Hi ya, Reader-

There’s a question that’s quietly turning into a crisis on campus:
“What do we lose if we cut career services?”

At some institutions, that question has already become a decision.

Staff slashed by 50%.
Open roles frozen indefinitely.

And yet…

Students still expect personalized guidance.
Families still demand outcomes.
Presidents still need to prove ROI.

Career services isn’t being cut because it’s unimportant.

It’s being cut because it’s invisible in the conversations that count.

And in a moment when institutions are under pressure to appear equitable, many are defaulting to the most politically defensible—but least strategic—approach:

Cut everyone. Equally. No exceptions.

No distinction between core drivers of enrollment and underutilized programs.

No acknowledgment of what’s mission-critical.

No strategy—just math. (And not the good kind. The "Google Sheets are on fire at 2 a.m." kind.)

But here’s the truth:
Not all cuts cost the same.

Eliminating a function that directly supports retention, post-graduate outcomes, and workforce alignment is not the same as trimming a department that doesn’t touch those outcomes.

Career services should be in the protected category.

But if your impact isn’t showing up in the data, on the president’s cabinet agenda, or in the institution’s strategic plan—you won’t be.

That’s why visibility isn’t a vanity metric.

It’s a survival strategy.

And it’s why I want to spotlight a tool that’s helping career centers not just stay afloat—but prove their worth in real time.

Featuring...

The platform powering over 42 million career resource interactions every year.

Also known as: your new best friend when someone says,
“What does your office even do?”

Yeah, I need that →

Why I’m featuring uConnect

If you are a new subscriber,...

✅ Yes, this is a paid sponsorship.
✅ No, I don’t promote tools I wouldn’t recommend to my own clients.
✅ My goal: spotlight tools that solve real problems for career services leaders.

And this one delivers.

uConnect gives career centers the digital infrastructure to:

Extend support 24/7 to every student
Automate and scale with limited staff
Track engagement and prove ROI in real time
Mobilize campus partners to evangelize your work

🎯 And most importantly: It helps you show up in the conversations that matter—before your budget is on the line.

5 ways to defend—and prove—your ROI now
(whether or not you use uConnect)

1. Build scalable engagement by making resources visible and relevant

Why it matters:
Engagement is your most visible, measurable form of ROI.
If students don’t use your services, leadership won’t fund them.
(Engagement data talks. Your beautifully color-coded workshop agenda? Not so much.)

Making your content easy to find isn’t enough. You need to pull students in and keep them engaged with personalized, meaningful content that speaks to their goals, identities, and career paths.

Better student-facing content builds motivation, readiness, and satisfaction—which translates directly into stronger outcomes and clearer ROI.

Try this now:

Organize content around identities, industries, and academic programs
Use campaigns, playlists, or “career starter packs” to surface relevant resources
Track which tools and topics keep students coming back

With uConnect:

Curate a student experience that is easy to for students to navigate and a snap for you to build and maintain
Put key resources like LinkedIn Learning directly in front of students in ways that matter and increase usage
Highlight courses, student organizations, and other opportunities to relevant pages
Enable students to subscribe to your content
And by the way, uConnect allows you to automate curation (think: all the bullets above) saving you hours and hours of time

2. Mobilize stakeholders to amplify your impact

Why it matters:
You can’t scale your work—or prove your value—alone.
Even Batman needed Alfred. You need your faculty and academic advisors.

When faculty, advisors, admissions, and alumni staff are equipped to promote career content, your ROI multiplies. By extending your office’s reach to Enrollment, Academic Affairs, and Advancement, you build strategic visibility across campus.

Try this now:

Create tailored microsites or curated content for academic departments or programs or for specific partners (faculty, academic advisors)
Share data snapshots and stories that help others advocate for your work
Make it easy for colleagues to link to your resources and make referrals

With uConnect:

Pull content from an existing library of resources from trusted, vetted sources to curate student-facing pages which will reinforce your credibility and authority
Enable stakeholders to subscribe to your newsletter or sign up for customized alerts
Departments can integrate career messaging without needing your time

3. Align career exploration with labor market value

Why it matters:
Presidents and provosts want proof that students are career-ready.

When your resources point clearly to high-demand jobs and skills, you prove that your office connects students to outcomes that matter. Because “just follow your passion” sounds better when it leads to a paycheck.

Try this now:

Highlight top employers, job titles, and career pathways by major
Use labor market data to guide both students and institutional planning

With uConnect:

Integrate uConnect’s searchable national labor market data into career community and/or major-specific pages
Incorporate job titles, skills, competencies, earnings, and top employer data across pages—helping students make smarter decisions and allowing leadership to see how you’re driving economic mobility and workforce alignment.

4. Scale service without expanding your team

Why it matters:
Your budget may be frozen, but expectations aren’t.
You’re not just wearing multiple hats—you’re running a millinery.

Showing how you deliver more with what you have is one of the strongest ROI cases you can make.

Try this now:

Automate workflows for event follow-ups and content delivery
Build evergreen resources (self-service courses, videos, checklists, playlists) that support students asynchronously

With uConnect:

Students access regularly updated and curated content 24/7—no appointment required
With uConnect’s courses module, feature trainings that students can access and faculty can integrate seamlessly into courses and assignments
Use the completely automated email functionality to curate and send relevant content to students and campus partners based on interests, academics, identities, etc.

You save staff hours and serve more students without burnout.

5. Turn engagement data into budget-worthy insights

Why it matters:
Career services gets cut when leaders can’t see the value.

If your impact lives in a spreadsheet with six tabs and four pivot tables, it might as well be invisible.

You need to present data that speaks their language—retention, equity, ROI—not just headcounts or satisfaction scores.

Try this now:

Track who’s engaging with what—by major, class year, or identity
Align usage data with institutional priorities and planning metrics

With uConnect:

You get clean, presentation-ready reports
You show how career engagement is growing—and how it connects directly to institutional priorities like equity, retention, and post-grad success.

Final thought—

You don’t need to wait to prove your ROI.

The data is already there.

But if it’s trapped in 12 systems, hidden in spreadsheets, or hard to explain to your dean or VP—it won’t save you when cuts come.

That’s why infrastructure matters.

Because visibility = value.
And career services deserves both.

If you’d like to see how other institutions are using uConnect to scale, prove, and protect their impact—just reply to this email. I’d be happy to connect you.

At NACE25?

Make sure to check out uConnect
at booths 1117 and 1119

Get the map

Your work drives outcomes.

Let’s make sure it gets the recognition—and the funding—it deserves.

And if you can’t make the case with interpretive dance (tempting though it is), make it with real-time data, visible impact, and tools that do the talking for you.