Faculty Partnership – Bennett College

Help the Office of Career Services reach your students:

Refer students to the OCS for resume critiques, to plan career search strategies, to research an internship, or for help with post-grad school applications.
Invite the OCS into your classes or group meetings to speak on career, personal and professional, and employment topics.
Please contact us x2358 or djohnson@bennett.edu to let us know how we can work together.

Send us contact information:

What organization do you know in which our students and alumnae would be interested?
What on-campus recruiting from a company in your field you would like to see?
Refer all your contacts and friends to djohnson@bennett.edu, so they can register as an employer and/or as a mentor.

Classroom Presentations

Faculty will often call upon career services to conduct classroom presentations on career-related topics. By doing so, career services practitioners are assisting the faculty member by introducing up-to-date career information for the students. And, the career center can promote the office and services directly to the student population it serves.

Develop Major Specific Resources

This can be a great way to attract faculty’s attention! Create major-specific handouts that highlight quality internships or a one-page post-graduation outcome sheet that identifies employers, job title, wage information, and graduate school demographics for recent graduating classes. In turn, ask faculty to provide a list of the core competencies that students develop through their curriculum so that the career center can better market their majors to employers.

Employer Development

Employers are increasingly interested in connecting with faculty to source prospective students for internships and jobs. Similarly, faculty are interested in connecting with employers to ensure the curriculum is cutting-edge and producing graduates that are employable in an area related to their academic major. Career services can serve as the connection between faculty and employers. These connections help promote career services among faculty as an office that provides a useful and tangible service to their department. Employers will feel they have made the necessary networking contacts to improve recruiting initiatives that will attract talent to their organization.

First-Year Engagement

Faculty members have a keen interest in retaining students beyond the first year. Students can become disengaged and lose focus when they cannot make clear decisions regarding their academic major and career. Career services staff can position themselves to work collaboratively with faculty to provide direction for students who may be struggling with major and career decisions.

Graduate and Professional School

Faculty may often take the lead on graduate and professional school advising. Connect with those individuals to determine how your office could assist. Brainstorm resources to offer through the career center that would help students research graduate programs.

Internships

Students are becoming increasingly aware of the need to complete a minimum of one internship prior to graduation. If they are not connected to the career services office, they often turn to their academic adviser for guidance. Inform faculty of the internship resources that exist in career services.

Jobs

Introduce faculty to your recruiting system and offer faculty accounts so that they can be aware of opportunities listed for their majors. Invite faculty to advertise their own department student employment or research opportunities through career services.

Know the Academic Majors at Your Institution

Having a solid understanding of the academics at your institution is essential for providing targeted career advising and appropriate employer development. Meet annually with faculty to gain an understanding of the academic majors as well as the type of employment that each major prepares students to pursue. These meetings are a great impetus for generating new ideas that result in continued collaborations.

NACE Resources for Faculty

Are the faculty members at your college or university aware that NACE has established guidelines on the dos and don’ts of referring students to employers? This information is available online; consider sending faculty the link to this information.

Placement Data

Faculty should be aware that the career services office compiles placement information on each graduating class. Make sure they understand that this information can be made available to help them work with prospective and current students, and may be beneficial when preparing for accreditation.

Resume Assignments

Work with faculty to implement a classroom assignment that requires students to create their resume. Representatives from the career services office provide a classroom presentation to instruct students on the appropriate format and content for their resumes.

Surveys

Many career centers are required to survey students on topics that range from feedback on services and programs to post-graduation statistics. Do not overlook the significant role that faculty can play in helping you get the data you need. Determine if they are surveying students, too. If so, is there a way to partner in this endeavor and send one survey instead of multiple surveys?

Teaching Outside of the Classroom

When planning events and workshops, consider including faculty as speakers or panelists. Faculty members can provide great insight on their own academic areas for programs centered on choosing a major. Faculties are also a knowledge base for graduate school related programs.

Understanding Career Services

In many cases, faculty members may not have a clear understanding of the comprehensive and useful role that the career services office plays on their campus. Hosting an open house for faculty and staff can be a great way to showcase all that you have to offer. Do you invite faculty to your workshops and events? If not, send an invitation! Faculties are very interested in developing a better understanding of the work being done in career services.

Visit Each Other

Faculty and staff are traditionally very busy during the academic year. It is often easy to remain in your own area and not venture too far across campus. Make a goal for yourself that includes visiting at least one academic area periodically. Introduce yourself to faculty you may not know and make contact with those you do know. Read bulletin boards and show an interest in the department. If the opportunity exists, arrange to attend a faculty meeting to learn more about their majors and to market your office. Create ways to entice faculty to visit your area, too. Plan a faculty social in career services to facilitate the process of engaging with faculty.

That Syllabus

Prior to each semester, send faculty a list of your workshops, events, job fairs, and select career resources you want to market to students. Ask them to include the information on their syllabus or on their online course management site. Faculties are often willing to incorporate relevant career-related information into their classes. As a bonus, they may be willing to offer credit to students who use your services or attend events.

Yearly Sharing of Data

Most career services offices complete an annual report that provides statistics and information summarizing activities engaged in during the academic year. Share this information with faculty. Make sure they understand that this report contains key information related to student usage of services and programming, and employment statistics that are specific to academic majors and departments. Encourage them to incorporate this information when they compile their own department statistics.