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Effectively Implementing Career Development Workshops Within the Classrooms

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 in their academic career?

I started at my current university 4 months ago, so prior to me starting, the university didn't have a permanent person hosting any type of ongoing career development type workshops for students and graduates.  I was amazed because I come from a background that focused a lot on student engagement, so not having something in place, especially for career services was something I've had to implement.  Any suggestions on the types of workshops I could collaborate with faculty on to generate buy-in for me faciliating a career development workshop within the classroom vs. outside of class times?

I've found that most of our students participate in workshops or any type of event when it's within their class time vs. them having to come back to school to participate.  I think it's important early on to set the tone that students need to meet with a Career Services professional early on in their academic career vs. right when they graduate.  

Any tips or advice on how to effectively talk with faculty/staff to get buy-in on the importance of allowing career services to come into the classrooms occassionally to do career development workshops for the students/graduates?  

Thanks everyone for sharing from your experiences!  As a new Career Services professional, any advice shared would be greatly appreciated.

Regards,

Ryan N. Parks

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryannparks

 

 

Hi Ryan!  

 

I'm still relatively new in our Career Services center, too.  I'm working through some workshop ideas myself and am interested in "hearing" what workshops have been offered at other insitutions.  I would love to network with you so we can grow our departments to be powerhouses! :-)

Hi Patty,

Welcome to the Career Services profession.  Thank you so much for your response Patty.  I was starting to wonder if anyone was reading my posts because I hadn't received any responses.  I'm so glad you responded and have reached out.  I would love to connect and network with you.  My work email is rparks@stratford.edu

The university I work at is fairly new as compared to our other campuses, so I'm actually the first FT Career Services person they've hired.  My title is actually Career and Student Services Coordinator, so I have dual roles, which sometimes can be much.  I find myself really enjoying the career development aspect and helping students think about their futures.

I've facilitated a Career Development Series workshop where I go into the classrooms for about an hour and discuss topics such as:

- Career vs. Job

- Resume writing tips

- Cover letter

- Interviewing skills, etc.

I haven't faciliated a specific workshop like a resume writing, LinkedIn, or job search workshop, which honestly, is one of my goals this year.  I've been the only one in my department, so I was a little limited because we didn't have a lot of manpower.  Now that I'm more competent and familar with the culture of my students and graduates, I've been able to implement more of these types of workshops. 

Placement has been a big thing with us since we're a for-profit university.  Sometimes I find myself wanting to focus more on the coaching, development, and career goal setting with students, so I've had to get myself more organized and knowledgeable on making sure that students and graduates are prepared early on in their academic career. 

What about you?  Any professional goals you have this year or things you would like to do?

Regards,

Ryan N. Parks

Reply to Ryan Parks's post:

 

I'm also at a for-profit college, only in much colder upstate NY, so I completely understand the importance of placement.  We have two campuses, with a Career Services Coordinator at each one and we have implemented an assistant role within each office, which is nice.  It sounds like we're doing similar things with classroom visits, etc.  

Since starting in career services, I've started making suggestions and changes to things that, I saw as an instructor previously, needed to be either updated or eliminated.  My big goal for the upcoming year is to implement a separate workshop series outside of the classroom to really focus on things like professional branding, resumes, people skills, interviewing, etc.  Teaching our current career placement seminar doesn't allow much time to really dive into these areas, as the class is only an hour once a week.

I'm looking forward to networking and collaborating with you!  My work email is pmorse@ebi.edu 

 

Hello All,

 

I have found in my experience that Career Services should position itself in three places.

  1. Admissions – Have the admissions representative send all new students/perspective students to the Career Service Department, where you or a member of your team can give them a brief 10-15 min oversite on the department and services.
  2. New Student Orientation- During new student orientation I take a complete hour of the student’s time, hand out business cards and give a more in depth in site to career services and team. I also tell them that they will be taking Strategies for Success Workshop with me in their last semester to help them navigate resume writing, negotiations, and mock interviewing skills.
  3. Strategies for Success Workshop – Given in the students last semester.  This workshop is fun and requires participation from every student through role play. I also give in site to what HR recruiters are looking for and how much time they give to each resume that crosses their desk. We also review resumes and cover letters for past students as well if they need assistance.

I hope this information helps you develop a great Career Service Department. As I have read you all are on the right path.

 

Ny’Kole Hines, MBA-HR

Career Service Director

Hi Ny'Kole,

Thank you for sharing!  I really like your 3 areas.  Do you work for a for-profit institution where placement percentages are important to maintain by the accreditation?  I like the fact that you take time out during the New Student Orientation to talk about Career Services.  I may use that idea if it's okay with you. 

Have you seen that taking time during New Student Orientation has been pretty effective for students?  I would love to hear more about how it's been working for you.  

We have career development workshops, where we go into the classrooms.  Do you make it mandatory for the last semester students to attend the Strategies for Success Workshop?

I look foward to hearing from you!

Regards,

Mrs. Ryan Parks

 

Hi everyone,

Really great and insightful posts. Thank you all for sharing.

In addition you the workshops you are all hosting, we also implemented a workshop on Etiquette and Presentation Skills. 

To get the instructors to buy in on the visits from CS, you need them to understand that the reason students attend our schools are to become employed. The majority of students come to our career schools to get heir first JOB... and I understand... it's not just about a job (being Just Over Broke- JOB) but about a career. When they understand this and that it's about the students success then they will become more willing to have guest speakers and visits.

 

The Worshop I mentioned about Etiquette and Presentation helps discuss the challenges with behavior and how they will be perceived by employers and others in the medical field. this is not an interview preparation or networking workshop but it is all related. We discuss near and clean uniforms, body odor, respect for others, gossip, language, chewing gum and wearing headphones and HIW negativity and adversely impact their path.

Once again, it was great to read and learn from each of you. Can't wait to circle back to see more replies.

Warm regards,

Dominic 

Oh... one more idea to share.

We started visiting each class once per month to share outcomes such as the following:

in December, we had 8 grads hired at hospitals, 2 at NYU, 5 at Mt. Sinai and 1 at NY Presbyterian. 16 were hired at smaller doctors offices and clinics such as...

This creates a really great forum for them to ask questions about these sites and share that this is what they would like to do. We will them respond with the attributes and effirt put forth by those who secured those positions.

This is a real game changer. As students visited CS to be placed on extership or as theu completed their hours and visited for their Exit Intrview they continued sharing their ideas and dreams to work in these hospitals abd the reasons that they came to school. We used these "pain points" and desires to push them in the direction to start their career.

 

Also... we vislit classes regularly, not only at the end or during a Career Develpment/Success class.

 

Dominic

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