This has come up repeatedly over the past few weeks—in a workshop I led with career services leaders, and again in coaching conversations this past week.
“How do I connect my work to what leadership is actually prioritizing?”
If you’re deep in the semester, this probably sounds familiar.
You’re collecting real student stories. Students leaving clearer, calmer, more confident. Decisions made. Anxiety reduced. Direction restored.
And yet—when our conversations with leadership turn to priorities, resources, or visibility—the work can still feel oddly peripheral.
Why? Because the connection isn’t always explicit to the people making decisions.
A small shift that makes a big difference
In the session, we didn’t talk about new initiatives or better reporting.
We focused on translation.
Not changing the work—just making the cause-and-effect clearer.
Most of us naturally tell stories the way we experience them:
“I met with a student who was really anxious about their future, and after our conversation they felt much more confident and grounded.”
That story matters. A lot.
The strategic version sounds like this:
“Because this kind of coaching exists, students are more likely to stay enrolled, make intentional decisions, and move forward with clarity—especially at moments when they might otherwise disengage.”
Same story. Different framing.
Nothing about the work changed. Only the connection became visible.
Start with one sentence. Then collect a few more.
This session wasn’t about crafting the perfect message all at once.
It was about starting with one clear sentence—and then, over time, gathering a few more you can keep in your back pocket.
You could use these sentences in different ways.
For one person in coaching this week, it was about preparing to tell clearer stories of impact on a job search.
For others, it was about making their work legible to campus leadership—not as a checkbox, but as something that genuinely informs priorities and decisions.
These are the sentences that come in handy:
when a dean asks how things are going
when your supervisor is thinking out loud about priorities
when someone wants a concrete example, not a report
Just imagine, for example, telling prospective family members that students who engage with the career center early and often are more likely to stay enrolled, graduate on time, and land a job.
Pretty darn impactful.
That’s what you’re after.
The work itself doesn’t need to change.
🎯 It’s the outcome. The impact.
A simple way to build your back pocket
Next time a student story sticks with you, try this quietly—no extra work required:
What actually changed for the student?
What does that change make more likely?
Why does that matter beyond your office?
If you can answer those three questions, you’ve got a sentence worth keeping.
Over time, those sentences add up—so when the right conversation appears, you’re ready.
Why this matters right now
Senior leaders aren’t dismissing career services.
They’re just looking at the institution through a different lens:
enrollment confidence
retention risk
institutional reputation
long-term sustainability
When we don’t draw the line between our work and those concerns, the value stays invisible—even when the impact is real.
Translation doesn’t require more effort. It requires readiness.
That’s the muscle I see leaders building in workshops, in coaching, and inside the Career Services Accelerator—quiet preparation that gives you more influence without adding to your plate.
If this week all you do is capture one sentence and keep it handy, that’s a great start.
Free event this week!
Being asked to lead strategically with a team set up to survive tactically?
This 60-minute workshop focuses on the hardest leadership decision in career services right now: what to stop. You’ll leave with a clear framework to let go of low-value work, free up capacity without devaluing your team, and refocus effort where it matters most.
P.S. If today's newsletter resonates, this is exactly the kind of work we do inside the Career Services Accelerator—helping leaders translate real moments of impact into language that carries weight in the rooms where priorities are set. It’s designed to advance your work from where you are.
