Career Services

What is the program’s mission statement or statement of purpose? Why does the program exist?

Career Services is committed to providing innovative centralized career development and experiential learning services to students and alumni that enrich their academic experiences in order to produce an educated, individually responsible, open-minded and ethical career force for the State of Illinois and the larger global society.

How does the program mission align with the university mission?

Career Services provides counseling, advising and applied experience that develops individual competency in critical skills and self-knowledge that is required for professional success and personal leadership in our society.  These skills and knowledge are non academic yet are critical for articulating how one's academic preparation is relevant to the work world.  The competencies that we teach are a significant part of the decision on who is selected for entry level positions and subsequent promotions and is significant in supporting our clients' navigation of an ever changing work landscape.  Our client entered mission facilitates each individual's ability to demonstrate and communicate their academic and self knowledge within the labor force. 

Career success is one of the main metrics of the value of a college education. It is a critical variable within the context of the argument about the ROI of a traditional college education particularly when trade and allied health salaries outpace the demand for and earning potential of some BA degrees.  Career success is also one of the main factors in long term well being, according to Gallup, and in fact is the #1 factor above all others in predicting overall well being.  If there is career well being then there is also likely social well being, financial well being, physical well being and community well being.  Since graduates of higher education expect their investment to be a  valued experience and our legislative bodies are trending toward a link between funding and career outcomes, then career services is integral to the value added experience that is currently delivered at a higher level within the context of a four year degree or research based institution.

Whom does the program serve?

The program serves students and alumni with career exploration, career transitioning and personal/professional development counseling and planning. Our counseling provides insight into how each person's environment has influenced their self perception, career conscription and development.  We guide alumni/students through downsizing, career transitioning, conflict in organizations, choosing employer culture that matches their individual values and needs.  We provide counseling on negotiating and comparing offers.

Career Services serves employers who target the campus, or who should be targeting the campus, because our candidates' skills match the employers' employment needs. Providing an efficient and continuous pipeline to talent serves society by retaining viable employers within our recruiting region. 

Ultimately, Career Services supports the university as a whole because our services create user satisfaction with the campus and develops candidates who present a good brand image of Eastern Illinois University. Our services create an important link between long term individual benefit and our university's messages about academic rigor, community service, responsibility, leadership, global citizenship, inclusion, decision making, and ethics. 

Finally, since our office begins service prior to enrollment and continues service long after our graduates' departures, Career Services supports the mission of many departments who may focus on recruitment/on-boarding, student life, academic life and then alumni support to the institution.

What are the services provided? How do these services align with the university mission and program mission?

1. Career Counseling for students and alumni to gain self awareness and plan for their personal development including how to make career well being a part of their life plan.  Specific counseling & advising services include preparation for and selection of graduate studies, graduate essay writing, identification of career supportive undergraduate research topics, interviewing, professional etiquette, dining etiquette, networking skills, job correspondence, job shadowing, career selection, employer identification, internship sourcing, job market analysis, competency deficiency planning, strategic sourcing of knowledge to augment university programs, selection of RSO and community service participation to support career development,  managing family expectations, planning for fiscal demands at life stage transitions, salary and offer negotiation, professional relationship management, supervisor relationship counseling and strategies, addressing career obstacles related to gender, sexual preference, national origin, misdemeanor and criminal history, disability, international status, industry decline, identification of emerging industries, identification of regions with economic growth and regional economic decline.  These services align with the university's mission of human and social development as well as increasing access to graduate education.

2. Employer services align with the universities mission to be a resource for the labor force and to develop strong ties between applied practice and the classroom.  Our employer services have directly resulted in financial support to the institution by employers and alumni. Services include job & internship posting, cooperative work study, branding, advertising, job fairs and campus interviews, underclassmen early development programs, salary benchmarking, recruitment consulting, identification of faculty collaborators, securing academic program information, and navigating complex university structures and policies.

3. Institutional Data - Career services provides placement data, graduate school enrollment, information about employer destinations, salary data, student engagement with pre-professional experiences and trend analysis.  Our metrics support student recruitment, program analysis and provides data on specific student career outcomes for athletes and veterans,  cooperative work study participants.

Describe the program’s origins (e.g. year established, purpose, expectations).

