recommend you seek broader alumni big data on careers).

Especially during an economic downturn, families want to know specifically how you will help with their students’ future career; they want to know they have joined a community of success where hundreds of diverse companies hire your graduates regularly, where a robust alumni network is ready to engage with them about their future, and where you show them how you are intentional about career preparation. Don’t be vague. They want specifics.

Key question: How can you more thoughtfully embed specific career initiatives, big career data, and student success stories into your enrollment marketing materials, websites, and campaigns?


2. Career Services is key in preparing students for their future

Here is the focus you DON’T want your career services story to be:

  • How many resume appointments occurred?
  • How many students came to a career fair?
  • What was the overall satisfaction with career advising appointments?
  • What is the list of services provided by the career center?

Those are nice inputs; but they are not outcomes. People don’t buy features, they buy benefits (thank you, Antonio Neves).

Here is the focus you DO want for your Career Services approach: A thorough career preparation ‘curriculum’ that is integrated into the co-curricular and the classroom experience. I don’t mean courses and actual credit hours, though some campuses do have credit-bearing career courses. I mean a clear and specific career exploration, educational and development plan for every single student on campus.

Why? Because if you leave career development to chance, they may take their pursuits to another campus. Because as an institution it is your mission to prepare students for a robust future, and intentionality about their future matters. Bennington College has been very intentional about work-integrated learning, Rutgers engages 70% of students through industry career clusters, Beloit College has a sophisticated Channels Program that interfaces with their academic programs. These are not ‘come and see us’ models of engagement. They are scripting the critical pathways toward helping students navigate their future. These are university-wide initiatives that integrate into the broader ecosystem of the campus; they are magnetic for students, and they ensure career readiness. 

We have asked multiple campus leaders this question over the last three years: With regard to their career development, what do you believe every student should accomplish prior to graduating?

Here are the top 6 most common results:

1.    Every student should create (and iterate regularly on) a career plan

2.    Every student should engage in thoughtful career reflection about their degree and aspirations

3.    Every student should have a hands-on career experience

4.    Every student should grow in specific success competencies that will help their future

5.    Every student should be able to articulate their skills and experiences to potential employers and/or graduate schools

6.    Every student should have the knowledge of how to launch a job search in their field of study or area of interest.

Key question: How can you showcase both the career readiness engagements you believe every student should receive and your intentional career preparation initiatives?


3. Career Services can help to increase revenue for your campus

Career Services staff know hundreds of companies and have the ability to create revenue streams that are beneficial for students and employers. Further, they can assist in crafting donor wish lists, performing gap analysis of corporate engagements, stewarding donor relationships, and creating multi-faceted value offers to prospective donors.

Given the increasing volume of multi-million dollar gifts and the large volume of six figure gifts that have been given to career services and/or meaningful work initiatives in recent years (Carthage College, University of Oregon, Hope College, University of Miami, Georgia State University, Dennison, and many more) we have seen an increased appetite for donors to give toward career-related initiatives. Your institution should have a ready-made wish list of donation opportunities to give toward the cause of career. I think you will find that if you put career related giving on your top five ask-list, it will perform quite well among your donors.

This doesn’t mean naming a career center or building a new career office, though it can. It does mean that you can get clear on your goals and beliefs and any needed strategic career initiatives you see to help your mission. Many institutions want to integrate these goals with existing academic initiative, student scholarship funding pursuits, and other important items you are already pursuing. 

Key question: What is your specific plan to assist with and/or lead revenue generation in the corporate relations space and how can you have a wish list for donors to give to meaningful career preparation?


4. Career Services can enliven alumni affinity

The work of Career Services increases alumni affinity. Back to the data we mentioned at the outset of this article:

  • Alumni affinity is five to eight times greater when faculty actively care about a students’ future (Gallup-Purdue Index, 2014)
  • Alumni Affinity goes up significantly when the alumni said they received career advice when on campus (NACM 2019)
  • Alumni Affinity goes up significantly when alumni say their institution helped them to interact with employers (NACM 2019)

Furthermore, Career Services staff interact with almost every university stakeholder, prospective and current students and families, faculty, employers and very often, with alumni. Your alumni represent their companies at career events, they host job treks, they give back through career panels in courses, and much more. Alumni to student career mentoring platforms are increasingly popular. Intentional stewardship of your alumni is happening through career services staff and alumni connections can provide a priceless benefit to your overall brand and the common narrative about your career success culture.

