Performance is the Key To Career Success

Understanding that the great majority of college and university students are attending with the objective of obtaining suitable employment, as a part-time professor with 20+ years experience in career development, performance enhancement training, and specialized recruitment services (and an employer), I feel that it is important to integrate some level of career-related content into the various courses that I teach. I tell my students that an employment vacancy represents a problem that the employer needs to contend with, and that any person hired needs to be the SOLUTION. Well beyond simply filling the role, what employers really want is for hired candidates to PERFORM, to sustain performance over time, and to optimally EXCEED performance expectations. 

It would be foolhardy to believe that a post secondary degree or diploma ensures adequate performance capability. We have all seen highly educated people who do not perform, even in academia. While a completed education shows that the student has a foundation of relevant knowledge, specific technical skills and, hopefully, various productivity traits, there is so much more to equipping them with the skills that will help them to obtain a job, to perform, and to build a progressive career. Career programs need to go far beyond simply “how to write a resume and how to respond to job postings”. When we help students to be more aware of, and further develop, their performance-relevant technical and non-technical skills, and then how to identify and effectively engage employers who are aligned with their values, skills and ambitions, we will be able to build a stronger bridge that will satisfy the desires of both our graduates and their potential employers.