Higher education career services are facing unprecedented challenges in today's rapidly changing job market. As the economy continues to shift towards automation, globalization, and digitalization, traditional career paths are disappearing, and new fields are emerging. The role of career services has never been more important in helping students and graduates navigate these changes and find meaningful employment. In fact, according to NACE’s 2023 Job Outlook report, out of the employers surveyed, employers say they plan to hire 14.7 percent more new college graduates from the Class of 2023 than they did from 2022.
That said, career services staff continue to be in a unique position of connecting students with the right opportunities and employers. In particular, career services serve as student advocates for those who are low-income, fall under a minority category, are first-generation, or facing other challenges. In fact, NACE’s student survey found that graduating seniors who used at least one service—any service—received an average of 1.24 job offers.
Yet, career services in higher education face many challenges in helping their students succeed. These include:
- Increasing demands: With the rise of the gig economy and the changing nature of work, students and graduates are looking for more flexible and creative career options. Career services must adapt to these changing demands while still providing essential career services.
- Technology integration: Career services need to integrate technology to stay relevant and efficient. While onboarding the new technology can be a challenging task, once integrated, it can relieve pressure and resources on staff to ensure they are more focused on helping students.
- Lack of resources: Many career services departments are understaffed and underfunded, which limits their ability to provide personalized career guidance and support to all students.
To relieve some of the stress from the challenges that career services offices face as today’s students expect more than just a job posting and resume review from their institutions, technology can help. Symplicity CSM helps institutions meet where their students are and build cross-campus connections through the exchange of data, reports, and notes to better help support upcoming graduates in their career journeys. Plus, they can help students with personalized career development tools, industry insights, virtual and in-person career fair offerings, and much more.
With Symplicity CSM’s Experiential Learning module, institutions can customize their internship, apprenticeship, and co-op programs to meet the current employer's demands. Plus, with Symplicity Pathways, offices can set up structured career plans to ensure students are gaining valuable competency skills to set them up for success. Streamlining your systems to meet institutional and employer standards, Symplicity CSM has been a trusted collaborator for career services professionals for over 20 years. To learn more about CSM and how it can help your institution, email us at info@symplicity.com or schedule a conversation.
