Hi Moszetta
The surveys sound interesting. It's always a great idea to get feedback from the employer and the working graduate. You can find out what skills or knowledge need to be added to course work to ensure your students are work ready. Keeping in touch with employers is a way to learn about other job openings in their company. And they may have employees they want to send to your school for training. It's a winning situation.
Best wishes
Susan
We have surveys that are being use for grads, and employers, the employer survey provides the company with vital information concerning the students, this survey also enlighten the company of the arrears needs improving. The specify questions on the survey give the employer the opportunity to grade our students base on their performances. It also allows our company to keep a good rapport with the employer. The grad survey allows the company to keep in touch with the grad this survey is positive for retentions.
Hi Harrison
The focus of this forum is to put in place surveys or other assessments to determine how you are doing and where changes can be made. Staying in touch with graduates is vital as most licensing and accrediting boards want to know how your graduates are doing as to placement. Taking this a step further, you can determine how long your grads stay on the job and how long it takes for them to gain a promotion or raise. This will tell you if they are trained sufficiently and also whether your career services includes skills building in job retention and advancement. It's great that you get your successful grads back to your school. Besides being great sources for feedback, they may also be able to help with word-of-mouth referrals and get you corporate business.
Best wishes
Susan
Along with what other schools have mentioned with regard to surveying employers, we do encourage graduates, who eventually obtain hiring manager positions, to serve on our Advisory Boards. At the time of those meetings, we also haved those graduates speak in classrooms, sharing how their training aided their employment experience.
HI Carol
Great that you implement employer and graduate surveys. What's important is to tally the responses, issue reports to each department, gain feedback, and make changes. I see you have noticed that people don't tend to complete or return surveys. So you are quite right that following up and particularly phoning is a great way to get needed information. As you know, your regulatory bodies require this information as well. Can you share more of what you do now or how you can specifically improve placement information gathering at your school?
Best wishes
Susan
We currently have Employer Surveys and Graduate Surveys. Graduate follow-up telephone surveys might be helpful. You can call the graduate and document your conversation. This can at least work as a sort of replacement for those surveys that are not returned or followed up on.
Hi Betty
I hope everyone reads your comments on surveys and how vital they are to keeping programs on the cutting edge. Private schools have an advantage of being able to make decisions quickly and implement changes without the hassle of too much bureaucracy. Surveys provide the information to know what programs to offer next. To further make the point can you give us examples of changes and developments as a result of survey data.
Thanks
Susan
We survey both the graduates and employers. The results are compiled and presented to the President, Academic Deans, Department Chairpersons and the management team for review. The information is used to keep our programs at the cutting edge of what industry needs. Our graduates complete a survey with their exit interview. They are also surveyed several times over the next couple of years. We also survey our students, every class, every instructor each quarter. The results are used by the school in various area, program development and individual teacher evaluations. We also survey our graduates again when they pick up their cap and gowns for the graduation ceremony. We use lots of surveys in almost all areas. This keeps us up to date on making the best product we can sell, our graduates.
Hello Christine
Great that you are sending out surveys - and at the recommended time frame. Can you share with us what you discover. How are survey results different at 30,60, and 90 days? What new information do you discover, if any? Are you satisfied with the responses? What could you do to improve response? And in what ways do you share results and with whom? What do those people do with the information?
Best wishes
Susan
We do have several surveys implemented. We have an exit survey of their course experiences at school, a 30-60-90 day survey regarding placement services and work experiences, employer surveys on the interviews with our graduates, and surveys on job performances of those they hire.
We do record stats from these surveys in order to update, change, implement new ideas, etc. We then ca see we are continuing to provide all that is necessary for our students/graduates to succeed.
Christine Jimenez
We currently have a general alumni and employer survey, but we are now compliling individual surveys for each program. We started with our Veterinary Technician program and felt that we had great success with that survey and we are now branching out into other program areas. We send these surveys out 1 year after graduate. I do like the idea of sending out 90 day surveys as well.
I did like the idea of having a special survey for self employed graduates and look forward to implementing that in the very near future.
All survey responses are compiled and submitted to the Administration & Program Directors. They review the responses to ensure that we are providing what students and employers want & need. When a common theme is found in several surveys, it clues the Administration that we should continue to do certain things that are working well & in some instances perhaps we should make some changes.
Hi Wendy
Great that you are doing a thorough job following up grads. Do you discover areas that need improvement in the interview process? Are there additional skills you could be teaching to improve success in getting a job? I like the idea of following up alumni and their employers. There is a lot of information to get that can improve programs and ensure that course objectives meet the needs of the workplace. Keeping in touch with employers is a way to anticipate future training needs. Your school could be ahead of the game by offering programs that will be needed by local business and industry.
Best wishes, Susan
Hi Todd
Your comments point to the fact that getting survey response from grads takes work and constant follow up. The information is so valuable it is worth it. Can you tell us more about how you evaluate student work ethic? What have you discovered? What has been changed in the curriculum or your offerings to improve new employee work ethic? What areas do you focus on? Thanks,
Best wishes, Susan
Hi Kim
While there are others at your school also enrolled in the same MaxK course you still have different perspectives on what is happening and also unique ideas to make the strategies and results better. Your 90 day surveys sound great. Are you doing anything to help the grad with employment retention and advancement? Re your very in-depth interview with the employer, what do you do with the information gathered? Do you discuss curriculum? equipment? learning materials?
Best wishes
Susan
We do employer and graduate surveys very similar to the previous postings. They are designed to evalaute the student work ethic as well as the students training. We are now trying new ways to increase our responces from surveys. We do a mail out, then follow-up phone calls, we are also making graduates complete surveys when they pick up their cap and gawn.
Since Suzanne Tignor works at the same college as I my answer is similar to hers, so I'll be brief.
We follow up via phone calls, email and snail mail with graduates to see how they are enjoying their new positions.
We conduct a graduate survey 90 days after graduation. We ask questions that will enable us to find out if the graduate is satisfied with their position, if their expectations were reasonable and if they feel they were academically prepared for the job responsibilities.
We also conduct an employer survey 90 days after the placement of a graduate. We probe to find out if the graduate is performing up the expectations of the employer. We ask questions to find out about performance, dependability, teamwork, work ethic, skills, etc.
For every class our students are enrolled, they are given evaluations at the beginning and end of every course to give us thorough and general feedback about our college. By meeting with every graduate to discuss the position of interest, we are able to track every student who will be contacting that particular employer. As we realize that our graduates are busy, we follow up with them to inquire about the interview process, the potential employer and status of employment. In addition, we also follow up with alumni and their employers. We have been somewhat successful in measuring placement by pursuing feedback and not waiting for it.
Hi Mitzie
Looks like you have a great understanding of the details and follow up required for a good placement department and gathering and using information. Attached are 2 surveys that you can adapt. Best wishes, Susan
On-going and timely follow-up with employers and students/graduates is a critical component of customer service. First, the survey must be done in a timely manner while the value of our placement service is fresh in the mind of the customer. Second, the customer must see the value of their input. This can be done through providing the results of the survey to all participants and, most importantly, the corrective actions being taken to improve customer service based on their input.
Through our Advisory Committee, we obtain formal survey information regarding our curriculum, facilities, equipment, etc., but we are weak in the follow-up, i.e., showing our committee the results of their input. This is an important part of our relationship with the community and one I will focus on improving over the next year.
Also, we are in constant communications with our employers and graduates during the initial placement process. I see a real value in a more formal survey and follow-up process and will implement this into our Placement Plan. Do you have samples of formal surveys for both the employer and graduate that we could use for our department?