Career Services was previously the Career Planning & Placement Center and before that it was the Placement Center.  The department has been in existence since at least the 1930's according to Dean Lanham who has reported the existence of Career Placement Center reports in the Library archives from the 1930's.   At first, the office was to place graduates into jobs.  That function changed as society and employer expectations changed.  Soft skill competency requirements drove Career Centers to work on personal and professional development of students well before graduation. Demographic changes in student populations also required more varied expertise to address student professional and personal development needs. The recent shift of employers to identify top talent in freshman and sophomore populations has only intensified our early assessment, training and networking programs in order that our students keep pace with recruiting trends and have access to the best opportunities.

How has the unit changed or adapted over time?

Adaptation 1:

The office began a reorganization to accommodate an early education and experiential service in the late 1990's while retaining acute  junior/senior year professional development training.  The focus shifted from a  job placement model that kept users dependent on experts to a Career Services model that enables graduates to master long term career management skills.

Adaptation 2: 

Assessment was changed from the misguided 1960's self-guided experience with slight oversight by a graduate assistant who knew very little about assessment and even less about the world of work into an assessment model including a psycho-social intake  supplemented by assessment results to support a holistic career counseling service delivered by counseling staff with deeper knowledge of the job market and graduate level counseling training. A more diverse college enrollment and a more complex job market required greater professional training and skills.

Adaptation 3:

The unit continues to shift resources to employer outreach as the higher education industry has expanded and the employer landscape changed through mergers, acquisitions, and start-ups while simultaneously increasing their focus on cost of hire metrics and global access to talent. Limited state support necessitates further employer outreach that includes funding support for our professional development programs.

Adaptation 4:

Technology quickly changed the office.  Automation has allowed the unit to retain staffing levels while providing more direct service to students, alumni, internal users and employers and less time on paperwork.  Demands for use of and expertise with newer technical platforms challenges our ongoing training plans.  Our interface with employers pushes our technical advancement thus we are dependent upon campus technical experts and 3rd party vendors to create new solutions.  In repayment for building new solutions, Career Services has served as a trainer for other campus users on a number of technical roll-outs, particularly with web design and web form training to offset the demand on CATS.

Adaptation 5:

Employer cost constraints requires Career Services to consider ROI and yield on nearly every service, expenditure and marketing effort. Our external revenue experiences rapid change due to economic pressures and Career Services has to monitor income streams on a monthly basis because of the volatility.

Adaptation 6:

Internal partnering has dramatically increased particularly with alumni relations, institutional research, enrollment management, admissions, university marketing, freshman foundations,  transfer relations, athletics and the provost's office as we share knowledge that supports the mission of other departments.

If needed, provide supplemental comments to help the reader understand the program’s history and relevance to university mission.

Provide data, if available, on the numbers of students, faculty, staff, or others served by the program during the past four years. If no data are available, please estimate the numbers served annually.

Data on student usage is collected at many but not all points of access and this data collection has occurred for many decades.  Student use of Career Services is voluntary.  Over the past three years, the minimum usage rate by students has been 57%, 60% abd 65% (2012).  Data for AY 2013 is not yet complete, thus the data for AY 2012, 2011 and 2010 will be used.  A point to note, prior to AY 2013, job fair attendance and class presentations were not used in calculating the percentage of students served statistic.  We have automated collecting job fair attendance and we are working on automating the class presentation service documentation.

Student Contact:  includes major contact categories but not all points of contact. 

AY Year              % Served          Appointments          Workshop attendance         Job Fair attendance

2012                    65%                3402                       5809                                 1605

2011                    60%                3946                       5361                                 1687

2010                    56%                3980                       6163                                 1820

The entire University Foundations faculty are served annually.  Faculty teaching KSS 1500, BUS 1000, Psych and Soc career forum classes are served annually.  About 75 - 150 FCS 1000 students served annually and an additional 140 FCS 4000 students were served in Fall 2013. Academic advising is provided with resources and knowledge at an annual meeting.  Additionally, expedited service is available by request for advisers who need students to receive immediate career counseling.  This serves 50-100 students annually with same or next day service.

The Admissions/Transfer Relations staff is served with our specialized workshops during their event days, beyond the standard informational table in the ballroom.  Immediate service for visiting families requesting information about job prospects for certain majors which happens monthly  This immediate service occurs with athletic recruitment also. Coaches are given same day service for recruits and their families who want specific information about the job competitiveness of our programs. 

