Nowadays, college students have many options to develop employable skills outside the classroom via experiential learning, co-curricular activities, part-time jobs, and more. With so many options, students tend to get overwhelmed with career development activities and will often neglect the proper actions that will help them secure a job after graduation. To solve for this, many institutions develop career plans for their students’ skill development based on major, industry, graduation year, school affiliation, etc. While these plans can provide more structure to their students’ career journey, how can staff guarantee and track that students are engaging in these activities?
Symplicity CSM Pathways enables career offices to set up structured career plans within their CSM system for anything from general career planning, to completing a certification or receiving an employability award. Pathways allows institutions to automate these plans, reduce manual work, and easily measure their success. Within each Pathway there are steps and activities that can be tied to standard CSM functionalities, such as events, advising appointments or even ones that take place outside the system i.e. watching a video on YouTube. Career offices can significantly boost student engagement by providing students with an easily accessible career plan and sending automated reminders about upcoming deadlines and activities. Once a student completes a step, they are then able to advance to the next step and the career advisor is notified.
- Create career plans for students for anything from career planning, certifications, and preparation checklist, and easily measure the success of these plans in the system.
- Ensure students are engaging in skills development activities by providing them an online version of their career plan which can be self-reported or tracked in the system.
- Easily monitor a student’s progress on a Pathway directly from the student’s CSM profile.
- Create custom Pathways for different segments of students by utilizing the standard academic fields and flags in CSM that are specific to those student groups.
- Reference the Dashboard within Pathways to view overall engagement metrics for a Pathway and leverage the batch communication tools to send reminders to students about their upcoming activities.
- Grant user rights and unlock system resources for students based on their completion of a required step or activity.
- Set up automatic approval for completion of steps and activities within a Pathway.
- Integrate Symplicity’s partner technologies in your Pathways if these are available at your institution.
Below are a few examples of career plans you can create with the new Pathways feature:
General Career Planning
Audience: Undergraduate Students
Goal: Create a 4-year plan for your undergraduate student that is easily accessible and tracked online to ensure students are pacing towards to right activities that will land them a job upon graduation.
Step 1: Explore Careers
- Activity 1: Take an interest assessment course
- Activity 2: View career videos
Step 2: Prepare for a Career
- Activity 1: Create an upload your resume
- Activity 2: Attend a career workshop
> Unlocks Jobs user rights
Step 3: Engage with Employers
- Activity 1: Attend an information session
- Activity 2: Apply for a job
> Send custom message “Congratulations!”
Counseling Workflow
Audience: Students seeking career guidance
Goal: Encourage students to engage in career activities before meeting with an advisor so staff can better understand their students’ career goals.
Step 1: Before you schedule an appointment
- Activity 1: Upload resume
- Activity 2: Attend the workshop
> Assign Counseling user right
Employability Certification/Award
Audience: All students
Goal: Award students for building employability skills and getting a step closer to getting a job after college.
Step 1: Explore Careers
- Activity 1: Identify careers you are interested in
- Activity 2: Upload a resume and get it approved
Step 2: Build Volunteer Experience
- Activity 1: Apply for volunteer or service learning opportunity
- Activity 2: Complete volunteer or service learning assignment
- Activity 3: Upload a reflection document
Step 3: Develop Work Experience
- Activity 1: Apply for an internship related to your field of study
- Activity 2: Complete internship
- Activity 3: Upload a reflection document
> Send custom message “Congratulations!”
Interview Checklist
Audience: Students interviewing for jobs
Goal: Provide recommendations for activities and resources for students to complete before an interview. Could be required or self-reported.
Step 1: One week before the interview
- Activity 1: Take at least 3 mock interview practice questions
- Activity 2: Send to your advisor for feedback
Step 2: Three days before the interview
- Activity 1: Scan for industry and company news
- Activity 2: Get your interview outfit is ready
Step 3: One day before the interview
- Activity 1: Print out a few copies of resumes to take with you
- Activity 2: Watch this video to boost your confidence
- Activity 3: Come up with 3 good interview questions
Watch our most recent webinar recording or schedule a conversation with us to learn more about CSM Pathways.
