Spotlight for Career Services Professionals

Spring brings job and internship offers, and plans for graduation. Career services offices celebrate student success in a number of ways. Recently, a career center staff member asked colleagues how they acknowledged their students’ successes.

At one school, students ring a bell in the career center when they accept a co-op or full-time position, or are accepted to graduate school. They also receive a school pennant to display in their new workspace.

Other members shared their career center’s approach:

• Student photos are posted throughout the semester on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, and shared to alumni and parent networks to boost support.
• Students write their successes—acceptance to grad school, or intern or full-time position—on a white board labeled with the career center hashtag. Their pictures are taken and shared with advancement, marketing, and alumni engagement offices.
• Students’ names are listed with their accomplishment in the career center’s weekly newsletter.
• At one college, where the mascot is a gull, the career center and the student activities department host a “Leaving the Nest” event for seniors in March. Held in the campus pub, students can win prizes. In April, a large image of a nest is placed in the student center and the first names of students who have accepted a job or a spot in the graduate program are posted on the image of a gull flying from the nest.

How do you celebrate student success in your career center? Add your thoughts in the NACE Community.