Nearly 500 parents and students attend early bird Career Sessions for new student programs.  26 external graduate schools and 150 students attend a Graduate fair that promotes access to graduate education.  Minority Internships have been placed by our office for at least  5 years and career podcasts have been prepared for Continuing Education.

Does the program offer any co-curricular opportunities for students (e.g., internships, RSO support, service-learning activities)? Please describe.

Career Services provides the Illinois Cooperative Work Study internship program administration for the entire campus, which encompasses most non-education curricula.

Career Services sources and markets 1200+ internships to students annually that provide paid and unpaid experiences locally, in the state and nationally for all curricula. 

For AY 2013-2014 we have a "114 in 2014" program that is focused on obtaining 114 new internships.

  We have an IT rotation/observation program for MIS and  Occupational Therapy observations for psych and Pre-Occupational Therapy majors.

We provide a case study based advertising project with an advertising agency where journalism, communications and marketing students in competing teams create a marketing project in one day.  Winning team members earn $50 from the agency.  

Career Services started student attendance at the R.I.S.E. global investment conference and continues to support the event.  Attendees are from economics and finance majors and they lobbied for and obtained the securities analysis room after seeing such room at R.I.S.E.  In addition, our Student Investment Society has placed in the investing competition at R.I.S.E within the last 3 years which raises the profile of our institution.

We started an RSO for students to gain leadership and mentoring by mentoring their peers who need encouragement to seek internships.  We provide in-house internships for undergraduate and graduate students in marketing, human resources sourcing, and career advising (resumes/interviewing).

We provide workshops for and source speakers for Beta Alpha Psi, Student Accounting Society, SHRM, American Marketing Association, AITP, SAFCS, KSS Club, Phi Beta Lambda, National Society of Collegiate Scholars, WISM, Psi Chi, Psychology Club, Minority Teacher Education Association, PRSSA

We provide a Human Resources Northern Trust Trip benefiting mainly business, psychology and communication majors; Historical Administration Trip (history and history t/c); Public Relations trip for Communications, English, journalism and Marketing students; Geology trip:  Geography/Geology; Financial Markets Trip  for Economics, Business, MBA, CMN, Journalism which includes an alumni mentoring lunch.

Does the program contribute to the delivery of academic programs (e.g., providing professional expertise, serving as adjunct faculty)? Please describe.

Career Services staff have served as adjunct faculty for the Freshman Foundation course, a Board of Governor's course, and a College Student Affairs graduate course.  Career counselors have also sat om thesis committees.

If needed, provide supplemental comments to help the reader understand the internal demand for the program. Note any clarifications or special circumstances (e.g., curriculum changes made by another program) that should be considered when reviewing the above data.

The decline of education recruitment by school districts and the number of education majors impacts our job fair attendance numbers.  The trend of students not passing the Basic Skills and then the TAP tests impacted Career Services with an acute demand for assessment and career counseling with significant deadline pressures due to class registration and impending graduations.

Is the program accredited or approved by a recognized external agency or otherwise certified to meet established professional standards? Provide an executive summary of and link to the program’s most recent accreditation or certification report, if available.

No such accreditation exists for career centers at universities, however our data is used by NACE for benchmarks within the profession and our performance against benchmarks for comprehensive master's level institutions is very good.

The Director holds a professional membership in the American Counseling Association.

The Director and several staff members hold membership in the National Association of Colleges and Employers.

The Director and the Career Counselors (not advisers or paraprofessional staff) are members of the National Career Development Association.  All are eligible for professional designation through NCDA which will be pursued within our financial constraints.

Is the program required to meet any regulatory or legal requirements? Is the program subject to any special auditing requirements?

As a member office of NACE, we must adhere to the NACE Professional standards listed here

.http://www.naceweb.org/knowledge/CS/professional_standards/#cadvising

The Director, a professional member of ACA,  must adhere to the professional standards of the American Counseling Association.  A breach of the standards could result in professional censure.  Counselors in the office as well as staff members, including student receptionists, receive a instruction of their responsibilities in relation to working in a counseling setting and under the guidance of a professional member of the ACA.

ACA Code of Ethics: http://www.counseling.org/Resources/aca-code-of-ethics.pdf

The career counselors follow the National Career Development Guidelines Framework when performing career counseling -

http://ncda.org/aws/NCDA/asset_manager/get_file/3384?ver=45550

To the best of my knowledge, we would only be audited if a formal complaint was filed with the ACA.

