Enrollment Management and Graduate Employment Outcomes
My Institution works closely with Career Services for input regarding enrollment trends, market forecasts, and employment outlook.
Career Services is also involved in the campus tour with prospective students.
Our corporate Marketing Department also includes Career Services placement data and staff's opinions on advertising, each year.
Does your institution currently consider how enrollment management plans impact employment rates, or is there often a discrepancy between the goals of admissions and the goals of career services? How would you recommend this gap be closed, and/or what strategies has your organization successfully implemented?
Hi Lauren,
Whereas a size of an institution can certainly lead to specialized functional areas leading to different "departments," the size of a school alone isn't typically the only variable that should determine the division of work. It is quite typical for schools to have individuals serve in different functional capacities such as an instructor who also helps graduates with employment (typically a "Career Services" function). What is pointed out in the course is the interdependence of all aspects of the student life cycle which is similar no matter school size. For students, there is an enrollment process, a program to be completed, and graduation no matter a school's size. Unfortunately, this process encourages many to view graduate employment as a linear process accomplished in a fashion similar to a factory model which explains the design of most schools. In your instance, your institution isn't operating this way (a good thing). This may have happened organically (Naturally) because of your size or it may have been designed that way as part of your operational strategy (you'd know better than I). Institutions can think of themselves as an ecosystem or a conglomerate of departments but mentality or philosophy is more powerful than an institution's size in determining this. As your school scales and grows, it will be interesting to see how this mentality is kept in tact and reflected in the way service is delivered. Size can make it more complicated but as I pointed out, I believe it has more to do with the philosophy of leadership in how they'd like to operate.
Robert Starks Jr.
We are a very small school, small enough we do not have a separate career services group. It is all our responsibility. We are selective with our admissions and are not pushed just to fill classes. We try to use enrollment management, as much as training of employment skills, to keep our employment numbers up.
We do our screening by asking how the prospective student heard about the profession and the program, trying to understand if they have reasonable expectations of the career - working conditions, hours, pay, etc. If not, we set them straight in their expectations, losing students if needed.
It is surprising how many prospective students have unreasonable expectations. It is easy to see why they get discouraged in their job search when they can't find entry level jobs anywhere near their expectations.
We are still struggling in a 10 week, 80 hour, single subject course to find the time to add employment skills. We were able to double the time we spent on customer service in Health Care when requested to by employers about 5 years ago.
Hi Kim,
Those are excellent recommendations. I'm not sure if your school already does this but I know of another institution that had similar industries as yours (creative) and had similar challenges. Another strategy they implemented was a formal periodic portfolio evaluation with students. The school established a timeline for each department for when Program Chairs and Lead Instructors would have "check-ins" with students to evaluate their portfolios and develop action plans to help improve students' work so that by the time students were in their final portfolio course, quality was improved. They required participation in a final portfolio show as well so that students practiced discussing their work, having eye contact, shaking hands, and networking. The faculty, staff, and other students would participate and employers were invited. This institutionalized the portfolio review process and did lead to a dramatic improvement in quality through more frequent, personalized coaching from instructors.
Robert Starks Jr.
A more selective screening process for students, a better 'call script' for admissions representatives, and open-mindedness from the Admissions Director and Director of the school on how their department impacts the education and Career Development areas.
We will also try to propose a prospective student self-assessment that is required prior to continuation of the admissions process.
Hi Kim,
What you describe does indeed sound like there is opportunity to have improved processes in the admissions area to ensure students and the institution are better prepared for success. What practices do you believe can be implemented to address the lack of cohesion you mention?
Robert Starks Jr.
As discussed in previous forums, my institute does not have much cohesion between admissions/enrollment and career services/placement. The goal of our admissions department, as a direct result of the schools' director/owners, is to fill the classes before the next semesters' start date.
This trickles down to the education department and then to Career Development when we receive students who can barely read or write, and somehow submitted false paperwork to the school (only to be discovered later by the school that this has happened). Our institute is not certified to handle certain learning disabilities, yet some students' documents were not clearly reviewed, and they were admitted. We also receive students that have no desire to work in our industry (entertainment), but only want to learn 'something new'.
