Leah,
Staying in touch with employers and potential employers has sooo many benefits. You find out where the jobs are, how to improve your programs, when new programs may be needed in the workplace and much more. You'll have employers to invite to sit on Advisory Boards and to review your curriculum. Many opportunities by staying in touch with employers and your grads. Thanks, Susan
Dr. Susan Schulz
Contact with the students and working to find employers employees so that you know who is applying, getting interviewed, etc.
Ingrid,
This is a great step, Ingrid. There are a few aspects of this task. One is to introduce yourself to employers. Another is to stay in touch with them so you always know when there is going to be an opening. Employers can also give you feedback about your training and what additional skills they feel your grads needed. Once you have developed a system to meet and stay in contact with employers then prepare a list of companies that don't hire your grads yet and follow the same process. Good luck, Susan
Dr. Susan Schulz
I am building my list of employers from contacting graduates by phone to inquire about their current employment status and the name of their employer.
Cheryl ,
Great points, Cheryl. There are many benefits when contacting employers. One is to keep up to date with their staffing needs. Another is to determine if your curriculum meets their needs and what changes are needed. And another is having them see you as THE source for training and staffing. Thanks
Dr. Susan Schulz
An effective way to build a list of employers is to make calls to the hiring/office manager to determine their qualifications needed for an hiree. It is also important to meet with the hiring/office manager face to face to develop the relationship and fully understand the needs of the organizations culture.
Marita,
Great. Suggest you assign one person as Community Outreach. If you see them at their desk they are not doing their job! This person needs to develop and maintain relationships with employers and potential employers. Find out their needs and how your school can address them. Keep in touch by sending informational info. Get support from your Alumni. Happy grads will introduce you to their employers and tell you about job openings. MaxK offers a course on Alumni by the way. Lots of opportunities by being out in the community. Thanks, Susan
Dr. Susan Schulz
Currently, we keep track of those employers who hire our graduates or request our graduates, as well as utilize our advisory board and membership with professional organizations to network. That said, this is an area in which we need to improve. This forum held many great ideas that are inspiring - thank you!
Mary,
Great Mary. Great list of networking organizations. The goal is to see which are worth your time. Not all are receptive to hearing about training or provide the opportunity to get your message out. And while you are one employee on staff it is important to manage your time, as you well know. As to our ribbon cutting and other events, there is good opportunity for publicity before, during, and after. Do you have a marketing department who can get involved? Great examples of staying in touch with employers. And keep in mind those companies that don't employ your grads yet. Thanks, Susan
Dr. Susan Schulz
Networking is always the key. These are a few of the ways I networking:
Alumni Association
Advisory Boards Meetings
Internships site visits
Memberships to multiple organizations & networking groups
Chamber of Commerce Ambassador - Ribbon cuttings &
before & after hour events
Regular Mailings
Cold calls
Career Fairs
Once a relationship with an employer is established I treat that employer like gold. That relationship becomes a precious commodity to me. Without my relationship to employers in the community I would not be successful. I present my employers with gifts, food and talented grads on a regular basis. They love to feel appreciated and in turn they are always there to help me with my events and providing opportunities for my students and graduates.
Scott,
We agree that it is a must to stay in touch with employers and ask them how your grad is doing on the job. Find out what other skills and knowledge are needed to be productive from day 1. Externship sites are a great way to connect with employers. Imagine if the expectation of the externship site was that it was a long interview process with the expectation that the student will be hired? That can make a different in placement! We think that the Placement Department needs to take a Community Outreach approach and contact companies that could be hiring your grads and don't know about your school yet.
Thanks, Susan
Dr. Susan Schulz
My most effective way is to create a list from employers who already hired past graduates, a list from all externship sites and any personal developed leads.
Great. We totally believe in the value of community outreach. Just get out there and talk to employers - those who know about your school and those who don't. Find out what they want in a work-ready grad and be sure your curriculum is adjusted to meet their needs. Stay in touch just the right amount of frequency. And they will look to your school for employees. thanks, Susan
I have found a couple of effective ways to build a list of employers. One is through employment verification and the other is through phone calls and personal visits. Once you have made contact on a personal level with the employers many options become open to the department, the college and the students.
These are all great ideas. We believe in surveys and measuring everything possible to make effective improvements. Employers can be such a great source of information including what skills and knowledge are needed in the workplace. Field trips, job shadowing, externships, etc. are all great ways for students to get first-hand knowledge of the real world of work. And they see how what they learn is applied to the job. These are all reasons to have an active alumni association so you have people available to invite you students to a day or week at work. thanks, Susan
We utilize the student/graduate surveys. We are also very active in networking with the businesses in our industry. Our instructors are very well known in their profession. We have developed relationships with these employers and take the students on "field trips" so to speak and hold open houses thus giving everyone an opportunity to network. We are fortunate in rapport we have built with employers locally and nationally. Often employers will contact us when they have openings.
You have definitely created a model career services department. If every school did this we might not have gainful employment issues! Thanks, Susan
We have been fortunate in hiring as our Assistant Director of Career Services someone who had the experience in job development. He brought many, many contacts to the table and it has enhanced our list of hiring employers. We also have externship partners for 7 of our 9 programs and that has also been a huge benefit to our employer development placement project. We keep an active list of companies who have hired our students either through our ETH (extern to hire) program or through regular channels of the hiring process. Our employers are on our advisory boards, are guest speakers, participate in our job fairs, field trip sites, etc.
We also display an active hiring employers board and it is updated on a weekly basis. We network with all of these employers on a quarterly basis, either by site visits with little tokens of appreciation, thank you cards, etc. We know we can do more and one of our projects for the remaining months in this year is to form an Alumni Association and create a Community Relations Board.
Great plan. We feel that there should be someone on staff who spends most of their time out in the community. In that way the person can develop relationships for placement and externships too. And talk with people about the effectiveness of your curriculum and how work ready your grads are. Employers can also provide clues about new training programs that will be needed. Lots can happen when someone is out there seeing with their own eyes. Thanks, Susan
This is something that I am trying to work on, and find it a challenging task! We have a comprehensive list of employers in the field the students are studying for, but we do not have relationships with all of them. I am trying to set up meetings with various employers to develop a good relationship with them and find out what the requirements and skills needed to hire our graduates and what their job opportunities look like. My goal is to develop my current list of employers as well as maintain the relationships with the employers that I already have.