What are the most important outreach or public service activities supported by the program?

Outreach to students and parents during the EARLY BIRD freshman debut program is critical since important career management and employment trends are discussed with students and parents together before they are separated for the day.  This session is very highly rated by the attendees who believe all students and parents should be required to attend the session together.  Our office receives a good yield from students who attended the program.  Further, parents quickly recognize the value of early intervention and sound planning during the early years of college, as well as the upperclassmen years.  Parents find the program material personally helpful as individuals and as parents of adolescents/college bound young adults.  In fall 2013, the Assistant Director of New Student Programs confirmed that Career presentations continue to be the most highly rated programs offered at their events.

Employer site visits and our job shadowing program entice employers to engage early with students and offer them internships or jobs.  This type of outreach provides a powerful form of marketing to create interest among employers who do not typically come to campus for recruitment.

Job fairs and on campus recruitment are critical metrics used in most college rating polls and Career Services regularly provides this data to Institutional Research who must respond to these college quality polls, i.e. US News, Princeton Review, etc.

How do the local community and the region benefit from the program?

Candidates for internships in the region are referred to employers seeking pre-professional candidates.  We do not source candidates for minimum wage, unskilled worker positions although through our work with regional employers, some of these types of positions are referred to our students who seek local employment to help defray college expenses. Local community members are able to access our programs such as the Dining Etiquette workshop, as volunteers, and can source at no cost, some viable candidates for their staff.  We  provide a one call to the University service that can source candidates from all curricula.  This saves employers time and money in their recruiting budgets.  Employers are seeking ease of use and one stop service where they can place all their requests for recruitment services.

If needed, provide supplemental comments or data sources to help the reader understand the external demand for the program.

Career Services maintains a database of 1,000+ employers who seek college talent.  This database content constantly evolves through mergers/acquisitions of existing companies and the creation of new companies so the database requires constant attention.  It is a constant development cycle of employers who vary in their need for new, educated talent.  Employer research and acquisition with data maintained in a comprehensive database is an unseen but necessary component to services, despite the emergence of social media into the recruiting space.

Unfortunately there is a market for unfavorable external demand, particularly since the start of the recession.  Scam companies and scam artists/pyramid schemes were fairly regular contacts for career centers who have to perform due diligence on all companies, however unfavorable employer contact escalated in 2008 and remains strong.  EIU Career Services typically declines 5-10 employers every week who do not meet standards.

What are the two or three more important measureable outcomes tracked to assess program quality? Does the program conduct an outcomes assessment, and if so, what has been the impact?

Job placement has always been a metric in the career industry.  Our job "placement", traditionally defined as employment and/or attending graduate school, has exceeded national benchmarks while using very strict criteria on the definition of job placement.

More notably, students who use career services have a job placement rate in the 80% range.  Graduates who never use career services have a job placement rate that is typically 20% less for nearly all majors.  Although the factors related to the lack of placement can be many, besides the lack of our expertise and career development tactics, the difference in placement percentages between users and non-users is notable.

Another measurable outcome is what percentage of students use Career Services, a department that they are not required to interface with during their matriculation.  Although our data collection at all access points is not perfected in our tracking system, we have seen the utilization rate rise and as of 2012 the rate was 65%. Thus EIU is not in the category of university career centers that cannot get students to use their services. 

We also evaluate service to employers since that is an important criterion in their selection of campuses for recruitment along with 1) location (yes, that does not work in our favor), 2) quality of academic programs, and 3) ease of use/hospitality.  Employers are asked to rate career services on several factors related to their use of two major recruitment programs, job fairs and on campus interviews.  These ratings along with their ad hoc comments help us to adjust our services and tailor our efforts to shifting preferences among recruiters.  Employer ratings for help and professionalism are typically very high.  At times the speed of confirmation or availability of food, quality of food, and closeness of parking are issues.  Parking is a commonly low rated service on most campuses by employers.

What are the two or three most effective best practices that the program has implemented? What benefits have been gained from implementing these best practices?

1. Career Boot Camp was a concept to address a student learning style that was different than the distributed appointment and workshop programming typically offered to students.  Work, school activities, an increase in commuting to campus, and learning styles often prohibited student participation in professional development offerings.  Thus, a one-day workshop covering many professional development topics was created.  A second outcome desired from holding a boot camp was to have more students prepared earlier in the semester as fall recruitment occurred well before most students could fully prepare.  Boot camp is held on the first Saturday 10 am - 4 pm after classes start. Typically 100 students attended and the ratings of this event average 4.5 on a 5.0 scale.  Other career centers have adopted this concept into their service offerings however the majority do not yet offer this service due to staffing and expense constraints.

