Ryan Parks

Greetings Career Services Professionals!

I am fairly new Career Services professional, so am excited about networking and learning from seasoned Career Services professionals.  

I work as a Career and Student Services Coordinator at my university, but spend a lot of my time doing the career services/career development aspect of my role.  Mainly, because currently I'm the only one in the department.  I work in a small department, so at the moment it's just me as the Career Development specialist.  Any suggestions from your experiences on how you maximized empowering students and graduates with thinking about their career early on… >>>

How's everything going Christina?  I haven't heard from you. 

I agree!  Great meeting you Christina!  Is this your first time taking classes through Max Knowledge?  I am fairly new to the courses, but have definitely been learning a lot.  I started in my Career Services role in June, so I am the process of learning more effective ways to make our Career Services department more welcoming, and more in use by students and graduates.  I am the only Career Services representative, so I literally have been managerial work, as well as my own role as Career & Student Services Coordinator.

How have you helped make your department more effective?… >>>

Hi Christina!

Great to meet you.  What led you to want to take a Career Services course?  I've only taken the CS101 course and it was really helpful.  I'm excited about applying all that I learned within my role.  

What type of setting do you work in?  Mine is a small department, but we have a lot of office space.  I'm planning on what types of informal career development workshops I can host in the Career Services department since I think students and graduates would be more open to coming to the department office vs.  participating in an event… >>>

Greetings,

I also agree with your comments.  I have been working in higer education for several years now, however, recently started a new role as a Career Services Coordinator  I am currently the only Career Services person in my department, so I have a lot of responsibility.  The CS101 course really helped me with ideas on how to provide more professonal and career development resources for our students and graduates, as well as prospective students. 

My wish list is that my university would hire another Career Services person, so that I can focus more on developing and establishing employer relationships,… >>>

Reply to Michele Brinn's post: 

I haven't tried texting students yet, but I will try that this week.  I usually email and call, but at times, I don't get the best responses from calls.  With social media and technology these days, students and busy graduates seem to be on their phones a lot, so texting seems like a more efficient way to get a hold of someone.  

What type of texting service do you use when reaching out to students or graduates?  I mainly need to reach out to individuals, so that Career Services can schedule an appointment… >>>

Hi Tom,

Great question!  On my campus, we had one of our lead faculty members share with the staff about cultural sensitivity.  It was a 1 hour long presentation about being sensitive to varous cultures, students' needs/concerns, and openly listening to students.  

We touched on listening skills and even did an exercise that gave each staff member the opportunity to test their listening skills. 

What type of university and/or college do you work for?

Regards,

Ryan N. Parks

Thanks Debra!

How's everything going wth your Career Services department?  I've been taking the CS101 class and it's been really helpful.  The information about how to effectively assist students and graduates on resume writing, job searching, and how to begin the resume writing process, have been insightful for me.  I've slowly started applying what I've been learning.  

Since I'm the only Career and Student Services Coordinator in the Career Services department, it's been forcing me to get out of my comfort zone.  I work at a for-profit school, so the focus at my university lately has been on placement.… >>>

Hi Debra, 

You're welcome!  THank you for cheering me on. I wish you all the best in your role as well.  I'm sure we can definitely be resourves for one another.  I've started taking the CS101 course and so far it's been really good.  It's the one about setting up an Effective Career Services Department.  Have you taken that course yet?  Sor far, it's been really helpfuly for me because I've been able to identify things that my CAreer Services Department has already implemented and would be good to implement.  

Since our campus is so new, there's not a… >>>