Last month, we held our annual CSM Symposium—our very first large-scale virtual event! Over 1400 attendees joined us for the two-day event, representing more than 430 higher education institutions from all over the world convening for expert-led presentations, trainings, and best practices sessions. Although we were disappointed that we couldn’t meet with our clients in-person this year, we were thrilled to include the largest international client attendance we’ve ever had! We were delighted that our virtual conference allowed for us to be as inclusive as possible with attendees representing 30 countries.
CSM Symposium kicked off on June 23rd with opening remarks from Symplicity President & CEO, Matt Small. During his keynote session, Matt Small reflected on the challenges brought on by COVID-19 and how clients have been able to adapt to the “new normal” using CSM. Additionally, he spoke at length about how Symplicity have adapted their support to best serve clients during this time—this included an increase in CSM virtual product training events since March. The client feedback and participation of these virtual events has been better than we’ve ever seen before.
“Despite the distance, our team is hard at work and our mission resonates louder now than it did before. The remote work that you’re doing as an institution is so important to us and CSM continues to elevate the career center by breaking down silos on campus, increasing efficiency, and increasing student engagement.”
Matt Small,
President & CEO,
Symplicity Corporation
Despite this year’s Symposium being virtual, clients were very engaged and excited about the content provided in this year’s sessions. The most well-attended session was the one titled “Career Services in a Virtual World” in which a panel of clients from institutions such as York College of Pennsylvania, University of British Columbia, The University of Akron School of Law, and Lehigh Carbon Community College discussed their experience pivoting from in-person to virtual through the use of CSM. Each institution provided an overview of their best practices that served their users in a meaningful, impactful, and engaging way. This session, along with all of this year’s sessions, can be accessed and viewed through the Symplicity Help Center resources (found under the “CSM Symposium” section).
Another big announcement that came out of CSM Symposium ’20 was the reimagining of the virtual career fair tool within CSM Enterprise. This NEW virtual career fair management tool for universities comes complete with universal video capability and analytics—at no additional charge to current clients. One of the CSM Symposium sessions was dedicated to the new updates coming to this tool and it was a cause for a lot of excitement, particularly as institutions are still in the midst of planning for the fall.
In between sessions, clients also had the opportunity to engage and catch up with one another through virtual events set up by Symplicity (hosted on the Whova app). Some of these activities included discussion boards, virtual meetups, and virtual office hours with client managers. Additionally, clients participated in a daily photo contest. The day one photo contest called for clients to share a picture of themselves with their college swag. Some clients took selfies of themselves in their college sweaters while others shared photos of themselves standing with their institution’s mascots. The second day photo contest called for clients to show off their “work from home” station. It proved to be a lot of fun for both Symplicity clients and staff to participate in!
“This has been so great. I was just saying to myself, ‘I wish we could do this every month!’ So much great information and I love the opportunity to connect with others! …This is beyond amazing. Thank you so much!”
CSU Channel Islands
This year’s CSM Symposium provided us and our clients with unmatched opportunities to build expertise and share best practices for furthering higher education career services in a virtual world. On behalf of the entire Symplicity team, we’re very proud of what we have been able to accomplish in collaboration with all of our attendees and look forward to CSM Symposium 2021!
Be sure to follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to see what other exciting updates we have in store this year.