It must become clear to every college leader that college students want and need good jobs when they graduate. In today’s job market, colleges that do not do everything possible to help students achieve that goal are failing their students.
Students no longer attend college simply to obtain a good education. Those days are long gone. Today, students are going to college so they can land a good job, earn a good living and build a future for themselves and their families.
Of course, college has always been expensive. However, today, with college loan debt outstripping credit card debt, students need a good paying job so they can live on their own and pay back their loans. When students are not able to land a job that pays well, they are usually forced to live at home with their parents and either defer their loan(s) which adds interest or put nearly everything they earn into their monthly loan payments. That is not a great way to live.
Colleges may tell you that their job is to provide students with a good education. That is true but not totally correct. Their job is to serve the needs of their students. When landing a good job is a top priority for students, colleges must respond by making that need one of their top priorities. It does not make any sense to send well educated graduates out into the job market when they are unprepared to compete for the good paying jobs.
All students need colleges to help them:
- Learn how to conduct an effective job search
- Find out exactly what their target employers expect of them
- Create and follow a semester-by-semester employment plan
- Perform the activities and obtain the practical experiences that employers want
- Build a list of impressive accomplishments
- Identify employers with appropriate employment opportunities
- Learn how to build a network
- Develop an impressive resumé
- Practice their interview strategies
- Cultivate references… and much more
Without substantial, ongoing job search preparation assistance throughout their entire college experience, too many good students will fall short of their employment goals. That means that their careers will get off on the wrong foot and they will have trouble paying back their college loans. That is not the way students and their parents want things to work out.
When colleges show concern for the job search preparation needs of their students, they shift priorities, change the way they operate and provide the resources needed to address those needs. However, when colleges do not respond to important and legitimate student needs, they are sending a clear message that they do not care about those needs.
Most colleges will tell you that their career services offices are doing everything possible to help their students prepare for their job search. However, colleges know perfectly well that their career services staff reaches only a small percentage of students in a given year and very few of those students will be fully prepared to conduct and effective job search. By using their current job search preparation systems, no college can thoroughly serve and prepare 100% of their students. To do that properly, things have to change.
I can assure you that students do not enjoy entering the job market and trying to compete for the most attractive jobs knowing that they are unprepared. Fortunately, progressive and responsive colleges have begun to seek out and implement systems like The Job Identification Machine™ and The Job Search Preparation System™ because those systems will effectively serve and prepare nearly 100% of the students at their colleges.
Does your college understand what students and parents want and need from them? Maybe not. If every student does not receive the full and comprehensive job search preparation assistance that they will need to land a desirable job in their own field of interest, there is much more that your college can do.