Career services leadership and advocacy

Hello, Reader, Over the past four weeks, we've explored how institutions establish authority and governance, coordinate work across campus, intentionally design career learning, and cultivate the partnerships that strengthen a career ecosystem. This week, we're looking at the fifth domain in The Career Design BlueprintTM: Strategic Execution & Adaptive Capacity. One thing I've learned after working with colleges and universities is that launching a new initiative usually isn't the hardest...

Hello, Reader, One student graduates with multiple internships, strong faculty relationships, confidence talking about their strengths, and three job offers. Another graduates with the same GPA and the same major, but no professional network, little understanding of how their education connects to work, and uncertainty about what comes next. It's easy to explain the difference as motivation, personality, or my favorite, “Didn’t you log into Handshake?” Institutions with strong career...

Hi there, Reader, Ask a group of career leaders what comes to mind when they hear the phrase career ecosystem, and you'll usually hear the same kinds of answers. Faculty partnerships. Academic advising. Employer engagement. Alumni. Student affairs. Experiential learning. Those answers aren't wrong. In fact, those relationships are essential. No institution can prepare every student for life after graduation through the career center alone. Career preparation has always depended on people...

Hi, Reader, One observation from the first Career Design Blueprint™ Workshop Series surprised me. Participants came from very different institutions. Different sizes. Different governance structures. Different reporting lines. Yet as they reviewed their Career Ecosystem Readiness Assessments, many found themselves circling the same domain: Coordination & Operating Model. However, every institution represented in the room had committed professionals doing meaningful work. Faculty were creating...

Hi, Reader, Over the past several years, I've had the opportunity to review career ecosystems at institutions across the country. Some campuses were nationally recognized for their work. Others were just beginning to rethink how career preparation fit into their broader institutional strategy. Every institution looked different on the surface, yet one pattern kept appearing. While developing The Career Design Blueprint™, I found myself asking the same question in meetings with presidents,...

Hi, Reader, Institutions can measure how many students visit the career center. They can count internships, employer partnerships, classroom presentations, and appointments. They can survey students about whether they feel prepared for life after college. But none of that tells us whether the institution itself is designed to make career preparation work. Does career strategy have sufficient authority? Are divisions working from shared priorities? Is career preparation intentionally built...

Hi, Reader, The hardest institutional systems to change are not always the ones where nothing is working. Sometimes, they are the ones where enough is working. There are successful programs to point to. Participation numbers are growing. Faculty partnerships are producing results. Students who find their way to the right opportunities have genuinely transformative experiences. Those successes matter. But they can also make it harder to see what the institution has not yet built. When leaders...

Hello there, Reader, I hope you had a wonderful Fourth of July! While everyone else was watching fireworks this weekend, I found myself getting excited about…an assessment. I realize that probably confirms every stereotype about consultants. 😂 But hear me out. This isn't just another assessment. It's the culmination of years of asking one deceptively simple question: What organizational conditions actually have to exist before a career ecosystem can thrive? Recently, I introduced The Career...

Hi, Reader, Remember playing telephone as a kid? One person whispers a message into someone's ear. By the time it reaches the end of the circle, "The cat is sleeping on the porch" has somehow become "The astronaut ate a grilled cheese sandwich." Sometimes I think colleges and universities play a remarkably sophisticated version of the same game. Only instead of playground gossip, the message sounds something like this: "We need to improve career outcomes." It's a clear institutional priority....