Allison, I would be interested in hearing more about your Partners-In-Education program. Can you tell me what it involves?
Wanda
Wow Allison. Sounds like you have a formula for a very successful career services department. Can you share any more tips and details for the rest of us. What are your most effective presentations? What is the best use of your employers? Thanks
Susan
Our Career Services department encompasses both externship and placement. Securing employers for presentations has never been a problem. Our Career Services Directors spend a lot of time networking with the medical community, (we're a medical school), and knowing that our graduates may one day be their employees they are extremely receptive.
We call on Physicians, Medical Office Managers, successful graduates, Pharmacists...anyone that can provide our students with positive, motivational information that keeps them excited about the field they've chosen.
We have a Partners-In-Education program that turns heads in the medical community. This program has medical offices calling our Career Services department asking to be members instead of our Career Services department calling them asking.
HI Wanda
Great idea to call upon folks in placement agencies to give presentations to your students. They often look for ways to market their companies.
Hopefully they are smart enough to realize that the entry level students they meet today could be the hiring decision makers in the future.
Best wishes
Susan
Office managers in the industry, as well as placement agencies have been useful to us as employer speakers. These individuals usually have worked with our graduates and can better inform the upcoming grads about the pitfalls.
The software we use for all school activities the last 10 year is Classware which is created by:
Campus Management Corp
777 Yamato Rd., Ste 400
Boca Raton, FL 33431
800-483-9106
561-923-2750
http://www.campusmgmt.com
chuckt@campusmgmt.com
You may want to contact them to see if it can be useful for you.
Hi Laurie
Great that you are connecting with employers and they are willing to provide their expertise. YOu might want to create a series of workshops and presentations, develop topics, and ask for employers to discuss these topics. Or ask them to suggest topics of their one. You will have a very unique and interesting program.
Best wishes
Susan
Dear Susan,
As we go out and meet with employers in the specific industries we ask them if they would be interested in speaking with our students to give them a "real world perspective." The response has been favorable and we have had a few guest speakers at our school to discuss topics on success in the workplace.
Hi Mathew
What a great marketing strategy. Give counselors something of value and also let them see first hand what your school does. Getting something useful for nothing certainly gets people's attention. They will better understand how your offerings can benefit their clients. And yes, surveys are essential. You want to know what is working and where improvement is needed.
Great idea,
Susan
We work a lot with vocational rehab students, and train in computer technology. We actually find that many of the counselors don't know that much about computers even though they are constantly using them day in and day out. And as for employers, sometimes they have technical demands, and the reason they are hireing is becuase no one currently at the company knows much about computers.
The idea would be to structure it around what is already being taught, just condense it into a one or two-day workshop. If the counselors enjoy the class, no doubt they will want to send more students to us as well as gaining some tips and tricks they can use at their job. And if employers enjoy the session they'll want to hire our students because they'll realize the quality of education our students recieve. Of course it would have to be concluded with some sort of survey. I can imagine if it didn't go over that well and they feel they have just wasted their saturday they'll want to tell us about it.
Hi Mathew
Interesting idea to offer a free class to employers. How do you plan to structure the class? Will it be a demonstration of an actual learning session? Will you provide information that will be of use to employers? What about using the time to get their feedback about your learning materials, curriculum, equipment, etc. You could find out what learning objectives are missing from your training to ensure your graduates are work ready.
Best wishes
Susan
It was thrown around at a meeting here just a while ago that the school should offer a free class (most likely just for one Saturday) to various employers who have hired our students. It would give them an opportunity to see the instruction first hand, as well as give the employers up-to-date information on what we're teaching.
Hi Alison
Sounds like you have a great Advisory Board and are using its members' talents effectively.Meeting once a year keeps the pressure off the board members. And it sounds like periodic meetings with certain individuals gets you the feedback you want. If you don't already, you might want to have email meetings. Pose a question or challenge to everyone via email and start a dialog. Or a web log.
Best wishes
Susan
We have an Advisory Board for our school as well. The director of career services is the person who sets up the meetings and also asks people from the community to be members of the Board. Our Advisory Board meets once a year as a full board. This is the meeting where an annual report of the school's progress is given. We also discuss curriculum changes at this time. Proposals are presented both by the program directors and the board members.
Each member of our board is designated for one particular program, although most of them can speak for other programs as well. At other times of the year, we have program specific meetings with just those members of the board related to that program.
Hi Sharon
This sounds great. Gives students lessons first hand from the people already in the industry. Interesting that the organization charged. Maybe they wanted to be sure the students who attended were serious. You could probably also organize career days at your campus and invite people from the industry to give specific presentations. Also invite senior students and alumni to attend.Brings alumni back to learn about any new programs and offerings you might have.
Best wishes
Susan
Susan,
A local professional organization (for the industry in which we train) recently conducted a "Career Day" event--inviting students from area colleges to attend for a minimal fee. Seminars were held on topics such as job search, entry level positions, and how to negotiate salary. I'd like to suggest that contacting professional organizations for speakers may be advantgeous, since it benefits both the organization, through its promotion, and the students, through networking and professional development opportunities.
Sharon
Hi Harrison
Good point about networking events where you can have time to build relationships. What kind of follow up do you do after these events? Could you invite people to visit the school and talk about job interviews, review resumes, provide a picture of what life is like on the job, how to gain a promotion? Another way to network is to contact employers of your grads (with their permission). Find out what employers think about your training. Did they have to provide additional training for your grad or do your programs prepare job ready employees.
Lots of ways to maximize the contact with people in the industry.
Best wishes
Susan
Chambers of Commerce networking events and Business Expos are good sources of contacts with employers. These are more relaxed settings than other networking events like Career Fairs, and allow for longer relationship-building conversations.
Hi Carol
Sounds like you have a forumla for getting speakers from your local community and health care and business communities. I know that for some school placement departments that is a problem. What do you account for your success in getting a steady supply of volunteers? It sounds like someone is on top of this and is doing some great networking. Can you share with us what information is most valuable for students to hear from people in the field? Do any of the speakers become mentors?
Thanks
Susan
The majority of our programs are in allied health, our other programs are in business. Fortunately many of our employers offer their services as guest speaker. We also have an advisory board that meets twice a year. We've asked some of the members to serve as speakers or to recommend someone we can approach. Joining community organizations is a great way to network with professionals who would be glad to speak to the students. For example, we recently asked the President of our local chapter of the Society for Human Resource Managers to speak to our Career Development class. We also asked some Paralegals from a large law firm to speak to our Legal Assisting class. Some guest speakers are able to obtain CEUs from speaking--so everyne benefits.
