Blogs

Two New Career Studio Ideas Pull Students Into the Career Center

By Kelly Dorner posted 10-11-2018 10:30

  

It is hard to believe fall is upon us once again. Of course, this means an exciting launch to a new academic year. Each year, I am enthusiastic as I welcome students back to campus and eager to see a summer of planning come to life. This year was no exception, as we planned and strategized enhancements for year two of the Oakland University Career Studio. 

I am thrilled with the success of the career studio during the first month of the new academic year. We had 265 student visitors—a 162 percent increase from last September. 

If you have not heard of this concept, a career studio is an interactive drop-in center led by peer career educators. Students are encouraged drop in when inspiration strikes them, stay for as long as they want, and come back as often as they would like. Our first year with the career studio brought immediate impact to our career center with more than 600 student engagements. Further, the model of on-the-spot career coaching was well received by students, with 98 percent sharing that they had a valuable experience. With these strong results, we knew we had a great concept, and we were excited to plan for what would come next. 

As we planned for the fall, we decided to try some new things to help draw students to our studio. September seemed like the perfect month to try new strategies as we welcomed students back to campus and prepared for our career fairs. 

We hosted two employer-led “Career Studio Takeover Days.” On those days, an employer sponsor took over our career studio with representatives to meet with students. We promoted this to students as an opportunity to get “career fair ready” encouraging them to drop in to get on-the-spot advice from an employer. Students loved the option to choose whether they would receive advice about their resume, elevator pitch, and overall career fair strategy from an employer or a peer career educator. The employers loved connecting with students one-on-one to offer advice. The buzz and energy in the career studio was fantastic during the employer takeover days! We definitely plan to try this again to help students prepare for our Winter Career Fair. 

In addition to our employer-led takeover days, we also experimented with hosting evening career studio hours the week of the career fairs. We extended our hours until 7:00 p.m. for two evenings prior to the career fair. We marketed this to our students as an opportunity to drop-in and work on their resumes, research employers, and work on their elevator pitches. This was a tremendous success. We had a steady stream of students coming to our studio. In fact, we had 70 students visit the career studio the day before the career fair! 

I loved the atmosphere, watching students roll up their sleeves and embrace the opportunity to get career fair ready with the help of a peer career educator. I overheard students say things like, “my friend told me about this and said it was a great way to get my resume reviewed,” or “thanks so much, I had no idea where to get started and now I feel prepared for the career fair.” Other students left the career studio with expressions of relief and an air of confidence. This was, without a doubt, a fantastic experience for our students. 

Now time to shift the focus of our career studio to interview prep, but, first we had a bit of celebration for our peer career educators to reward them for a fantastic month—after all, it isn’t truly fall until one has enjoyed cider, donuts, and a bit of pumpkin spice!  I can’t wait to see what is next for our career studio, and, I look forward to sharing more with you! 

Mary T. Calhoon, associate director of the Career Studio at the University of Nevada, Reno, and Kelly Dorner, director of career service at Oakland University, held a series of conference calls as a follow up to their #NACE18 session, “Flip Your Career Center: Three Peer-Led Career Studios.” 

More conference calls are being planned. A November 6 blog about career studios will include information about the next conference call. Notes from previous conference calls are available in the NACE Community library. Go to browse>library entries>peer advising.

 

Permalink

Comments

03-21-2019 14:40

I have been wanting to join NACE for several years now - and finally got the go ahead! I enjoyed reading this blog as I am hoping to be a sponge to soak up successful ideas and strategies for more student engagement in our career center. Thank you. I am going to research more of your blogs on Career Studios!