Career Education Discourse: Promoting Student Employability in a University Career Center

Abstract

In 2016, Gallup reported 80 percent of recent U.S. college graduates who had visited career services offices (CSO) rated their engagement to be somewhat to very helpful. Quantitative reports such as this provide student views of CSOs, but neither address CSO staff’s perceptions of the value of their work nor the tools they use to assist students. Staff perceptions provide insight into how they communicate with students and align with emerging career education paradigms. Through in-depth interviews and participant observations, this study illuminates the communicative strategies used by CSO staff at a large U.S. Midwestern public university to support student employability. This study extends our theoretical understanding of career education and employability discourse, where staff engaged students’ assumptions about careers and provided opportunities for them to diversify knowledge about themselves and work to develop their career identities. Additionally, career education activities supported the development of students’ social capital and personal adaptability through staying positively focused and proactive in career exploration and job searches. Practical implications for this study are that employability discourse could (1) emphasize how institution-sponsored activities could increase student job seeker competitiveness, but also (2) instill a “no guarantees” academic culture where students are responsible for their employability.

Best Content Standards in Sports Career Education for Adolescents: A Delphi Survey of Korean Professional Views

“…This implies that acquiring the ability to set career goals and following a series of systematic procedures is the most important aspect of career education for adolescents [19,20]. Additionally, this assists adolescents in managing their careers and finding the identities necessary for career design in the desired sports fields [7,37]. Therefore, it is important to ensure that student athletes who have not independently designed their career paths are provided guidance regarding "designing sports careers."…”

“…Research regarding career education and how adolescents are systematically guided to transition from students with sports literacy to employers in sports-related workplaces is limited [2,37]. Discourses on curriculum and instruction in sports career education shared by physical education teachers and sports coaches at schools are considered indifferent and passive.…”

COVID-19: How Will Historically Underrepresented Groups Fair in the Job Market?

“…Much like academic success, employability is an important outcome. Employability focuses on self-management and strongly urges students to take responsibility for integrating in and out-of-class experiences when they begin to look for work (Helens-Hart, 2019). This begs the question of how we can engage students NOW when we no longer can encourage students to visit our office or recommend resources based on the in-person meetings.…”

The Employability Self-Assessment: Identifying and Appraising Career Identity, Personal Adaptability, and Social and Human Capital

“…The first dimension of employability is “career identity” (Fugate et al, 2004), which “refers to individuals’ understanding of who they are and who they want to be in the context of work” (Helens-Hart, 2015, para. 2).…”

“…Provide students with a blank self-assessment handout (see online supplement; available with the article online). Ideally, students will have reviewed the employability framework from its original source (Fugate et al, 2004) or a quick summary (Helens-Hart, 2015) beforehand, but I usually review the framework and facilitate this activity in the same class period. Fugate and Kinicki (2008) validated an employability scale, based on the model, which further details individual characteristics contributing to employability.…”