Richard,
It seems that you have a handle your placement program. Your approach will meet the standards and keep you from having reporting problems in the future.
Gerald Parr
One thing would be to have a strong Career Services department that maintain a relationship with the students from Day 1. With this fostered relationship, students will not be hesitant about disclosing employment status. It ia very similar to new students with a new instructor. At first both parties can be timid but a few days into the semester, all have relaxed and feel comfortable. Often, this relationship continues long after a student is no longer in the class with the instructor. Developing this similar relationship would be key for Career Services.
I believe one of the best things you could use would be a job description to determine the classification.
If the school is a title IV school, they probably have access to their DOE-CIP codes. DOE is a great resource for determining related fields. For those students who do not wish to disclose their employment status, they may be willing to fill out waiver.
Gabriel,
TWC requires that a school have appropriate documentation in the form of a Completer Follow-Up Survey (PS-072A) to provide the backup to the numbers reported in the Student-Level Completer Report (PS-072B) that is submitted by December 1st of each year. A school has to make every effort to get this form completed.
Gerald Parr
Why are Social Security #'s made a requirement of the report to be turned in?
TWC has an internal verification process where they may attempt to verify placement information with the wage/employment division of the TWC (either as a random procedure or in response to other concerns). It seems that they need SS #s to do this. The most recent revision of this report was 11/2011. These revisions included requiring that all report data be encrypted to protect student personal data. Can you think of other reasons why they still want Social Security numbers?
If you are actively working to place the student you should be able to determine if your efforts resulted in their employment. Also, those same efforts will establish a relationship with the student that fosters open communication of their status. Many students will proactively let you know their status.
Most problems related to placed v. not placed come to fruition when schools choose to ignore students until it is critically necessary to get them placed for sake of numbers. A successful career services department works with students from their school tour through orientation, day one of class and clear through their time as an alumni. Understanding the individuals and what types of employment they desire/fit into goes a long way to a successful placement. It is not a bad thing when a student finds their own employment; in cases such as these, students have learned to take the necessary responsibility of finding employment on themselves. It is when they feel as though the CS department is not helping them, and that the training at the school is inadequate when problems are typically encountered.
Most of our students are placed with clients so we have a second avenue for gathering information on the student. The key to successful reporting is the contact that Placement Services has with the student. That rapport is the only thing that ensures accurate and timely gathering of placement information and allows us to document student classification. Every once in a while a student refuses to disclose information and we mark them as Employed (other) or Not Placed.
Don,
You make an excellent point that Placement Services must have rapport with the student. This relationship begins early when the student first starts school. If a graduate is uncommunicative or cannot be reached, it is important to have sufficient documentation from an employer if the graduate is counted as employed.
JP Mehlmann
We use the appropriate TWC form for reporting. During the year we maintain spreadsheets that have more detail regarding contact and activities used to assist with placement. Students are not discouraged from using their own resources, however we attempt throughout their program to encourage them to fully utilize the resources of our career services department. Our career service department is now establishing a relationship with students at the beginning of their experience so that they are familiar with the persons in the department at the time their exern begins so it is a seamless transition. We also attempt to find extern sites that are going to consider the student for employment. Although those opportunities are not sufficient in number we do work with students during their program to develop their resume, interview skills, etc. We want the students to be prepared to begin their job search in advance of completing extern and by developing a closer relationship between the student and career services we expect to have more successful placement outcomes.
I agree with frank, starting at the begining is the key. We start at orientation and continue it throughout the students program.
Valentin,
Yes - all of the prior comments are valuable and valid. One thing that is not mentioned very often is that some graduates mistakenly believe the school is trying to take credit for a job the grad feels they obtained "on their own". Again, good rapport with the student is key, but it is helpful to inform the student that the TWC CSC reporting process allows for differentiating between graduates who found employment with the schools assistance and those who found employment on their own. Ideally, school personnel can impart to graduates that "we care that you find meaningful work - it doesnt matter if we [the school], or you [the graduate] find the job".
JP Mehlmann
Mr. Mehlmann,
It is difficult to determine employed, P or NP if you do not understand the classifications. We use job descriptions, student and employer interviews. We have a dedicated team that verifies all our placements. I feel this is a good way to get the information. In addition , we create great rapport with our students from the beginning of their education this way, by the time they are ready for employment in their field the majority does not have an issue communicating with us regarding their current employment status.
Jorge
Jorge,
Good information. Having great rapport with the student is the best, first step to on-going communication and obtaining future employment data. In addition, the "placed" and "not placed" terms (relative to CSC reports) correspond to the completer follow up survey as well as the annual completer & employment report. You likely know that "placed" is used by CSC to identify graduates who became employed with the help of the school; while graduates [employed] "not placed" found employment without the school's help. The collective surveys for the reporting period must correspond exactly to the data shown in the school's annual report.
JP Mehlmann
As far as figuring out what category the student who is employed falls into, it's a simple matter of staying on top of the employment assistance process and documenting what you, or another staff person, has done to assist in the job search. Regarding students who do not want to disclose their employment status, it boils down to job placement staff building a relationship with every student and having periodic "touches" throughout the length of the course to see how they are doing and get a feel for what they are looking for in a job. If students feel valued, they will feel like they are part of your program and will do whatever it is you need them to do to help your program be successful.
Brent,
Good response. Documentation is key. And make sure the individual TWC completer follow up forms are complete and match up (in the aggregate) with the annual report.
JP Mehlmann
In builting and maintain contact and a working relationship with our students helps when it is time to submitting the annual Enrollment and Outcome report. However if they do not want to share with the school where they are working we can contact TWC for help in order to put the student in the correct category.
Marilyn ,
Building and maintaining relationships with students is key to minimimizing instances where graduates avoid you later. While TWC staff are a resource for questions regarding the report, the report instructions clearly describe how to handle data for graduates that you cannot contact. I suggest you thoroughly review the instructions for the Annual Enrollment and Outcomes Report on the TWC CSC Forms website (form PS-072I). If you cannot verify that a graduate is working in their field of study (or a related field), then you have no other choice but to count them in the Other category which includes unemployed and other designations. Specifically, the Report instructions include: [page 10] Record an “O†(Other) for...The school believes the student was employed, but cannot substantiate this by providing the employment information particularly employer name and contact information and the student’ job title, to substantiate the student was actually employed in an occupation related to that for which s/he was trained.
* No data could be collected for the student ("status unknown"). The school perhaps did not make active attempts to maintain follow up contact with students in order to track their possible employment. Perhaps the school made attempts, but was unsuccessful in contacting the student.
* Any other completer who does not fall into the P, NP, PE, MS, D, or IN categories.
JP Mehlmann
You must understand Placed and Not Placed as it is somewhat misleading. Placed of course is when the school places the student and Not Placed is when the student secures his own job. Unless you have studied the guidelines, you would mistakenly mark the wrong description.