Key Question: How can you increasingly engage and nurture alumni relationships through your Career Services efforts?


5. Career Services can help with both retention and social mobility

If you have yet to look at how your career services student engagement data dovetails with your retention data, you might consider mashing those together in your data warehouse to look for trends. Research from recent publications such as Grit (Duckworth, 2016) and Designing your Life (Burnett & Evans, 2016), and the timeless Now Discover Your Strengths (Buckingham & Clifton, 2001), all point to how the design and discovery process, and the intentional pursuit of life passion yields perseverance and satisfaction in one’s career. Career Staff see this up close regularly.

Furthermore, career staff have an incredible influence on broadening and enriching the lives of first-generation colleges students and underrepresented populations, helping them step up in social mobility through career reflection, research, and experiences.

Key question: what are your retention and social mobility goals, and how might you leverage your career services staff to assist?


In Summary

As you explore these topics and implications for your campus, I encourage you to talk with your students and families. Learn from them. Build your future based on their feedback. Thoughtfully craft new career initiatives and help them see the direct correlations between campus activities, the classroom, and career pursuits. They want high quality and intentional career support. Give to them, in accordance with your mission and values.

You cannot leave student career development to chance. In 2008 and 2009 parents and students wanted more than ever to hear specifics about how the university was helping with their career pursuits. We put up smoke and mirrors the best we could. But now they know better, and now we know better. Let's get the priority of career services right through this crisis, for the sake of student futures.

Jeremy Podany is the Founder and CEO of The Career Leadership Collective.  Jeremy is an innovation, leadership, and organizational growth connoisseur with unique expertise on the confluence of university career services, systems-thinking, leadership, and organizational growth. Jeremy enjoyed nearly 20 years working inside higher education in career services and corporate education and has helped build six unique start-ups inside and outside of universities. His inventions and consulting solutions have systemically helped hundreds of thousands of college students with career education and mobility. Jeremy regularly writes, speaks, trains, and consults for universities, businesses, and tech start-ups. His specialty involves helping university upper administrators to weave career education into the fabric of the campus and maximize results. Jeremy has a BA in English Education from Western Michigan University, and a Masters in Higher Education Administration from Indiana University. Jeremy lives in Fort Collins, Colorado with his wife and four children. He loves college basketball and driving thru, hiking in, or gazing at the Rocky Mountains.

Margie Whiteleather

Chief of Staff for Jeff Selingo | Project management in higher ed

4 年

This is excellent. It would be interesting to show what the digital presence (website & social media) of such a career services function would look like, both on the career services department’s website and on the websites and social content of key partners across the university.

Marie Parziale (Johs)

Best Selling Author - Coach - Relationship Builder

4 年

Thanks for sharing your insights, Jeremy! Well said and a great foundation of thought to build on.

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Kathryn “Kat” Jackson, M.Ed. CMCS

Kellogg Career Services Director for Working Professionals | People leader managing distributed teams anchored on building a culture of care | Virtual #CareerCoach | Designing Thinking Trained at Stanford U.

4 年

Jeremy, this post serves as ready-to-go talking points for all of us having resource allocation conversations around career services. Thank you! Now that I am working in alumni career services in development, spreading the word about the importance of recognizing the campus career ecosystem (and how it extends BEYOND campus really) has become my daily practice!

Diane Marin, ACC

Connector | Community Builder | Career Coach

4 年

Well said Jeremy!

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Kirsten Gauthier-Newbury, MS, CMCS

Career Coach | Job Seeker Champion

4 年

You speak with urgency, clarity and care about such an important issue for all colleges and universities, and more importantly, our students. Thank you for this thoughtful blueprint of priorities as we move forward!

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