2. Job shadowing was a concept adopted from a University of Virginia program in 1998.  This program targets underclassmen for a limited on-site engagement with established professionals for the purpose of solidifying career choice based upon real world information. Job shadowing is very effective in addressing career education which might be limited due to a client's past environment, i.e. environmental factors such as poverty and low education among family/friends, early conscription of career choice which is particularly vulnerable to gender role typing and geographic availability.  Job shadowing has grown from a service administered by a GA to program comprising about 50% of a full time staff portfolio.  Job shadowing addresses the professional development needs of visual and active learners, it establishes a network within a professional field, leads to internship offers in about 20% of the cases, and helps to mitigate misleading information in the media that students absorb about particular career choices, i.e. CSI - crime scene investigator. 

What external recognitions (e.g., awards, accommodations, professional certifications, references in trade publications) have the program and its staff received in the past three years?

This is not an area where our office has sought recognition.  Our job search decision tree has been included in an academic book for the field of recreation, permission granted in 2012, because the authors believed we had included a unique but valid twist in the first steps of decision making.  Earlier in the decade, our template for preparing electronic resumes was twice used, with permission, in books.  In 2003 EIU Career Services was cited as a top 35 career center in the U.S. by Kaplan.  In 2001 EIU Career Services was cited as a benchmark for employer services in a study commissioned by the UIUC campus.  Three counselors are now eligible for a professional designation by the National Career Development Association, an effort we began 3 years ago but did not conclude in 2013 due to financial reasons.  One counselor is also in the process of gaining her LPC which should be concluded by October 2014.

Is the program active with any regional, national, or international professional organizations?

Financial resources have restricted our activity but we have participated in online learning conferences in lieu of travel to meetings.  Organizations that we participate with include the National Career Development Association, American Counseling Association, National Association of Colleges and Employers, Midwest Association of Colleges and Employers, CIEA, SHRM, SHRM-Chicago and InternBridge.

Note any presentations, publications, or offices held in the last three years.

Phi Beta Lambda (Future Business Leaders of America) conference - 2013, 2012, 2011.  Topics vary

Tri River career conference for middle school youth - 2013, 2012, 2011 - Emerging careers and majors.

Lessons From Abroad Conference, DePaul Univ. 2013

InternBridge Online workshop, 2012

Tuscola High School Presentation, How to make the most of High School and College, 2010

If needed, provide supplemental comments or data sources to help the reader understand the quality of program outcomes.

Note any special benefits (e.g., personnel support, equipment, permanent improvements) that the program has received in the past three years from its grants and other sponsored programs.

Illinois Cooperative Work Study Grant has been restored to high levels that vary from $42,000 to $48,000 per year.

Corporate donations, in kind and in cash, have been received from a few companies.  Although most donations have gone to student programming, some funding has been used for purchase of computer technology.

Corporations provide speakers for workshop sessions, mock interviews and resume reviews so we can serve more students more often than our staffing level will allow. 

How does the program benefit from donor gifts (e.g., scholarships, endowed chairs)? Does donor support provide a significant percentage of the program’s overall funding?

No, donor support does not provide significant funding.  In kind donations of time by alumni and corporate recruiters has been helpful in providing training to students and alumni by augmenting our staff.  Examples would be Career Boot Camp speakers, professional development workshops  for athletes, mentors at dining etiquette, interviewers at Mock Interview Day.  Corporate donors have also provided in kind dontations by purchasing food (lunch or dinner) for our students during workshops and by donating prizes (clothing, iPad, leather portfolios).

List two or three key relationships that the program maintains with external constituencies (e.g., community colleges, other universities, government bodies). How do these relationships advance the university mission or otherwise benefit the university?

Career Services maintains an effective relationship that has improved upon the existing relationship with respect to the ICWS grant.  We have shown willingness to collect new outcome data for the grant administrators in Sprinfield and to ensure that allocations are completely used within each fiscal year,  By being financially responsible and collaborative with their data needs, the EIU grant allocation has been restored to one of the higher allocations in the state.  This grant supports student professional development and encourages employers to hire EIU interns.  The grant is identified as a program of EIU thus our university leaves a positive image among these employers.

