Creating Synergies among Decentralized Career Center Offices at McGill University
McGill University is one of Canada’s best-known institutions of higher learning and one of the world’s leading research-intensive universities. With students coming to McGill from about 150 countries, its student body is the most internationally diverse of any medical-doctoral university in Canada. McGill has grown from a small college to a bustling university with two campuses, 300 programs of study, and more than 34,000 students.
It is not uncommon for large universities to have in-house IT resources and in the infancy of career center software a handful of these institutions developed homegrown career services systems rather than partnering with a vendor. At the time there were advantages because these institutions were able to have a system that was built to their exact requirements. When Symplicity’s Career Services Manager was introduced to the marketplace many schools that previously relied on homegrown systems to manage operations began to realize the benefits that partnering with an innovative and customer centered software vendor, like Symplicity, provided. Prior to implementing CSM the McGill Career Planning Service (CaPS) had been using a homegrown legacy jobs listing database system for 8 years and it was in need of replacement. In 2007 McGill Career Planning Service (CaPS) decided that maintaining its own system was, not only becoming costly, but the technology was not on par with what Symplicity offered other institutions. In addition, the homegrown system required costly data entry and was not meeting expectations.
CaPS along with McGill’s Chief Information Officer extensively researched and demoed various products in the market, carefully comparing experiences that other universities had with both the functionality and customer support provided. From the beginning it was clear to CaPS that Symplicity offered superior software and customer service. In Fall 2007 CaPS partnered with Symplicity to improve its operations and experience of students and employers by licensing CSM. In the end CaPS chose Symplicity because of its competitive price and value, robust functionally that encompasses multiple operational needs, outstanding recommendations from other clients, and its large network of users who meet at Symplicity’s annual user conference.
With the almost unlimited customizations capabilities available in CSM McGill was able to adapt the system to meet its unique requirements and work processes and in February 2008 successfully launched the new system to employers and students. CaPS had such a great experience implementing the system that other departments (faculties) at McGill jumped on board and now four departments use CSM in a multi-school environment. A multi-school environment allows multiple departments to essentially share a system while maintaining their unique customizations, system configurations, branding, and work processes. Symplicity introduced the multi-school environment CSM system in 2006.
Successes
Cost Savings - homegrown system vs. CSM
The costs of maintaining McGill’s legacy system were becoming unsustainable. The legacy system was increasingly cumbersome, taking up significant staff time to complete simple tasks. Requesting system changes and enhancements were almost impossible. Maintaining its own system was a significant cost to McGill when development, maintenance, and staff time were accounted for. McGill was able to license a superior system and the university has experienced significant reductions in cost, while its IT resources and career center staff are able to direct their efforts to more meaningful tasks such as career counseling, hosting events, and building and maintaining employer relationships.
Customized System
McGill decided to partner with Symplicity because it was the only vendor in the market that would be able to tailor its systems to meet CaPS unique requirements. Working closely with Symplicity and utilizing the customization tools available in CSM, CAPs was able to create a custom system that allowed its office to provide the same services such as information sessions, career fairs, workshops, job postings, and on-campus recruiting but now in a more robust, user friendly system.
Enterprise System
By integrating multiple office into a multi-school environment McGill was able to create synergies among its decentralized career center offices. Although there had been informal contact in the past, the implementation of myFuture has led to an exponential increase in the amount of communication and best practice sharing among career and internship centers, ultimately resulting in a better service for students and greater student satisfaction. Students also benefit immensely from this because they can access opportunities that they are eligible for from all career centers without having to login multiple places with different accounts.
The implementation of CSM has allowed CAPS to provide its students with an easy-to-use system that has increased the number of opportunities and attention that they receive. Using CSM CAPS has also been able to save time and money and also improved its ability to build and maintain relationships with employers. All parties involved now have access to a superior system while eliminating costs and headaches for the university in tough economic times.
