Importance Of Career Centers To Help To Find A Proper Job For Students

A weak relationship between the Career centers and the students increases and creates anxiety and depression to make the right career decisions, and these issues can make career preparation more complicated. Seems like students get the degree and the college stop caring about them because that is when students stop paying them. This Business Proposal about College Career Centers and their strategy. Bucks County Community College’s Career Center has useful materials, such as internship listings, good resume examples, and counselor, who can help you with your questions.

Is that enough for students career success?

Does the Career Center offer an effective assistance? I faced with those questions in my last semester at College. I was looking for an accounting internship for couple months, and every time I asked the center’s staff they could not find anything for me. One of my friends asked the center about how to write a resume, they just gave her resume example. Every time I was there with my questions there were different people every time.

I didn’t know what to do, their advice weren’t sufficient enough. In other words it may be defined as, “career centers should be recognized and respected by their institution as the leader in creating college/university-wide career programs and systems. Value-added career services must address the decentralization–centralization continuum and how career centers can “friend raise” in creating innovative dynamic programs.” (Garis, 2014). The College Career Center should offer an effective and beneficial help for students in their career search.

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The system and strategy of center needs to be change. College should reinvent its Career Center.

There are should be options available to students in their final year. Career centers, graduate offices and career fairs on campus are useful, but they do not solve the problem of students. “Only 17 percent of those who graduated from 2010 to 2016 said they found their college career centers to be “very helpful”, with another 26 percent reporting that the career center office was “helpful”. Less than 40 percent said they found career centers to be “somewhat helpful”, and 17 percent said the interactions were not helpful at all,” according to the data from an annual Gallup-Purdue University study of college graduates (Jake, 2016). Career Centers are very important and they should provide an effective help for students and students should fully capitalize on college career center’s services in their pursuit of a job. According to Petty Gaul, an editor for ASTD, “The College Career Center Study 2014 also found that 57 percent of students think their career center is never or rarely useful in assisting them to figure out a career path. And 30 percent of respondents say that regular career-related events are never or rarely provided.” (Gaul, 2014). The college must find ways to enhance the effectiveness of career services programming, getting a larger percentage of students to engage in preparing for life after college.

Proposed Solution

The Career Center should provide an effective help for students and assist them to stay confident in that competitive world. The Career Center need to make sure that the students are engaging with the programming and should support them throughout all years in college, not only in their last semester. There are several good ideas to improve the service of Bucks County Community College’s Career Center, such as changing the Center’s structure, scope, and services. Students can talk to educated well-trained specialists, or relevant people, pick up information and figure out the best route for their preferred career path. The Career Center should support students in their process to finding a job and can put students in touch if they are considering further study, while many companies will be happy to put them in contact with people from their graduate program to tell about their experience. For example, Susan Brennan and Kara Della Croce in their article state that, “If recruiters are saying they need more candidates for lucrative sales roles, for example, it might be time to create a new sales course. Or if hiring managers tell you that, in order to truly assess students’ analytical abilities, their companies will be using case-style interviews, college career services should offer workshops that prepare students for this format.” (Brennan & Croce, 2016).

The center will help students go straight from undergraduate courses into an employment and also gives the chance to figure out their strengths and weaknesses. The Center will offer the set of available jobs and internship listings, and update it every month. The idea of creation the online matching system is the most important way to improve the Career Center’s structure. Students can visit the Center, and ask for available jobs or internships, and based on the student needs the advisor can match and find the right choice. That online matching system will provide an efficient outcome. Having recruiters from local companies come in and tell what they were looking for in a resume also a good strategy. Students have anxiety because they don’t know what they are going to be asked and these feedbacks will help them become prepared for when a potential employer leads an interview.

The center will prepare and send the students who have an interest in small consultancy projects for small businesses for a good experience. Based on that experience students will feel much more confidence while looking for a job. The Career Center will also offer an employability session. In parallel with their academic work, students can learn online and personal career planning modules, prepare for the interview, conflict with resolutions, and improve their public speaking skills. One more important thing is offering a free video recorded interview. This will be extremely helpful because students are able to watch how they came across on video and correct some of the mistakes that may have gotten in the way of being hired. The Career Center will take annual student satisfaction survey and based on students feedbacks they can have a better results for following year.

