When passion and careers don't yet match, these advisers open new doors

Of all the people working at Grinnell College's Center for Careers, Life & Service, Megan Crawford has an especially intriguing job. Her focus: the anxieties of first-year students who don't yet have a career strategy -- but need to start somewhere.

Still haven't declared a major? Dissatisfied with the pre-med track and unsure how to regroup? As Grinnell's director of advising and exploration, Crawford knows how to make such jitters fade away. For students who truly don't know where to begin, Crawford sometimes pulls out a pack of 80 yellow cards, each carrying a single keyword such as Justice, Knowledge or Simplicity. Newcomers define their priorities -- and Crawford gains early insights into those students' likely goals.

In an impatient world, Crawford brings patience back into the picture. Earlier this month, I met with her and three colleagues (Stephanie Burrows, Kirsten Fix and Kelly Guilbeau) to learn why Grinnell directs so much energy toward this particular segment of students, when most career centers prefer to focus on well-prepared juniors and seniors who are ready to bring their job hunts to a successful finish. Their answers were both logical and provocative.

The ultimate goal, Crawford explained, is to provide mainstream help in hunting for internships, setting up job interviews and so on. Yet Grinnell's "exploration" team builds in extra time for a more reflective start, on the belief that the common-sense details of "how" can't be rushed until the deeper dimensions of "what" and "why" become clear. If students need a year or more to get acquainted with different professional sub-worlds (government, media, finance, etc.) and keep cycling through possibilities until something clicks, that's okay.

Taking longer to settle on a career plan has become controversial, with some experts urging students to settle on a college major at age 16 -- well before completing high school. Students who quickly commit to a fixed plan are more likely to flow straight from college to a high-paying job, the argument goes.

The counter-argument, of course, is that most people in their late teens have only a hazy idea of all the pathways open to them. Take longer to choose, and the odds of a more satisfying long-term fit can improve, say many campus leaders at liberal-arts colleges. Yet if the genial bewilderment of freshman year never turns into anything more substantial than senior-year indecision and panic, nobody benefits.

Five years ago, Crawford's job didn't exist. Then Grinnell decided to offer at least one session with a career counselor to each of its approximately 450 freshmen-- no matter how uncertain students might be about their post-college destiny. The program is "still in its infancy," says Mark Peltz, head of Grinnell's career center. Even so, it has grown to the point that Crawford now leads a team of four full-time exploration advisers, who aim for at least three meetings a year with freshmen.

Grinnell students now are making "more intentional decisions" about how to spend the summer after their freshman year, Crawford says. "There aren't as many falling through the cracks." Instead students are more likely to seek out internships in fields with long-term career potential -- such as human-rights law -- even if they hadn't known much about such specialties when they arrived on campus.

In Grinnell's new model, students who spend years rambling through career possibilities still have time to build valuable connections in their chosen field. At that stage, Crawford and colleagues switch from big-picture conversations to a lot of hands-on tactical coaching. One Grinnell tip-sheet offers 13 ways of asking for advice during an informational interview. Another underscores the importance of including a "clear ask" near the top of an email to an alumni contact.

Simple stuff, but surprisingly scarce knowledge. As a 2016 Gallup-Purdue survey found, only 61% of recent college graduates acknowledge ever visiting their campus career center during their undergraduate days. Meanwhile, only 43% rated their career center as helpful or very helpful. The implication: getting students en masse into the career center freshman year may seem odd, but the consequences of doing nothing can be downright unpleasant.