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- Oct 1, 2019
Why having a formal Career Champions Network is the most important career services trend of 2020
Since the birth of The Career Leadership Collective we have advocated for one consistent concept: student career education is bigger than the career office. You've probably seen this in our ground breaking article on Scaling Career Services, in our online accelerator series titled Redefining We, if you experienced our Spring Forum last year around the theme: 'Beyond the Career Center Walls,' or if you have ever heard me speak at a conference, consortium, or on your campus. Fo
- Sep 25, 2019
Increasing Career Engagement on Your Unique Campus
Over the last ten years, higher education has felt the increased pressure to tell their story of success, through transparency and data about the outcomes of their graduates. Many asked, was an investment in college really worth it for a growing number of Americans going to college and bearing its cost? I spent most of those 10 years as the Executive Director of the Career Center at Pepperdine, where, like many campuses and career centers, reporting more robust first-destinat
- Feb 14, 2019
The Untapped Potential of Campus Employment
American college students are working more than ever. According to a 2015 Georgetown University report, 70-80% percent of undergraduates are employed, and 40% of those students work full-time, making work the most time-consuming activity beyond academic study. At Bennington College, we recognized this trend as an opportunity to enhance student support and increase retention, prompting us to rebuild campus employment with a focus on career education. This rebuild meant an over
- Jan 2, 2019
5 Career Services Trends Every University Should Embrace in 2019
Happy New Year, 2019! The new year brings renewed energy to so many personal and professional goals for individuals, and as such, I wanted to share the 5 career services trends that we believe will make a substantial impact on universities everywhere in 2019. We encourage you to consider inserting them into your goals over the course of 2019. Our team has enjoyed many hours spent listening and learning alongside hundreds of upper-administrators and career staff teams throug
- Oct 25, 2018
Career Services Friend Raising Partnerships with Alumni Relations and Development
There was an age in which career services, development/advancement and alumni relations collaborated only on an event or two a year, but a new opportune trend has been emerging over the last five plus years which features the integration of career services with alumni relations and/or advancement. The trend has been one of the newest, following two other major trends of combining career services and academic advising, and formerly combining career services and experiential ed
- Oct 18, 2018
Carving out a Journey to Open the Curriculum Door
Over a decade ago, “Learning Reconsidered” boldly redefined learning to be an integration of academic learning and student development (Keeling, 2004). Putting this integration into practice and moving career education from a reactive service offering to a proactive and critical part of a student’s academic experience, has long been gaining momentum. The process to getting there however, is never a straightforward route. Like many PSEs today, Ryerson was grappling with how to
- Jun 19, 2018
Social Innovation for the Future of College Career Education (Part 2): Lessons from Early Social Inn
I gravitate toward everyday leaders who are trying to be courageous in the way they lead. I get the joy of hearing their stories and helping many of them in the university career services field. I am grateful, and inspired often. To me, leadership courage is humble boldness in the face of uncertainty, fear, or unpopular notions. Courage almost always comes about because of multi-dimensional personal or societal problems, and is usually employed for some sort of freedom. St
- Nov 8, 2017
Scaling Career Services (Part 6 of 7): Embracing Change as a Staff
There was an elephant in the room during our Summer 2017 Think Tanks on Scaling Career Services. We saw it coming and spoke directly to it in multiple ways. I think you probably know this elephant quite well...its your Career Center staff team. A well led change process with an agile and committed staff can yield incredible results. But that is not easy to do. It takes a lot of group dialogue and understanding, a good amount of iterating, and knowing that change is more tha
- Sep 27, 2017
Scaling Career Services (Part 5 of 7) Hooking into The Campus Ecosystem
Partnering on a Program (with 1-2 other offices) was the career services trend of the 90's and early 2000's that really shaped how we connect with the campus. Today, the pressures and needs have evolved, and partnering, while still good, can only go so far. Many are taking it a step further and hooking into the campus ecosystem in various ways. This can lead to scaled impact. The picture for this post is one I took on a family trip up to Bear Lake in Rocky Mountain National P
- Sep 11, 2017
Scaling Career Services (Part 4 of 7): How TED, Zappos, and Lyft can transform us!
A couple years ago when I was at The Career Center at Colorado State University, during a leadership team meeting, one of our staff recapped a short and simple conversation she had with a colleague from another institution. Here is a paraphrase the conversation: Outside Colleague: 'you all are doing such innovative work, who do you benchmark with?' Lead Team member: 'well, we look at TED Talks, a lot of the big tech innovations, some local start-ups, and some of our employers
- Sep 5, 2017
Scaling Career Services (Part 3 of 7): What Then Shall We Scale?
I have talked with a lot of career pro's about scale recently. The topic is almost always received with excitement and anticipation related to its potential for lasting transformation - which is quite real. As we together discuss stretching the envelop, changing service delivery models, and considering unique mindsets, this positive energy pauses in front of the hard work it takes to actually scale, and one thing becomes clear: It is foolish for a career center to try to sca
- Aug 16, 2017
Scaling Career Services (Part 2 of 7): The Problem
I have asked over a thousand career services professionals to tell me about the problems we face on a regular basis in our field. Rightly so, the groans come before words, then sometimes laughter (because there are things we just can't change), but there has never once been a hesitation for people to speak freely about our challenges. I love the honestly of our colleagues, and the fact that they pursue hope in the midst of these realities. When facing the topic of how to sc
- Jul 31, 2017
Scaling Career Services (Part 1 of 7): What's the big deal?
Let me start with a global reality check that might be perceived as bad news: for the past couple decades, the university career services field has flat out stunk at scaling. It hasn't really been in our DNA, and many might say, it hasn't really needed to be (a few others would beg to differ). Don't get me wrong, our field has had a few home run moments with scale: no one can argue the amazing feats near the turn of the century when we automated some core services like job p
- Jul 10, 2017
Scaling Career Learning Objectives
All innovation begins with a problem. Without a problem, there is nothing to solve and therefore, nothing to innovate. Defining the precise problem to solve, however, is often the most difficult step. At TuaPath, we listened carefully to career centers all over the country and this is the precise problem we heard over and over again: Scaling career education in universities is virtually impossible with current budget and human capital restraints. Specifically, we learned that