Career Services has a cooperative relationship with Lake Land advisers who tell Lake Land students that they can start working with our office once they have been accepted to EIU.  This helps the students elevate their career awareness more in line with the awareness among native EIU students.  This also relieves the small 2 person Lake Land career office of some burden associated with career programming.  To my knowledge, other Illinois universities have not made a similar offer to Lake Land transfer students.

If needed, provide supplemental comments to help the reader understand the resources generated by the program. Note any clarifications or special circumstances (e.g., revenue pass-throughs) that should be considered when reviewing the above data.

Provide an executive summary of and link to any metrics or benchmarks that the program tracks to measure productivity.

Annual reports are published online at http://eiu.edu/careers/annual_reports.php  A few print copies are made available to the President's Council, the Board, the Deans and the Library for archiving.

The 2012-2013 NACE Benchmark survey Executive summary is available at

http://www.naceweb.org/uploadedFiles/Content/static-assets/downloads/executive-summary/2012-13-career-services-benchmarks-survey-executive-summary.pdf?land-surv-lp-3-salsvexsum-11012013

Comparisons:  Average # career fairs = 3.  EIU = 5 plus Graduate School day

Average # FTE professional staff 5.3 (not sure this includes director).  EIU professional FTE = 5.8 (includes the director).  Average clerical #FTE = 2.5.  EIU = 1.0

Average % of institutionally provided operating budget = 80%.  EIU institution operational cost support = 53%

Only 3% of Career Centers charge students for services.  EIU charges users for job database/campus interview access.  What is not noted in the benchmarks is how many career centers receive a student fee.  EIU Career Services does not receive any student fee money.

Most career centers provide career assessment programs and the majority of those are offered as a computer program.  EIU does have a computer based career assessment but does not allow students to use the tool unguided as assessment without professional interpretation does not conform to American Counseling Association standards.  In reality, most students cannot guide themselves through the data and do not have the training to understand the metrics in the results. The result has been an overwhelming affirmation from users that our career counseling is insightful and very helpful.  EIU does not conduct online "counseling" as career counseling is confidential and not suited for the unsecured online platform.   We have provided online advising services such as resume reviews, ideas about interviewing, job/internship direction for more than a decade through twitter, linkedin, facebook and email.

EIU appointments & workshops student/alumni outreach exceeds metrics among our peer group and is reflective of the outreach seen at the large institution level. 

EIU placement rate has typically exceeded the national placement rate including placement within the education industry (all IL Univ education placement of 53%.  EIU education placement rate of 56%). 

What initiatives has the program implemented to enhance staff productivity (e.g., access to training, workflow improvements)? Briefly describe the costs and benefits of these initiatives.

1.  Made 24/7 online appointment & workshop scheduling available to all students and alumni with a synchronized sign on between Panther Recruiting and Banner.  This helps EIU maintain a lower clerical FTE.

2.  The new Panther Recruiting system adapts to the end user's platform including PC, Mac, iPad, tablet, iPhone or Android.  This allows end-users and staff to access their schedules, workshops, interviews, etc. on the fly, check statuses and schedule additional meetings despite their physical location. 

3. New Panther Recruiting System cost $3000 more annually than the previous software that did not have a web interface nor online appointment scheduling.  The system has enhanced data collection features and now, we can provide within miniutes lists of students to professors who have required their attendance or allowed extra credit points

3.  Eliminated all paper client files thereby making file distribution faster electronically and more sustainable.  Electronic records provide more physical space within the office for work directly with students and employers. We have 7 interview rooms not the average 4 because of better use of office square footage thereby reducing our need to reserve space in the Union on heavy recruitment days or for certain workshops.

4.  Career Services requested the sharing of placement data with the School of Business after they began collecting placement data through surveys about 3 years ago.  This stopped waste in labor time and survey costs when students were not contacted after they had already provided job placement information to one of the offices. More savings could be realized if all academic departments shared the intern & job placement data that they receive or source.

5.  Collaborated with the College of Education to establish new procedures for advisement and referral of students who do not pass the TAP test.  COE advisors know how to expedite a same day appointment and thus keep a student at EIU in another curriculum that fits their interests and abilities.

If needed, provide supplemental comments to help the reader understand the productivity of the program. Note any clarifications or special circumstances (e.g., accreditation requirements, curricular changes, program restructuring) that should be considered when reviewing the above data.

