Infusing Career Readiness into Student Affairs Student Employee Training & Development

How can we best prepare student employees within student affairs to be intentionally “career ready”? It’s a population of students we are very familiar with, but sometimes as student affairs professionals, we forget about their professional development. Are we providing a disservice? Can we as professionals, help them gain the competitive advantage?

At Florida Atlantic University, the Division of Student Affairs requires all new student employees to complete a series of trainings, in addition to, their departmental specific trainings, during the first few months they are in their role. This is called CORE Training and it focuses on four key areas to provide a well-rounded employment experience:

·         Leadership

o   Attend an in-person Leadership Institute

·         Service

o   Online : Customer Service Training

·         Diversity

o   Campus of Difference Diversity Training

·         Responsibility

o   Bystander Intervention Training

o   Online: Title IX Training

o   Online: Identifying At-Risk Students (Suicide Prevention) Training

Most of these trainings are conducted in person and the remainder are available online through a Blackboard course that all the students are enrolled in. Students have eight weeks to complete all of the requirements. Departments from across Student Affairs are responsible for the training components and provide the facilitators, and/or curriculum.

With this idea of infusing “career readiness” to help better prepare students, there needed to be a point person to manage the program within the division in order to be ensure every department of the division was reached.

Leading the Charge:

I was brought on as the Coordinator for Student Engagement to serve as a committed champion to take ownership of the logistical pieces and be the point-person. My charge was to drive the CORE Training forward and to help create a culture of “career readiness” for student employees. My role functions within the Career Center as a career counselor with a concentration of working with student employees. I serve as a student advocate and assist students to identify and translate their transferable skills from their student work experiences.

As we know, many of our student employees may seek a career outside of higher education and it’s important that we help them make correlations from their work experience to their professional goals. The revised CORE Training initiative will hopefully not only provide a series of valuable trainings, but also create a synergistic relationship between students and the career center.

How it works:

Students would be contacted at the beginning of the semester with a “Welcome Letter” from me that outlines the CORE Training requirement and also provides students with a helpful guide that outlines the seven career readiness competencies identified by the National Association of Colleges and Employers¹ . Once enrolled in the Blackboard course, they will begin to complete the series of required trainings and complete a Pre and Post Assessment (housed in the assessment tool, Qualtrics and linked to the Blackboard course) that would have them self-identify their level of progress with the seven career readiness competencies.

By gathering this data, I am able to identify which students need more support in specific areas and share the information with the CORE Advisory board to evaluate the effectiveness of the trainings in helping students develop these competencies. In addition to the actual trainings, students would be prompted to set up an appointment with me (resume, interviewing assistance, job search assistance, skills transferability) during the semester to ensure they are reaching their goals and becoming “Career Ready!”

More to come:

This is the first semester with the new additions. Please feel free to follow me on this journey as we pilot these new changes this semester and feel free to reach out to me with any questions or share what has been successful at your institution.

Sources:

¹Career Readiness Defined. (2015). Retrieved September 02, 2016, from http://www.naceweb.org/knowledge/career-readiness-competencies.aspx

Related Professional Competencies:

Advising and Supporting / Student Learning and Development