At its core, college career services are programs or aids designed to assist college students in any aspect of their careers. These programs can include aspects such as resume building, job hunting, and even simple advice from a counselor on what to expect when entering the job market for the first time.
College career services are also not only relegated to helping students find new jobs. They also often offer assistance in helping students with existing employment explore other career options, or even in transitioning from one career to another.
If you’re looking to build a college career service or improve the one you already have, read on for some best practices!
What is a college career service?
Studies have shown that just around 40% of college students hold down some form of employment while attending university full-time. This means that at any given moment, more than half of university graduates are likely to have little or no experience in the workforce when they leave college.
Most colleges and universities have recognized similar statistics and have taken steps to help ease the transition of their students from the world of academia into the workaday world, everything from internships and outreach programs to, as we’re about to see, full-fledged career services departments.
The goals of a college career program
The basic goal of any college career services department is simple: assist the student with any career-related difficulties and provide information on as many facets of work life outside of the university as possible.
Specifically, these goals manifest as helping students secure internships at companies in their desired career fields or assisting students and alumni in finding new jobs. They will also often host job fairs, helping connect recruiters from local companies with students looking to make connections in their career field.
Some college career services departments also offer financial advice. Counseling on how to deal with college loan debt, for instance, is often in high demand, and many departments will be able to offer solid advice on the best career paths to help a student deal with debt.
Many career services departments also offer one-on-one counseling for things such as interview preparation or resume review and building techniques. At the most fundamental level, they offer counseling and advice for students trying to figure out what career field they even want to pursue.
The challenges a college career service faces
You might think that an obviously beneficial office as career services would be taken advantage of by all students. You would be wrong. Not only do college career services departments face challenges in connecting students to the proper career field, they often find difficulties in just connecting to the students themselves.
One of the main challenges faced by a career services department is simply the misperception of both students and faculty about the role they play. Often, a career services department is thought of more as a job-placement center, a place students can go to receive work. This can lead to disillusionment in the students when they are confronted with the reality of the situation.
Other challenges include aspects like the increasing reliance of both students and faculty on online tools and presence, which can make it difficult to find and connect with those students in need of the services. It is also becoming increasingly common to find a lack of administrative or staffing support for these offices from the college itself.
Other common challenges include, but are not limited to:
- Difficulties with student engagement.
- Limited access to external career resources.
- Students not realizing the office even exists.
- Student career anxiety.
The benefits of a virtual teleprompter for college career services
When people think of teleprompters, they often imagine it only in the context of political speeches or TV anchors, but virtual teleprompter apps like VODIUM can be just as effective a tool in circumstances encountered by college career service departments as well.
A virtual teleprompter app is designed to display pre-loaded speeches or notes overlaid on top of the video window of whatever video conferencing software you may be using. This allows you to speak confidently and competently in any virtual situation without needing to break eye contact or search through pages of notes during a presentation or conversation.
When it comes specifically to career services, a virtual teleprompter app like VODIUM can offer an array of benefits.
Increased access for students
Accessibility is defined as the quality of being easily understood or appreciated. That concept is a key component of any advice given by a career services counselor, as any misunderstandings at the moment may have enormous consequences for a student further down their career path.
A teleprompter app like VODIUM can assist in increasing accessibility for students, especially in a virtual space, by allowing the counselor to pre-load a variety of key points they wish to cover during the counseling session. These points are then easily accessed on the teleprompter screen itself without the need to enter a different program or break off from the conversation to look up notes.
A teleprompter app will also help the counselor concentrate on delivering the correct information in an engaging manner, as pre-loaded scripts remove the need for rote memorization. Additionally, having the information right in front of the counselor’s eyes allows the counselor to maintain eye contact and focus on non-verbal cues from the student, which they might have missed if they relied on more traditional notes.
Improved efficiency for virtual events
Hosting virtual events such as virtual job fairs or seminars is one of the ways a college career services department can offer help to students and alumni. During these events, it’s common to have speakers or counselors from the department delivering keynote addresses.
A virtual teleprompter app like VODIUM can be wonderfully effective in these scenarios, allowing the presenter to speak authoritatively and confidently on their pre-loaded topic. VODIUM also offers auto-scrolling features with variable speeds so that the speaker can control the pacing of their speech, increasing or decreasing the speed as needed to ensure optimal audience engagement.
Reduced costs for advisor training
In much the same way that using a teleprompter frees a speaker up to concentrate on other aspects of speaking, it can also reduce the costs needed to train your career advisors in the art of public speaking.
Most public speaking training focuses on confidence and engagement. VODIUM allows users to pre-load and practice their presentations beforehand, allowing them to gain that confidence naturally. Also, having speeches or presentations pre-loaded on your screen during a virtual presentation allows the presenter to focus more on audience engagement during the presentation.
VODIUM is the tool you need to maximize your college career effortsWhether using it as a note-taking app during one-on-one counseling sessions or during a virtual presentation to an entire campus, VODIUM will allow you to be confident and effective in your communication efforts as a college career service provider. Stop by our website and start your free trial of VODIUM today and see how we can elevate your office’s efforts on and off campus!
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