One of the most vulnerable moments in my work happens before I ever facilitate a meeting or make a recommendation.
It’s the moment a campus says, “Okay. We’re ready. We’ll send everything.”
And by everything, they mean everything — strategic plans, internal reports, assessment dashboards, marketing materials, org charts, student survey data… sometimes even the drafts that never made it out of Google Docs.
This review process is a foundational part of my consulting work. Before I facilitate retreats or sketch future-state models, I study what already exists. What the institution says it values. What it measures. How it communicates. What students are actually experiencing.
On paper, it sounds procedural. In reality, it’s vulnerable.
Handing over your internal data to an outsider requires trust. It’s less “Here’s our polished annual report” and more “Please ignore the intimates hanging on the drying rack — we’re trying to get better.”
It means inviting someone to look past the website and into the messy middle. The places where ambition and structure don’t quite line up yet.
Sometimes the spreadsheets are immaculate. Sometimes the formatting alone tells a story.
That’s not a small thing.
When I review survey data, I’m not just looking at percentages. I’m looking for patterns. Where students are confused. Where anxiety is rising. Where messaging lands and where it doesn’t. I’m looking for the quiet through-lines that either support a campus’s ambitions or quietly undermine them.
And that’s when I see it.
The gap between ambition and structure. That gap is rarely about effort. It’s almost always about architecture.
Because what I often find—even on ambitious campuses with strong leadership and talented teams—is this:
Career services is still operating transactionally, even when the aspiration is transformational.
What does “transactional” actually mean?
A transactional model is built around moments.
A resume review. An interview prep session. A career fair. A student who raises their hand because something is due. (Surely due tomorrow.)
It’s episodic. Reactive. Student-initiated.
And here’s the tricky part: transactional models can perform well.
Students may say services are helpful. Events may be well attended. The office is busy.
The engine is running. The calendar is full. The coffee is strong. The email notifications are relentless.
But underneath? The structure hasn’t shifted.
Students still don’t think of you first. Career conversations spike late. Anxiety lingers. Engagement depends on students knowing when they need help.
Why this matters more right now
In a stable labor market, a transactional model can limp along.
In a tight, competitive, AI-disrupted labor market?
Ambiguity becomes expensive.
Students who don’t build meaningful experience early, through internships, applied projects, real-world exposure, fall behind faster. Students who can’t translate their skills into evidence struggle to compete. Students who delay engagement miss the compounding effect of experience, and in a market where employers are raising the bar, that gap widens quickly.
In this market, employers aren’t hiring potential alone.
They’re hiring proof.
Proof of experience.
Proof of applied skills.
Proof of judgment.
Proof of follow-through.
And here’s the uncomfortable part:
Transactional models aren’t designed to help students build proof over time. They’re designed to respond when proof is suddenly required.
A resume review doesn’t create experience. An interview prep session doesn’t replace years of skill-building. A last-minute appointment can’t manufacture evidence.
Transactional models polish; they don’t compound. Polish is nice. It photographs well. But polish without substance is just… shiny.
And when you read student feedback closely, you can see it:
“I got good resume feedback.”
“I had an interview there once.”
“Career fair.”
“Not using Handshake. It is confusing.”
“More involvement in your freshman year.”
“Advertise more.”
“I have not been to the Career Center.”
Students mostly feel the career center is helpful. They’re appreciative, positive. They even want more.
But these quotes all point to the fact that their engagement (if they engaged) is episodic. Not longitudinal.
“But we’re working toward integration.”
I know.
Many of you are actively building embedded, unavoidable, integrated models. You’re partnering with faculty. You’re pushing for sequencing. You’re aligning career with institutional priorities.
That’s the right direction.
But integration takes time. Curriculum change requires collaboration. Structural redesign doesn’t happen in one academic year.
So what do you do now while that larger shift is underway?
Here are three moves you can implement immediately.
1. Reduce friction and barriers to participation
If your model depends on students raising their hand, make it easier to raise it.
Simplify entry points. Create a visible “start here” roadmap. Push guidance earlier instead of waiting for urgency. Embed career language into communications students already receive.
Unavoidable doesn’t always mean required.
Sometimes it means frictionless.
If students have to decode your website like it’s an escape room, they will default to ChatGPT. Or their roommate. Or TikTok.
Lower the lift.
2. Turn your team into pattern analysts
Stop measuring only volume. Start identifying themes.
What misconceptions repeat?
What year do students wake up?
Where does anxiety spike?
What questions signal deeper confusion?
Have your staff track patterns, not just appointments. Then translate those patterns outward to advising, to faculty, to leadership.
You don’t need a full ecosystem redesign to start acting like an institutional intelligence hub.
This is a posture shift. And posture changes faster than org charts.
3. Re-align messaging to reduce anxiety
If career-related worries are interfering with student life at scale, your tone matters.
In a tight labor market, pressure rises naturally. Be careful not to amplify it. Shift from urgency-heavy messaging to developmental messaging.
Normalize “not knowing” how to plan their path. Make the career journey feel fun, not urgent and heavy. Emphasize taking the next best step, rather than all the possible steps.
Students also need help regulating uncertainty. Because “just network more” is not a nervous system strategy.
Your messaging matters. Take extra care here.
The bigger picture
Transactional models were built for an era when career services was supplemental—a support function students accessed when they were ready.
But the expectations have changed.
Career outcomes are now tied to institutional reputation. Families are asking sharper questions. Boards want evidence. Students are measuring value in real time.
The structure that once felt sufficient now carries more weight.
And that’s where the tension lives.
🎯If the market is demanding evidence, the question isn’t whether your students have access to resume reviews. It’s whether your model ensures they have something worth reviewing.
And that’s a design question—one worth looking under the hood for. Even if we’re not entirely ready for what’s hanging on the drying rack.
