Colleges and universities, globally, are facing a backlash considering the decreasing employment of graduates. This has deeply impacted student enrollment. Universities are being slammed by the corporates that the students are not ‘job-ready’. Often universities provide students with career services to curb this problem. Although the problem is that these services are used by only 50% of the students and that too once. There are merely 25% of students take career services seriously. This was a stat pulled out by the National Alliance of College and Employers(NACE).
Why go for career services?
According to Brandon Buzbee, who is the interim vice chancellor for advancement at the University of Denver(DU) feels that this is a huge problem that students are not able to take the advantage of career services provided to them. But students who have taken part in these sessions are more likely to get a better paying job and eventually they feel that their higher education was worth paying for. A survey was done by Gallup that ascertains this stat. As far as the model is concerned, DU is pretty confident that they are doing everything to help the students.
Career services try and work closely with the faculties and alumni to choose which path would be the best for the students. Talking to alumni enables them to learn what skills the corporates are demanding in today’s world. The best part about this is that the system works very well for DU. If we talk about the year 2018, more than 88% of the graduates are working today. The national average is near around 85%. The 2017 stats were more impressive, 91% of the graduates of the 2017 class are employed while the national average was just 84.5%.
Interested students can start their counseling as soon as possible. A student can start in the freshman year and the services tell them what they really want to do by personality quizzes. This has worked for students and they get their opportunities right after graduation.
Edwin Koc is a director of strategic and foundation research at NACE. According to him, the least worked area by the students and the career services is the interview process. Students just aren’t prepared to face an interview.
DU is on its way to build a new center for career services right in the middle of the campus so that students can visit it as per their convenience more than they used to.
