Symplicity Blog

• Higher ed / Student life / Career centers

Lately, several of our clients have been getting innovative with the events their career centers hold to keep students engaged and interested in career services. University of Chicago‘s UChicagoGrad recently held a ‘GradUCon’, inspired by the popular comic-cons that people all over the world flock to in order to network about comics, manga and anime. Another CSM client, UCLA, hosted a similar Career Week event in April consisting of keynote speakers from the hottest industries, round table sessions and more. Read on to learn how your career center can host a popular career-focused event for your students and build hype around it to encourage high attendance levels.

• Higher ed / Best practices / Career centers

“Tell us about an experience that had a huge impact on your life.” “Tell us about your biggest role model.”

• Higher ed / Job search / Career centers

The competition within the entry-level job market is intense for most fields. For every position a student or recent grad applies to, hundreds of other qualified applicants are applying as well. Career services offices need to work with students early on to create the perfect resume that will end up standing out to potential employers. When coaching students on resume-writing, make sure you emphasize the following three points.

• Career services / Higher ed / Job search

There will always inevitably be some students who assume that having a college degree will guarantee them their dream job after graduation. As career services professionals, it’s your job to prepare them by exposing them to several realities about what the job search after graduation will actually be like. Instill these ideas in your students before they get their cap and gown so they can enter the job market with realistic expectations.

• Higher ed / Careers by symplicity / Career services

Your career center is an infinitely valuable resource for students who are looking to find a job, land an internship or just generally prepare for entering the world of their chosen profession. Unfortunately, though, it can sometimes be a challenge to get the word out to students about all the resources available to them through their school’s career center. It’s scary to think that some students may not even know your career center exists, but it’s a reality for many schools. Whether you’re facing an extreme case of students not even knowing they have access to a career center or a more minor issue of students not knowing the full breadth of their career center’s offerings, it’s important to have a strategy in place to spread awareness to students about what their career center can do for them.

• Higher ed / Events / Career services manager / Career centers

Every year, hundreds of CSM clients from both the US and abroad fly in for CSM Symposium, the most important annual event for networking with other career services professionals and learning how to maximize your CSM system. Last year, we were in New Orleans and this year, we’ll be meeting in beautiful Indian Wells, California. For many clients in the states, CSM Symposium is a given, but why should you fly in if you are from an institution abroad?

• Higher ed / Career services / Career centers

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) conducted a survey in August of 2016 that yielded some interesting results in terms of what employers care about the most when sorting through candidates’ resumes. The top three traits that employers seem to prioritize the highest, based on this survey, are a candidate’s ability to work on a team, their problem-solving skills, and their communication skills. So how do you ensure that students at your institution are fully prepared to be scrutinized by employers in these areas?