If needed, provide supplemental comments to help the reader understand the costs associated with the program. Note any clarifications or special circumstances (e.g., expenditures made centrally or externally, expenditures made on behalf of other units) that should be considered when reviewing the above data.

The civil service staffing is not 6.0 but instead has been 5.8 since early in the decade, about 2001-2003.  One position does not work 2 months in the summer.  2013 contractual costs were inflated by a software conversion project.

The vast majority of our travel costs are for student development purposes, specifically field trips which augment the EIU curriculum and help our students be more knowledgeable in their fields, networked in their fields, and able to see the real application of their proposed field, hopefully in time to make changes should they not like the reality of their chosen field.  Some travel is for employer development.  Career Services rarely spends travel dollars for conference/meeting attendance.

How does the program seek to distinguish itself from similar programs at other institutions?

EIU Career Services distinguishes itself by being very transparent about job placement.  We do not count underemployment, despite it being a full time position.

Second, EIU Career Services has historically sought to provide leading edge services that do not require unusual financial resources. 

Example 1.  Career Services monitors key economic indicators regularly ( manufacturing indices, purchasing indices and employment reports) to support our forecasts and help our students and alumni to adapt to changing conditions.  EIU Career Services did forecast in 2007 the impending recession although 2007 was a strong recruiting year, all the signs were there for a recession.  Our forecast gave students and faculty to put extra emphasis on grades, preparation and internships in order to be competitive for dramatically fewer jobs in 2008.

Example 2: Our early icareer counseling program began long before the cost of college was lamented.  NACE research showed that uninformed students made poor career choices that extended their college stay or made them unmarketable.  EIU acted upon the knowledge quickly. SIU E called 3 years ago to learn how to do career assessment for all  business students, a long term EIU practice.  EIU makes career assessment a significant part of the campus experience through academic collaboration on integrated learning. Few Career Centers have figured out how to do this on such a broad scale and this is an EIU trademark and distinguishing feature.

Example 3: Our 16 year history of providing job shadowing and field trips to enhance the early career exposure  has been copied  by others.  SIUC is now using job shadowing as a main page marketing tool.

Example 4:Our employer recruiting services are flexible rather than demanding that employers conform to certain procedures.  We seek ease of use.  UIUC employed a consultant in 2012 to help their centers become user friendly to employers.  In previous UIUC studies EIU Career Services has been sited as a model for employer service (Don Katz Study 2001). This is a problem that Career Centers struggle with - how to have procedures for operational efficiency yet fit the needs of employers.  Our FTE staffing combined with employer ratings as well as affirmation by the Katz study shows that EIU Career Services clearning understands and successfully implments effective employer recruitment services.

Note any unique and/or essential contributions that the program makes to the university.

Professional development is essential to graduating contributing citizens and attracting new college students.  If our students are not successful professionally, then the university will have a public relations problem.

Being in possession of employer candidate criterion, we provide academic programs with information about trends in required or preferred skills related to academic program content. At times, we conduct surveys of top employers for specific fields to determine changes in preferences for academic preparation.

Corporate support for academic programs is highly related to their ability to recruit new talent.  With diminishing state support, EIU is ever dependent upon happy alumni who earn enough money to give back and upon employers who wish to support academic programs that produce well trained candidates.  Career Services manages this pipeline, streamlines recruiting for employers so they do not have to call 5 different departments and 20 different faculty in order to market themselves. 

Further, Career Services understands how to leverage strong recruitment for popular academic programs into opportunities for students from less well known academic programs.

Provide any program-specific metrics that help to document program contributions or program quality. Examples of some commonly used program-specific metrics may be found here.

Satisfaction with career counseling:  external rating by FCS and BUS1000 students as very helpful (7 consecutive years for B1000)

General interest job fair attendance:  445

Employer Satisfaction with students:  Average to above average (job fair and Campus interview ratings)

Employment & graduate school after graduation (at 6 mo) No one releases placement data for 4 month except very prestigious Ivy League type schools.  NACE benchmarks are now set at 6-8 mo. post graduation.  EIU has ranged 80-84% recently.  Obviously we placed in the 90%-100% before the recession.

Percentage students served by EIU career services- minimum 65%

Caseload:  3400 appointments(lower than our normal 4000 range due to lower enrollment and staffing vacancies) ; 188 workshops with 5809 attendance.  About 4.2 FTE involved in counseling or advising which puts the average caseload at approximately 1547 students, considering our reduced enrollment.

