Day 1 of the Career Champions Challenge
Welcome to the first day of our 8-Day Career Champions challenge!
Helping our students be successful after graduation
The University at Albany has been named an engine of opportunity. Most of our students look at their time at UAlbany as a path to a career and a good paying job. This is especially true for our First-Generation students. Unfortunately, we also know that getting a degree is not enough. Students need experiential education to develop skills, explore options, and learn about the world of work. Students also need to be able to talk about their skills and competencies to a potential employer. They need to be able to help an employer see how the skills and knowledge they learn in the classroom benefits the companies and organizations that hire them.
The university has a variety of resources to assist students in figuring out what careers they want and then to prepare and search for both internships and jobs. Many students are not aware of these services, and some are not comfortable discussing career issues with people they do not know. This is where you can help. Students are already coming to you with career questions. Sometimes it is an opportunity to help them understand where their major could take them. Other times they are looking for resume advice or ideas for finding internships.
During the challenge, we will discuss the key areas of career development our students struggle with such as resume building, internship searching, interviewing, salary negation and graduate school. We will identify some of the specific struggles we have seen when working with students and provide advice on how to address them. We will show you resources you can use to help students and also provide demos of various tools that you can use when helping students. We will even highlight some exercises and assignments that you can use in a class. Today’s video will introduce you to our website and the many resources available to you there.
We do not expect that after this challenge you will be able to address all of your students’ career concerns. We still want you to refer students to our Office of Career & Professional Development! Our hope is to broaden the career conversation so students can start to see that career development is a part of the many things they do on campus. We want them to see that helping them succeed after graduation is a team effort. We also hope that the messages we all give to students on career will be more consistent, too. Thank you for joining our team and taking the time to become a Career Champion. We look forward to collaborating with you. If you have any questions or comments, please contact us at career@albany.edu. Don’t forget to take today’s first quiz. You need to take all 8 quizzes to receive your certificate of completion.
Learn more: Rethinking the Faculty Role in Students’ Career Readiness
