Career Services

Professional Development - Technology KG

4 Simple Reasons to Register for the SoACE Technology Boot Camp

May 31, 2019 by 0 Comments

by Danielle Golinski, Elon University & SoACE Technology Boot Camp Chair

The third annual SoACE Technology Boot Camp is quickly approaching! On Wednesday July 24 and Thursday July 25, SoACE members will connect virtually to learn how colleagues are exploring marketing techniques and utilizing technology trends in their respective spaces. We have so much to learn from each other! So, put on your comfiest of clothes, grab a cup of joe, your techiest way to take notes, and learn something new from your colleagues!

Now, why should you register for sessions of interest? Read on:

  1. It’s free! Yes, really! SoACE provides so many fantastic, fun and free opportunities to continue the learning for everyone at every stage in their professional development. This is just another great option to spice up your month.
  2. It’s convenient! Attend every 1-hour session (8 total) to fill up your afternoons or pick and choose a topic that catches your attention. And, if the dates don’t work for you, the sessions will be recorded so you can watch them on your own time. At the airport, on the beach, or at home the opportunities to watch are literally endless. Yay!
  3. Learn something new! If you have “Learner” in your Top 5 Strengths like I do, then you know how I feel about learning something new. I’m a total geek when it comes to the process of learning something new. I get excited and I get energized. Don’t you? Even if you don’t have Learner in your Top 5 you are still encouraged to stretch outside of your initial learning bubble and consider the “what if” option. If you can’t benefit directly from the content, maybe on of your colleagues at your institution or across your state would benefit. Here’s your line: “Hey Sam! I just learned some really unique program ideas at a virtual technology boot camp offered through SoACE. It was so helpful! I know that you’ve got a lot going on this summer, so let me treat to you a cup of coffee next week so that I can share with you everything I learned as I think the project that you’re working on with Joseph would greatly benefit from this new information.” You’re welcome!
  4. Support your fellow colleagues! Show your colleagues (whether you’ve met them or not) some virtual love. Let’s show up in the masses, and interact with them. Send them questions through the platform and follow up with them after to continue the conversation offline. The community of SoACE is strong and mighty, let’s continue this incredible trend! No pressure!

I’ve thought of at least 4. If you could add one more, what would it be? Technology Boot Camp registration coming soon! Keep an eye out in your email!

Questions about the boot camp? Contact Danielle Golinski (dgolinski@elon.edu). Can’t wait to “see” you there!

Best Practices

Career Fair Management 101

February 13, 2019 by 0 Comments

by Colleen Gleeson, University of Houston, Conrad N Hilton College

Going over the day-of agenda during “print day”- the day that the team prints and assembles employer packets, signage and any student handouts

Looking for new ways to engage students in experiential learning? Feeling overwhelmed as a member of a small career services office? That’s exactly where I was almost three years ago when I accepted a promotion to director (of a 2-person office). Leaning on some faculty partners for help, I sought guidance in how to incorporate more student help in the weeks leading up to career fair. We had the interest- in fact we sometimes struggled to engage the increasing number of students interested in event management. But would it be more work for my (already stretched thin) team than relief? Could I trust students to provide the same level of customer service to employers and to manage all of the marketing and logistics with the same commitment? I always spoke highly of the professionalism and maturity of our hospitality students and now it was time to put my money where my mouth is.

Management team showing off the team t-shirt, designed by the marketing team

We approached one of our student organizations- the International Association of Exhibitions and Events- and with help from their faculty advisor put together a plan that incorporated four areas of responsibility. We had enough interest from this group to staff our Marketing Team, Employer Relations Team, Operations Team and Volunteer Team and put them to work. I was pleasantly surprised at the level of commitment of our initial 8-person team meeting once a week as a group and then individually within teams. The Employer Relations team relieved much of the daily toil of answering questions about the event and confirming name tag spelling and day-of needs. The Marketing Team came up with new ideas and kept us on track with social media posts. The Volunteer Team recruited and trained over 50 volunteers and the Operations Team helped us communicate with the hotel (our career fair venue) to make sure everything would go according to plan on the big day. The results the day of spoke for themselves – we had a record number of students attend (almost half of the entire population of our small college) and received excellent feedback from employers about how organized and smooth things went for them.

The career fair management team featured in the annual dean’s report

Given the level of engagement from students on a volunteer basis, we made our case to the administration and was able to get approval for a one credit course the following semester. We have since expanded to a three credit hour hybrid course and shored up some money from our operating budget to allow students to be even more creative with their marketing plans, ideas for additional hospitality for employers and incentives for volunteers. Allocating funds to this course has been invaluable in creating excitement for students to exercise their creative muscle while also holding them accountable and showing them how to work within a budget and timeline.

One of the biggest challenges we faced (particularly in the spring) was the timing of recruiting season and how rushed we were to get students involved. We addressed this by planning a “team retreat” the week before classes start. During the retreat, we spend time getting to know each other with ice breakers and games (including a scavenger hunt of the hotel where the career fair is held), but we also get the first day of class nuts and bolts out of the way- going over the syllabus, grading and expectations. The timing is still a challenge, but it’s amazing what one extra, pre-first day of class meeting will do to increase team bonding and morale. Each new team of students challenges us to engage their increasingly varied interests in ways that support our mission of creating experiential learning opportunities for students interested in convention and meeting planning. We hope to establish this practice as college tradition that showcases the hospitality skills and experience of our student body.

