Revamping a Struggling Placement Department
We believe we now have the right staff in our placement department, but we are in need of a resource library for each of our programs. We have a new Director of this department and he needs a starting point - can anyone give me some suggestions so I can help him be successful?
Great. Now what is important is to measure everything. That means placement etc. Also engagement, trends, changes, anything that shows there is results. Susan
We got the budget we wanted for our Resource Center - it worked!! Thanks, Dr. Schulz.
Now, on to proving the benefits! The team is very, very excited!
Ok. Great. A library is a great start. Just the tip of the iceberg. Placement services are on the same level as admissions. Suggest that both departments be given the same budget for a period of time and see which one produces more enrollments. My guess is it will be Career Services. And marketing costs will decrease. Tell your management to start thinking creatively. Otherwise your competition will. Susan
Hi Dr. Schulz,
Guess what? I followed your advice, asked the question "why" enroll if we can't provide the graduates with what they need, and Friday was approved to spend some $$$ for my PDs Resource Library. My team is so excited and pumped up! Thanks!
How to prove anything to the folks holding the purse strings is always an interesting challenge! You could try logic and metrics - but that doesn't always work! Perhaps make the argument for branding and customer service - the benchmarks of successful companies. Your successfully placed students are your brand. What does it take for them to find a job and what are the steps and time to do that? Career schools are differentiated by the services provided to students. So providing employment and job search training is simply part of the service. If you are not able to provide services so that grads successfully find employment then maybe ask management the question - why enroll them?
Thank you, Dr. Schulz. I appreciate your information and will follow up with you on our success. Our corporation has a formula that we go by for filling staff in each department. The Placement department's metric is 140 to 1. We have a total of 833 graduates and 6 and 1/2 (DCS counts as .5) at this time which is within our metric. But as I agree with you about holding the grads hand - it takes a lot of time, effort and compassion on our career services people - I feel like we need to lower this metric. How do I prove this to headquarters?
Hi Vicky, Great that you have the right staff. Now the question is - do you have enough staff? All grads need a lot of hand holding to develop skills and confidence for a successful job search. This often requires several career services people. We find that jist.com has a great variety of employment skills and job search media. You might also go to a major book store and take a look in the career section. Thanks, Susan
