In the heart of the Midwest, the University of South Dakota (USD) stands as a pivotal beacon for career readiness, serving a diverse student population of around 10,000, many who come from rural communities. At its core, the Career Services Office, under the leadership of Ashlin Schoenfelder, Director of Career Services, is transforming career readiness and support through the strategic use of Symplicity CSM. With CSM, customized and branded as ‘Coyote Careers,’ USD is enhancing its operations, supporting a wide array of majors, and significantly impacting students' early career, internship, and career readiness skills.
Today, USD uses CSM for its career fairs, events, job posting, and managing employer relations. This also includes career assessment, and resources all houses within USD’s CSM system.
Strategic Vision and Implementation
Under the stewardship of Schoenfelder, the Career Services Office at USD has seen substantial growth and redefinition. Transitioning from its previous affiliation with the Academic and Career Planning Center, the office has now established itself as an independent entity. This strategic move reflects USD's dedicated focus on enhancing career services. “Career services is huge... It is becoming very well known around not just USD, but the Midwest and nationwide," said Schoenfelder. Alongside the NACE competency metrics, CSM is ensuring USD’s commitment to delivering exceptional support and guidance to its students. “I am a huge advocate for Symplicity because it's so easy to use and is so user friendly, not for just me, but for employers, for students, and then for our staff as well,” said Schoenfelder. “I absolutely love using it because it centralizes various career resources and opportunities, so that students have everything they need at their fingertips within the tool. This then creates efficiency when searching for jobs, internships, etc. and improves the students' user experience, satisfaction, and turnaround time. This ultimately helps the university achieve its overall mission of educating students and preparing them for the workforce.”
“I absolutely love using it because it centralizes various career resources and opportunities, so that students have everything they need at their fingertips within the tool. This then creates efficiency when searching for jobs, internships, etc. and improves the students' user experience, satisfaction, and turnaround time. This ultimately helps the university achieve its overall mission of educating students and preparing them for the workforce."
Ashlin Shoenfelder,
Director of Career Services, University of South Dakota
Customizing Support for Diverse Student Needs
With roughly 36 percent of USD’s student population coming from rural areas, Schoenfelder utilizes CSM’s tagging feature to communicate and directly reach out to these students for career counseling, opportunities, and more. “You can really customize the system to fit your needs, from employers to students and the university. So, however, you want to use it, Symplicity will customize it for you. And it really makes life so much easier,” emphasized Schoenfelder.
Coordinating career services across various departments presented unique challenges for USD. With distinct needs across different academic departments and a commitment to serving both undergraduate and graduate students, including those from rural areas, a versatile and robust system was imperative.
With CSM, USD’s career services office can target communication and support for the challenges rural students face, such as limited internet access and transportation. By identifying students from various backgrounds and needs, USD can tailor its support and programming. The ability to generate actionable insights through reporting and analytics within Symplicity CSM is a game-changer for USD's Career Services. "We use the reporting every single month, every year just to have those numbers," Schoenfelder states, emphasizing the critical role of data in strategic planning and decision-making. This focus on analytics supports the office's continuous improvement efforts, ensuring that services remain aligned with student needs and industry trends.
“You can really customize the system to fit your needs, from employers to students and the university. So, however, you want to use it, Symplicity will customize it for you. And it really makes life so much easier."
Ashlin Shoenfelder,
Director of Career Services, University of South Dakota
Leveraging Technology for Efficiency and Engagement
The introduction of CSM by Symplicity marked a significant milestone for USD's Career Services Office. This platform has revolutionized how the office manages career fairs, job postings, and employer relations. The system's ease of use is a boon for employers, students, and the career services staff, facilitating a seamless interaction across all touch points.
“To have Symplicity is so important because employers can add their own jobs themselves and we can make sure it’s a job that USD students would like to apply to,” said Schoenfelder. Being able to have a system that not only is user friendly, but if I need help on something that I'm not used to, I can go into the help center, submit a help desk ticket, or call our client manager I know someone will respond within the day and maybe even usually within the hour.”
In addition to the career readiness at USD, Symplicity CSM is used by the South Dakota Association of College Career Centers to hold it largest career fair in the state of Sioux Falls, SD every spring to track registration for the B.I.G. (Business, industry, and Government) Career & Internship Fair. This effort was led by Schoenfelder, the associations’ employer relations chair, who advocated for CSM to be used on a broader scale due to their successful experience at USD with the system.
Reporting and Analytics for Strategic Decision Making
CSM’s reporting and analytics play a critical role in informing strategic decisions within the career services office at USD, particularly utilizing the surveys modules to identify what career fairs and events her and her team should have throughout the year. The reporting plays a vital role in knowing which employers are using Coyote careers, where they're located, gather employer feedback, identify other employers and areas that students are interested in and encourages students to make connections.
The ability to generate detailed reports on student engagements, employer participation, and event outcomes plays a vital role in shaping future initiatives and aligning them with USD's strategic goals. This includes knowing how many students each staff member meets with, the number of employers logging into the system, the number of jobs posted each semester and the types of roles, how many internships students are applying to, and much more. “It’s essential to what we do,” said Schoenfelder. “We use Symplicity to host historical data on employers and students who attended our previous events and which company, college or university they represented, respectively. With this data we can track our year-over-year growth as well as areas of opportunity for future events.”
Client Support and Continuous Improvement
The relationship between USD's Career Services Office and Symplicity extends beyond mere technology provision; it is a partnership grounded in mutual understanding and support. USD is proud to use Symplicity because of the updated features align with what they are seeing with employers and students. "Being able to work closely with our client manager enables us to help our employers and students better. Our client manager will always say, ‘Do you want to just hop on a quick call?’ whenever we have something and it makes things so much easier to just have someone be able to answer your questions,” said Schoenfelder. “Someone who has been in my shoes before, someone who understands higher ed is key because they know what we're going through, how we use the system on our end makes such a difference.”
Conclusion
The University of South Dakota's Career Services Office exemplifies the transformative impact of Symplicity CSM on career readiness efforts. Through strategic implementation, targeted support for unique student populations, efficient event and employer relations management, and informed strategic planning through analytics, USD is setting a benchmark for career services in higher education. Ashlin Schoenfelder's leadership and her team's innovative use of technology underscore the potential of Symplicity CSM to empower students, engage employers, and elevate career services to new heights.
