What Career Centers Can Do to Curb the Crisis:

Career centers can do an array of different things to try to work though the economic crisis.  One option is looking at new companies that might be hiring.  While going back to companies that school already has established relationships is easier, career centers need to do extra research and go above and beyond to find new companies that are hiring.  One specific example is looking towards start-up companies that usually higher in high demand.  For Santa Clara University, this should be easy due to the fact that many companies begin in the Silicon Valley. 

Career centers also need to focus on connecting with successful alumni, which can be done in many ways, so that work in safe industries that aren’t being hit as hard by the economy.   For example, USC started an organization called “Trojans Hiring Trojans.”  This organization tries to get alumni to post job openings on the university’s job site before posting them on other sites.  They try to convince alum that if the students get jobs, the schools reputation goes up, and that reputation effects their own since they themselves graduated from that school.  Setting up events for students to talk with alumni can also be helpful.  To develop networking skills, Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania gave 50 business cards to each graduating senior.  These cards list the students’ name, major, minors, and contact information.  This promotes the idea of networking and helps students get their name out there. 

Another area that career centers can focus on in regards to networking is developing students’ etiquette.  Often times, students don’t know how to act when speaking with professionals in a non-interview scenario.  Students should understand how to properly introduce themselves and show respect for the individual and the company. Tips like these will help keep students afloat in todays economy.

Lastly, career centers should aim at recruiting locally.  The career center ant New York University called local firms and convinced them that they could save time and expenses by recruiting at the local school.  Ms. Steinfeld, a staff member in the center says, “We’ve really gotten some traction from that…I can’t even name how many employers we’ve done that with.”