Needed Equipment/Personnel

The College’s Career Center needs to make more strategic use of technology. In the way to build more productive career search for students career centers should provide them rooms with innovative technology and equipment, such as computers, cameras, and speech podiums. The new video-recorded interviews of students, the creation of online matching system between companies and college students, and the connection of students at networking professional to career pathways are very helpful. The biggest role Career Center currently plays is online job matching system for students. The Career Center needs to hire a full-time professional, who will engage in the new online matching program, enhance relationships with possible employers and graduates. The college should assist staff in increasing their knowledge of career development and matching system through trainings and presentations. Fortunately, in a progressive technology era, there are a new devices and resources available to help in the career guidance process. The Center needs new video recording devices and projector for the interview preparation sessions. It is very important to have at least two computers; one for counselor’s use and one for students use. There is should be one available room for video-recorded interview classes. Today’s students are accustomed to videos and seem to gravitate to them. This room should have a monitor, video recorder, and a good display cabinet for the tapes.

Budget

‘Since the recession and stock market crash of 2008, college career centers have struggled to meet increased demand with reduced financial resources. Although staffing at the centers did not decrease, average operating budgets dropped by 2.5 percent” according to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. (Testa, 2010). To improve efficiency of the Career Center the college should invest for needed equipment and other expenses. The center will need require some financial investment in equipment and supplies; such as two computers, video recorder, cabinet for tapes, monitor, speech podium, and headphones. Salary for professional counselor, who will help the students with video recorded interview and matching system for available internships and jobs. Also, it does require space, organization, and commitment. According to NACE Journal, “Operating budgets do not represent the full financial commitment of the university to career services. However, they are an appropriate indicator of the dollars a career services office has to function with in terms of providing students with information, developing relationships with employers, supporting the professional development of its staff, and underwriting the technology to increase the efficiency of the office.” (Koc, 2015).

Expected Benefits

College leaders should support and invest the idea of reinventing Career Center. Here are some good reasons to consider, such as making right decision with a right career choice, improving of resume and cover letter writing skills, and feeling confident in every aspects of job market. If your college has a well-equipped and well-organized Career Center it will help you to find the right occupation or connect you with the right opportunity. Through the online matching system, the Career Center can help match you with available opportunities you are looking for. Peter Vogt, Live Career staff writer, states, “Your tuition dollars help to pay for career counselors’ salaries as well as all of the equipment and resources in the career services office. In other words, you help fund the office and everything it has and does – so you ought to gain maximum benefit from it.” (Vogt, 2017). The center counselor will train students to video-recorded interviews to help them get all questions and answers down pact.

This will be extremely helpful because students are able to watch how they came across on video and correct some of the mistakes that may have gotten in the way of being hired. Students can improve their skills in writing the resumes and cover letters as professionals do. Reinvented Career Center will help students how to build professional relationship with employers, how to build an effective portfolio, and how to perform professionally in an interview. Students will start to develop personal and professional relationship on their career path. It is also reduces loan defaults, because college grads are finding themselves unemployed or underemployed and cannot pay their loans. Due to the skills learned from the Career Center, students will be more confident while looking for a job; now they know all aspects of career search. It helps for a larger percentage of students to engage in preparing for life after college. It gets students to persist and graduate.

Conclusion

The Career Center is the bridge, where students are with one foot in the academy and the other in the career world. “Most colleges and universities spend too much of their energy getting young people in the front door and not enough making sure they land good jobs on their way out. The college is being accountable for what’s happening to students after graduation” says Douglas Belkin (2016), in his Wall Street Journal article. The college must find ways to enhance the effectiveness of career services programming, getting a larger percentage of students to engage in preparing for life after college. In determining whether a center will be successful or not the most important is the mindset of the director who is managing the services and how forward thinking they are. Career Centers are very important and they should provide an effective help for students. The graduate students should spend less time worrying about the future and realize they are not alone. Let’s help them together.

References

Belkin, D. (2016). College Career Offices Boost Job Prospects, Alumni Gifts; Those Who Found the Service Helpful Reported Faring Well in Hunts; Humanities Majors less Likely to Seek Assistance. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://proxy.bucks.edu
Brennan, S., Croce, K. (2016). Closing the Gap Between College Career Services and Employers. University Business. https://www.universitybusiness.com
Garis, J. (2014). Value-Added Career Services: Creating College/University-Wide Systems. New Directions For Student Services, 2014 (148), 19-34
Gaul, P. (2014). Many College Career Centers Don’t Get a Passing Grade. T+D, 68(6), 24.
Koc, E. (2015). The University Commitment to Career Services. NACE Journal, 2015. https://www.naceweb.org
New, J. (2016). Looking For Career Help. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com
Testa, B. M. (2010). College Career Centers Adapt to Tough Times. Workforce Management, 89(8), 5.
Vogt, P. (2015). Seven Not-so-Obvious Reasons to Take Advantage of Your Campus Career Center. Live Career, 2015. https://www.livecareer.com