Placement rate for students served is 80%.  Placement rate for students who were not served by Career Services is 60%

If needed, provide supplemental comments to help the reader understand the program impact on the university mission.

The essential nature of our services is recognized by a number of departments and our office is frequently asked to participate in other departmental activities including: recruiting student athletes by discussing our support of their busy schedules and ability of athletes to get jobs with an EIU degree; transfer relations special presentations for transfer days; open house special presentations in addition to general session; EIU debut - 2 special presentations; EIU Prowl - 3 presentations; Foundations - 26 presentations; Veteran's services - 1 presentation; LGBTQA - 1 presentation.

Students self awareness is addressed; environmental factors influencing decision making are explored; practical limitations (money, family, geographic restrictions) are accounted for and student abilities and interests are evaluated for potential growth throughout matriculation.  The intensely personal nature of investing time and money into academic preparation is explored and purposefully evaluated for opportunities to successfully transition into a broader society as a contributing adult.

Provide a link to or listing of the program’s goals and/or strategic plan.

Goal:  Professional certification of all counselors

Goal:  Larger internship database

Goal:  Solid internship metric program including participation rates by major, student demographic, employer metrics, and an employer & intern quality rating system.  Use the metrics to build greater internship participation and higher internship site quality.

Goal:   Assistant Director for Employer Services to enhance employer outreach and drive efficiency into the employer-candidate pipeline/sourcing and recruiting process. Redefine a position toward a Assistant Director for Career Counseling and Learning Outcomes to quantifies student progress and provides metrics to the campus for assessment and marketing purposes.

Goal:  Establish an Employer Advisory Board for Career Services to provide direction for continuous improvement in employer services.

What role will the program have in the implementation of the university’s strategic plan (provide link to strategic plan)?

EIU Strategic Plan

Academic Excellence - best in career preparedness.  Our goals and early intervention plus focus on increasing the analytics related to outcomes at different stages of career development are integral to this university strategic goal.

Financial Sustainability - linking funding to core mission of campus and securing greater funding from alumni.  Career Services focus on the individual student's holistic development and driving their career well being through sequential personal development is key to EIU making a case to alumni for their financial support.

Marketing & Communication - increase communication with donors and alumni.  Career Services intimate contact with students is now sustainable through the use of new technologies and our marketing techniques.  Alumni integration with our workshops, field trips and recruiting fosters a sense of identity with EIU and a desire to "give back."  Further, this connection provides excellent marketing communications for our univeristy as we demonstrate that EIU continues to succeed in developing future leaders and that our close knit campus fosters a sense of helping the next generation of learners.

In the next two or three years, what best practices, improvements in operations, or other opportunities to advance the university’s mission are likely to be implemented?

Greater data on student metrics linked to various outcomes, i.e. internship offer rates, acceptance rates; company offer rates; placement by student demographic and not just by academic discipline which may help to identify weaknesses and capitalize/market our successes for sharing wih academic units and our marketing department.  This data is an extension of the data collected on student success and can help the campus identify key factors in professional and personal development that are critical to student success.

Real data on student internship participation with a centralized database of internship quality (student rating) and employer rating of student interns which will be valuable information for academic departments to explore how well their curricula are preparing students for work in the earlier stages of the curriculum, rather than waiting for placement data and job interview ratings which tend to focus on seniors and 2nd semester juniors.

Implementation of a Career Advisory Board comprised of key employers and alumni to integrate even more alumni involvement with the campus which could potentially  lead to corporate and individual gifts as well as sourcing new talent for our academic advisory boards, alumni board and foundation board.

Establish recurring job shadowing programs such as the new recurring IT job shadowing program recently established with the EIU ITS department and the OT shadowing program with a regional hospital.  Not only are the shadowing programs supportive of student retention and progress toward degree, but shadowing also heightens student awareness of the academic performance required in a competitive job market.  Additionally, job shadowing is a tool for raising the prestige and brand image of the university by using a student learning experience as an opportunity to simultaneouly market the university.

Stronger employer engagement for graduate student internships and job opportunities to build strong graduate programs which will also foster a sense of academic rigor on our campus and again enhance the engagement of those who can financially support our programs.

If needed, provide supplemental comments to help the reader understand future opportunities for the program.