Spotlight for Career Services Professionals

Are you looking for ideas to attract students majoring in fine arts to the career center and your services? Here are some marketing ideas offered by members of the NACE Community:

• Sponsor a “Starving Artists Breakfast.” Alumni and university associates from theater, music, and others in art and design concentrations conducted a panel discussion and then provided food.
• Collaborate with the college of the arts. Hold a networking event bringing industry representatives to campus to meet with students and faculty. Students are prepared beforehand with workshops on networking skills, including practicing elevator speeches.
• Display student work. Ask student bands to perform student-written music.
• Arrange a “Lunch & Learn” where alumni or faculty lead a one-hour session related to career development, such as applying for graduate school, finding your niche in the arts, and professionalism 101.
• Facilitate an “Evening With Artists,” featuring an alumni panel speaking about how their crafts play into their work lives, and rotating roundtables, giving students a chance to move from artist to artist to ask questions.
• Allow drop-in appointments in an on-campus coffee shop and give in-class presentations.
• Employ a “Professional Preparation Night,” during which fine arts students rotate through rooms with different themes focusing on various job-search skills. Have professionals and faculty members work individually with these students on these skills.
• Sponsor a pop-up event in the middle of campus where students share something they care about by writing it on a white board and getting their picture taken. Students’ names are entered in a drawing.

Add your ideas and suggestions for attracting fine arts and communications majors to the career center to the discussion in the NACE Community.