Did Your College HELP You Launch Your Career?

First Year Grad Experience! It's a Career & Professional Development Program that Offers Comprehensive Job Search and Career Management Advice to Recent Graduates!

If you were like most college grads -- chances are --your only visit to the career center happened in the weeks before you graduated. More than likely you stopped in to get some immediate help on constructing or modifying your resume.

This is one of the biggest problems career center professionals face! In fact, research by the Career Advisory Board (CAB) showed that 77.4 percent of career center directors felt their biggest problem (other than staffing and budgets) is getting students to understand what it takes to explore career opportunities and learn how to manage their job search.

When you think about it, the career center is just another club on campus. They have to compete for the mind-share of students with every other club, athletic, and social event. With a limited budget to reach an audience that is not preoccupied with exploring how to launch and lead a successful career, most career centers touch a minority of the students. 

This comes at a significant cost to alumni associations!

Research by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development surveyed graduates and found that 58 percent of the grads felt their college did not do enough to help them prepare for their first professional job search. Stop and think about this for a moment. It's going to be very hard to engage this HUGE group of new alumni, perhaps for decades!

Is this the career centers’ fault? I don’t think so! 

With limited funding and staff provided by the administration, career centers do their best to support the students who are proactively taking ownership of their careers. They can’t be of much help to the over 61 percent of students (NACE) who either NEVER visit the career center, or only visit once or twice. (In my book, Change It! Create a Career Centered College Culture, I suggest the responsibility sits with the President’s Cabinet and Board)

Regardless, this situation still leaves 58 percent of recent graduates feeling like their alma mater let them down on their number one priority in life – to launch and lead a successful career.

• Could that be a reason why recent graduates and young alumni don’t engage in alumni association events and activities?
• Do you think more young alumni would contribute to the college funding needs if their college supported their career aspirations immediately upon graduation?
• Did this affect your first decade relationship with your alumni association? Are you among the 58 percent that graduated from your alma mater?

A growing number of alumni associations are recognizing the opportunity to engage and involve graduates by offering a comprehensive post-graduation support system. 

Development officers are recognizing they have to..

"GIVE before they GET"

Adopt a First Year Grad Experience career and professional development program!

Acting on research on how-- over solicitation for contributions --is turning off recent grads, (as many as 16 percent of recent grads OPT-OUT of alumni associations' email lists because of their frequent requests for contributions – see AlumniAccess exhaustive study) colleges are recognizing they need to do something to support career success.

You don’t have to look far to find a precedent for this idea.

Your alma mater (or college) probably has a First Year Experience (FYE) program designed to help freshman better acclimate to the enormous personal, academic and intellectual changes they will experience during their first year of college. The FYE program has been recognized for increasing retention, graduation rates and helping students manage the transition with fewer issues. As a result, the program is supported by staff and budgets, and it is embedded into the curriculum, organization, and culture of the college.  It offers a tremendous payoff in continued tuition and room and board payments!

Now let's fast forward to grads first year out of college!

Even today the vast majority of colleges do not have a proactive, comprehensive program for recent graduates like they do for freshman students. There is no support once they leave campus from either the career center or alumni association. Based on current practices-- colleges expect graduates to not only learn the fundamental skills they will need to find a job, but also the knowledge on how to keep their jobs and excel in their careers --on their own! There is no guidance on how to handle their finances and manage the stresses of supporting themselves. As a result, all recent grads struggle with the campus to corporate transition. They will inevitably make career and personal mistakes that could easily have been avoided.

There is plenty of research to support the NEED to implement a First Year Grad Experience program:

1. AfterCollege research shows 83 percent of graduates will not have a job lined up by graduation day.
2. National Association of Colleges and Employers research shows the average grad will take nearly 8 months to land a job.
3. Barnes and Noble’s survey found that 66 percent of students were concerned about having the skills necessary to perform their jobs well.
4. Addeco poll showed that 71 percent of graduates would have done something differently to prepare for their careers.
5. Gallup/Strada research showed only 18 percent of grads reached back to the career center for support after they graduated.

Its clear graduates do not have the confidence to start their careers and are IGNORED by their alma mater. This situation gives the alumni association an enormous opportunity to step in and show their commitment to helping graduates launch and lead successful careers.

The payoffs will be great! Your alma mater (college) will see INCREASED:

• engagement and participation in events.
• career success that will lead to increased contributions.
• alumni satisfaction.

Richard Bolles, author of the book, What’s The Color of Your Parachute? once said, “A working alum is a giving alum!”

I encourage you to put in your alumni association's "suggestion box" that they adopt a First Year Grad Experience program!

What do you think? 

How different would your first year out of college have been if your alma mater provided a comprehensive post-graduation career and professional development program? What kind of events, curriculum and activities do you think should be a part of a First Year Grad Experience program?

Additional articles you may find interesting: 

1. Should College Board of Trustees and President’s Council be held Accountable for Graduate Under/Unemployment?
2. McKinsey Report Confirms – Grads Not Ready for the Marketplace
3. Would Marcus Lemonis of The Profit Pass on Investing in Your Alma Mater or the College For Which You Work?
4. College Scorecard Is a Win for Consumers & Career Centers!
5. College Presidents & Boards of Trustees: Are You Listening to Your Customers?
6. Who Is The Customer At Your College? Students or Employers that Hire Them?
7. Rebranding Alumni Relations to Focus on Careers
8. Parents! There Is Something More Important Than SAT and ACT Scores!
9. College Sports Are Stealing Your Career Center’s Budget!
10. The Coming Jobs War

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