When Cori Foged joined the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology as Manager of Experiential Learning, she walked into an office that wasn’t using Symplicity CSM to the best of it’s ability. At the time, the platform was only being used as a job posting board. A year and a half later, NAIT is running its entire work-integrated learning operation through the platform, has doubled employer attendance at its hiring fair, and is presenting at a national conference on the power of good data systems.
NAIT's Symplicity instance had been, in Cori's words, "left in the corner." Instructors were managing student grades in spreadsheets and employer relationships lived in individual inboxes. If a faculty member retired or moved on, the institutional knowledge they'd built over years — every employer contact, every outreach thread — left with them.
"If they retire or win a million dollars, that's gone," Cori says. "We don't know where that is. So now having set this as a standard that everyone will use, it gives a better profile to leadership as well as who's who and where you can go do outreach."
The problem wasn't the platform. It was that nobody had pushed it to do more. (And it really can do that and then some.)
"To me, it's the most comprehensive system I've used. It's instrumental in centralization — we couldn't do it without it."
— Cori Foged, Manager of Experiential Learning, Northern Alberta Institute of Technology
The first thing Cori did when she arrived was activate the Experiential Learning module. What followed was a systematic build-out: applications for WIL students, placement records, program evaluations, digital WIL agreements, and automated communications at every stage of the process.
The result is what Cori describes as full lifecycle tracking, from the moment a student expresses interest in a work-integrated learning placement to the moment they complete it.
"The life cycle of a WIL from start to finish has been very useful for tracking and gathering that information," she says.
Before, there was no real vetting process. Summer jobs, new graduate positions, and WIL placements were all mixed together in one open pool. Any student could apply for any opportunity, regardless of whether they met the criteria.
Now, WIL positions sit behind a firewall. Students have to complete their application, meet qualifications, and work through the process before they can access those listings. The system handles the communication automatically — no manual emails, no chasing students down.
"I remember sending out surveys and reminders manually. Now the system just does it all. You just set it up and it does it all."
Centralization has done more than streamline workflows. It's changed how NAIT's office is perceived — and what it's capable of proving.
When instructors moved off their spreadsheets and into the system, the office gained something it didn't have before: uniform, reliable data across all departments. That data feeds into employer engagement reports, shapes outreach strategy, and gives leadership a clear picture of how the office is performing.
"It positions us as knowing what the heck we're talking about," Cori says. "Use it, and your workload will go down — but more importantly, you'll know that the data is correct."
That credibility has real consequences. NAIT's team is heading to the CEWIL Canada conference to present, and one of their main points is straightforward: get a good data system. Symplicity CSM is the foundation they're building their argument on.
One of the most concrete results of the expanded platform use: NAIT doubled the number of employers attending its hiring fairs.
The difference was in how they managed the event. Using Symplicity's communication tools, mapping features, and event management capabilities, the team was able to share information more effectively, keep employers updated throughout the process, and handle the financial and logistical side of the event in one place.
"We doubled our hiring fair employer attendees because of the mechanisms we could use to communicate, share information, give updates, and manage the whole financial piece of it," Cori says.
The office is now expanding its events use even further as it gets more comfortable with the platform's full capabilities.
Symplicity CSM's employer engagement tracking has also changed how NAIT approaches relationship management. Employer profiles can be flagged and tagged for various purposes, including advancement reporting, which helps the office communicate the value of employer partnerships to institutional leadership.
More importantly, Cori can now run reports that show exactly how engaged each employer is with the institution, and build outreach strategy from that data.
"You can gather all that information and get a report on just how well engaged employers are — and then create strategy out of that report on who you need to do outreach with."
NAIT is heading into a system refresh this summer: cleaning up pick lists, tags, archived employers, and archived students to sharpen the accuracy of their data. It's the kind of maintenance work that signals maturity with a platform: not just using it, but actively maintaining it so it keeps performing.
Looking further ahead, Cori is exploring using Symplicity for appointment management, with an eye toward consolidating everything into one place. And when Symplicity's AI-powered resume review and mock interview features are ready, she's ready for them, particularly as a way to extend the office's reach without adding headcount.
Symplicity CSM is a comprehensive career services and experiential learning platform built for higher education. From job postings and employer engagement to WIL placements, hiring events, and student lifecycle tracking, CSM gives career and experiential learning teams the tools to run smarter operations and the data to prove their impact.