A Jack of All Trades- Master of None

Not that long ago we were hired to “fix” a career services department for a college school system that was struggling to meet bench in almost all programs. As part of our initial assessment of the department we asked the team what they felt was the root cause of the problem?

One person reported that the problem was poor quality resume’s another felt the problem was the preparedness of the grads for interviews, one person felt they just didn’t have enough hiring employers and another told us that the real problem was they were all overworked, didn’t have enough resources to do their jobs and needed at least three more people in the department.

Hmmm…that was a lot of “wrong”! But more than that; how could four people all working with the same student body in the same building have such differing opinions about where the real problem lay?

The answer was simple; they lacked data. No one really knew what the root cause was because they weren’t tracking anything which could tell them with almost complete certainty, what the problems were. Ultimately, if you don’t track the results of the specific actions you are taking with respect to employment outcomes then the only way to improve is to “fix” everything but focus on nothing.

This is why I am presenting on the importance of data at APSCU this year. Specifically, the wealth of information you can gain from tracking the internship/externship data as it relates to your graduates “employ-ability” index. Please join me for this important workshop on how to pin-point the real cause of a low placement rate.