It becomes difficult to teach, let alone place these students in industry-related fields for these and several other reasons.
Our dedicated staff have presented these issues to the directors in the past, with no real solutions.
However, the issue has been pressed so much, that we finally have a meeting set to discuss the issues and how to solve them. Hopefully this will stick with our directors and they will understand the issues happening. It will also explain to them that their entire business relies on the implementation of new strategies to bring the numbers of the school to acceptable levels.
As of now, our career development department utilizes ALL of the skills listed in this module, and we have a 2 day course built into the current curriculum with plans to expand with the entire program.
Hello Ruth,
Have you noticed any significant changes resulting from the implementation of background checks? For instance, has it impacted enrollment, retention, employment outcomes, or any other areas?
Robert Starks Jr.
yes, for instance, we have a license program that back grounds can effect eligibility to test and hence work, we are now doing background checks prior to enrollment for that program.
Kenneth,
Did you find some good suggestions in the course to help you?
Ann Cross
Career Services' input is heavily relied upon by Enrollment Management. If Career Services advises accordingly we will cap enrollments in certain programs.
During each term time is allocated within the classrooms to enable a CS advisor to speak with the students. Sometimes it's a training session or they may have a guest speaker to introduce. But sometimes they may just pass out cupcakes and set appointments to meet with the students.
We are constantly seeking out ways that our CS staff can interact with the students.
Antonia,
As part of the meeting, do you use some sort of reporting "dashboard" which highlights the key success metrics and goals for each department? If so, how is it utilized beyond the meeting?
Ann Cross
We have a weekly management meeting, which brings together each department head. During the meeting we discuss weekly goals, challenges, upcoming events and more. I've seen industry fluctuation and industry requirements change within certain programs over the years. I've addressed these industry changes within the meetings and they have been addressed. The Director of Admissions invites me in to speak with his staff to address the changes and he has worked with our Campus Director to address starts. I've gone in to speak with instructors to address industry needs for particular programs. Our Campus Director is very supportive of our team, which makes it easier for us to close gaps.
Zipporah,
Do you have a way to track their progress with respect to taking the necessary steps to improve their chances for employment while in school, such as monitoring their volunteerism activities?
Ann Cross
Jennifer,
CV can be effective, especially when tracking employment outcome percentages. Are you able to measure interview to hire rates, career service advisor job order conversion rates, offer to acceptance rates ect with Campus Vue?
Ann Cross
In my institution often the admissions and career services departments work hand in hand. The career services department reviews prospective student applications to identify any potential employment blocks. The student is then counseled on their options to both financially attend the training and also there potential for job placement once their credentials have been obtained. The only gaps that exist are the fact that students can still proceed with the program knowing that their chances for employment are limited or based on their block will need to be placed on hold for a certain period of time. Whether a student is a top notch candidate for job placement or a risk for job placement the student is advised by both career services and admissions and fully understand their position prior to program initiation. In an effort to alleviate the small gap of training individuals whom understand their placement blocks we actively search for new placement opportunities that may allot for individuals with these background barriers to gain employment despite their issue.
Currently, we use CampusVue to measure campus,program, career services advisor placement progress, employer and student/ graduate activity. It has worked tremendously for us so far. Are you familiar with any other software?
Jennifer
Jennifer,
Very few programs exist which support the kind of rich data needed for Career Services. If you would like information about some software...let me know. I am aware of a few programs that capture this data automatically based on activities your CS staff perform regularly.
Ann Cross
Sami ,
Thank you for providing the group with the specifics of your approach. This is always helpful and supports the purpose of our forum, to share best practices. It sounds like you've implemented a comprehensive approach but I invite others to share any additional ideas they have about how to engage the entire institution in supporting outcomes. Have any of you sponsored giveaways or awarded staff who go above-and-beyond as a way to encourage more active participation?
Ann Cross