Copy of the Dean’s Report that features the career fair management course:
https://issuu.com/uhhiltoncollege/docs/deans_report_2018-1fb

One of the marketing team’s ideas came to life in the student lobby.

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Colleen Gleeson is the director of career development for the Conrad N Hilton College of Hotel & Restaurant Management at the University of Houston. She has been with the Hilton College since 2013, starting as a career counselor and moving into her current role in 2016 where she oversees the career programming, career fair planning and internship program facilitation for hospitality students. In addition, Colleen teaches professional development courses at the Hilton College and an undergraduate college success course for the college of exploratory studies. Her past experience includes work with adults with disabilities and employment counseling as strategic goal for poverty alleviation.

MA, Counseling, St Edwards University, Austin, TX
BA, Political Science & Women’s Students, Saint Louis University, St Louis, MO

Hot Topics - Knowledge Group Updates - Technology KG

Annual SoACE Career Services Recruiting Platform Survey Results

November 30, 2018 by 0 Comments

The Technology Knowledge Group (KG) conducted its second annual career services recruiting platform survey during the summer of 2018. The annual survey is designed to capture the current state of the field and target areas for future programming. The KG conducted an association-wide survey of career centers and offices to identify the types of systems each of us uses as well as some of the common challenges we all face.

For 2018, a total of 83 individuals representing 59 institutions completed the survey; this is down from 2017 where 84 individuals from 74 institutions participated. There were 15 institutions that participated in both years. Like last year, duplicate entries were removed. While further research is needed to confirm why participation dropped, the authors believe that the emerging market leadership position held by Handshake as well as fatigue from ongoing transitions to new systems, may have depressed interest in participating.

Handshake emerged as the most widely implemented platform among reporting member institutions at 63% (n=37). Symplicity use fell to 14% from 19% last year and just 5% reported using Grad Leaders (vs 11% last year). Purple Briefcase saw an increase in adoption from 5% last year to 8% this year. A number of other systems were being used by our member schools as shown in Table 1 below.

Handshake also grew its lead significantly as the platform of choice for providing alumni services: rising 20 points from 36% in 2017 to 56% in 2018. As Table 1 also illustrates, platforms Grad Leaders and Symplicity saw a decline in use for delivering alumni services from 2017, while 12Twenty saw an increase in use during 2018.

Table 1

New on the survey this year was the question: “How long do alumni have access to use your recruiting platform?”  The results are summarized in Table 2 below and show that nearly 60% of schools indicated they provide services for a period of at least a year or more beyond graduation.

Table 2

The 2018 Survey continued the practice of collecting questions from participants about the platforms and the companies selling those platforms. This year’s questions indicated a shift away from issues related to purchasing new systems and their initial deployment toward learning how to maximize the investments that were made by career centers over the past two years. In reviewing these submissions, we identified the following themes:

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs – Participants singled out a particular concern that crossed all platforms: the increasing numbers of jobs that were not relevant for their students and alumni as well as jobs that tended to be “junky.” Many wanted to know what tools the platforms were developing to help students better identify and filter the opportunities available to them.

Internships – More career professionals asked questions about how the platforms managed internship and experiential learning programs. The desire for specific internship management modules was clearly evident as was the preference for customization capabilities to support the unique nature of internships, Cooperative Education, and experiential learning.

Increasing Adoption and Use – A number of questions around boosting the use of platforms by students and alumni also emerged and included wanting to know how to increase the frequency and efficiency of use and wanting to know what impact the platforms have had on student engagement with career service offices. There were also questions on how easy is it for students to learn how to use each platform.

Data and Reporting – Participants weren’t just interested in making sure students and alumni had access to better quality jobs, many were asking how the platforms could better connect job postings to first destination results. There were also a number of questions around the need for easier report building, data production, and integration with data elements from campus student information systems (SIS).

Security and Safety – While data security and integrity were certainly on participant’s minds in 2017, there seemed to be more questions in this area this year. Also new this year, there were questions about what the platform providers were doing to ensure student safety in the job search and application process.

 Platform Versatility – This was a theme in both 2017 and 2018 with participants asking questions about customizability of the platforms, ease of use, and system integration support (for example 2-way calendar synchronization for appointments). In addition, many questions revolved around the perception that the system developers don’t understand what career centers actually do, with several participants indicating that it would be a good idea for vendors to spend some time with career services professionals and build their knowledge of what happens on a daily basis in our offices.

Employer Relations Support – We collected questions related to best practices for keeping employer recruiter or human resources contacts current, as we did in 2017. There were also questions about the ability of the platforms to coordinate both employer and student initiatives all in one place. And there were questions on how the platforms could make it easier to collect hire information from employers (as well as students and alumni).

Overall, it appears that our membership’s use of recruiting platforms is moving out of a period of volatility, where many career services offices were switching systems, into a period of relative stability where offices are focused on getting the return on investment they were promised by vendors. The questions posed by participants also indicated that the need to identify, and share, best practices across the Association is beginning to emerge.

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Ashley Graham Phipps
Emerging Technologies Coordinator, SoACE Tech KG
Assistant Director, Employer Relations
Wake Forest University

Peter Thorsett
Chair, SoACE Tech KG
Director, Strategic Initiatives, Communications, & Research
Division of Community Engagement & Career Readiness
University of South Florida