Connecting Your Student to the World of Work

One of the goals of college attendance is to help your student find a good job after graduation. In fact, prospective students and their families often ask about placement rates during their campus visits. Given the economic pressures in the workplace, connecting your student to the world of work is incredibly important.

College and Career

Colleges and universities spend a tremendous amount of time helping students make solid decisions that will lead them to a career. The first roadblock comes, surprisingly, from the students themselves: they often think they know all they need to know about a given career. News flash: they don’t. Yet new students who have just graduated from high school often think they know much more than they really know. This applies to the classroom, relationships, and careers. To combat this, several colleges and universities have initiated programs targeted at first year students. This is so students begin thinking about careers early and doing so in practical, systematic ways. Career development people have promoted this approach for decades. Why is today so different? In short, colleges finally decided to make it a required part of the curriculum, since students don’t “do optional.” Brandon Chin said that the way to ensure students gain these important career skills is to “stitch it into their core college experience….” Mr. Chin is correct.

What Employers Expect

Employer expectations have changed dramatically since the late twentieth century. This article from Educase about the world of work suggests that new hires should:

●Understand technology and have information literacy;

●Be able to work in diverse teams with regard to ethnicity, levels and kinds of experience, gender, age and socioeconomic background;

●Demonstrate a good command of their academic discipline; this includes having practical experience;

●Have strong critical thinking and decision making skills;

●Possess good problem solving skills;

●Have the ability to communicate both orally and in writing. Most of these skills can be attained from a comprehensive curriculum in any discipline/ major. However, taking the skills learned in the major and being able to apply it to the workplace is where many students fall short. (Note: some of the preceding items were added by me.)

Tools

Career development centers use several tools to help students make good career decisions, and connect them to the world of work. They offer assessment to help students learn more about themselves and what careers might best fit their personality and life style. They also help students develop the soft skills in areas such as communication and networking that are key to career progression. Finally, career centers offer a variety of ways for students to gain practical experiences they can apply to their career through internships and practicum experiences. This page from the Ball State University website includes several links commonly used by career centers—and this is only a sample of wealth offered by modern college career centers. In short, students who tell you their career center doesn’t offer anything of value to students have most likely never walked in the door.

The last thing anyone wants is for your student to graduate and then begin a job search. Encourage your student to be one the smart ones who starts visiting the career center during their first week of college.