5 Best Practices for Connecting Education to Career Skills
Our Seelio team is focused on one major question: How can we help schools create the world’s most prepared students?
To inform new features, the team has been consolidating research to better understand the skills gap. We developed the infographic to the right to present a student's journey to a job and some of the odds students face in this rapidly evolving global marketplace.
How can higher education leaders help reassure students and their families that their programs will provide them with the educational experiences necessary to help them succeed in today’s society, as well as produce graduates who are better prepared to respond to the demands of today’s global marketplace?
Students have many of the tools they need to succeed, but they simply need a way to map how their education relates to real-world skills. We think that there’s room to create a bridge between higher education and industry so that students can show how their valuable in- and out-of-class learning experiences have prepared them to succeed.
According to Jobvite’s "2014 Social Recruiting Survey," 93 percent of recruiters will review a candidate’s social profile before making a hiring decision. Eighty-three percent said that when they look at a candidate’s social profile, they are looking for "examples of written or design work.”
We’re working with partners such as Purdue University Calumet, the University of Michigan, and the Moody Media Lab to help provide their programs, faculty, and students a platform that can connect their coursework to career competencies.
If your program is looking for a way to create closer ties between academics and careers for students, here are some best practices:
- Introduce the importance of career preparation and the core 21st-century skills that employers want to students during orientation or first-year experience courses.
- Make sure courses have a clear connection not only to learning outcomes but also to 21st-century skills.
- Prompt students at various touchpoints (online, in-class or through success coaching) to continually reflect on their experiences and studies to understand what skills they are gaining.
- Teach students to continually document and articulate their skills.
- Provide a professional capstone course to cover the career prep basics such as a resume, professional digital identity, interviewing skills, career pathways and transferable skillsets.
What steps are you taking to connect academics to careers? Please contact us on 847-597-6410.