Faculty can help students build a professional image and practice skills for a more confident first step to a career path.
Career Readiness

How to help your students prepare for a career


Faculty can help students build a professional image and practice skills for a more confident first step to a career path

Key points:

  • Faculty are in a unique position to help students prepare for a career before they graduate
  • Internships, targeted professional social media, and more can put students front and center when it comes to hiring
  • See related article: 4 ways to enhance critical thinking skills

According to the NCES (National Center for Education Statistics) reports, the employment rate for college graduates is high enough: 86 percent find their career path and get employed successfully.

The rest 14 percent can’t assimilate into a new lifestyle after graduation because of high expectations (80 percent of freshmen are confident they’ll get a dream job once they have a diploma in their hands) and lack of preparation for a career (only 34 percent of those 80 percent confident remain so when the time comes to make a career choice).

Lack of preparation is also evident from the results of employer surveys: 80 percent report that graduates can’t fill their need for talent; plus, it’s hard to evaluate them by grades in their diplomas. As a result, employers have to spend resources on eLearning courses or training the newbies could have done while in college.

What can faculty do to help students prepare for a career while they’re still in college? Three tips:

1. Encourage them to find volunteer opportunities and take internships

Given 67 percent of students use AI text-generation tools to craft academic papers, it’s logical to assume that they’d think of addressing these tools for generating cover letters and job experience descriptions in resumes. And while there’s nothing wrong with using AI for assistance, you’ll hardly want to place nonexistent job experience on your resume and start your career journey like that, right?

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