Spotlight for Career Services Professionals
When the physical attributes of college career services offices are compared by Carnegie Classification, offices at R1 and R2 institutions have the greatest amount of square footage and number of interview rooms, according to the 2016-17 Career Services Benchmark Survey Report for Colleges and Universities.
Career services offices at R1 institutions average 7,161 square feet and 13 interview rooms, approximately eight of which are exclusively used for this activity. (See Figure 1.)
At R2 institutions, the career services office averages 4,626 square feet, with an average of eight interview rooms, five of which are used exclusively for interviews.
Data were collected for the 2016-17 Career Services Benchmark Survey Report for Colleges and Universities from September 30, 2016, to January 20, 2017, from NACE member institutions; there were 705 respondents, representing 35.3 percent of all eligible respondents. Highlights from the 2016-17 Career Services Benchmark Report for Colleges and Universities are available on NACEWeb. Participating members can access the full report through MyNACE.
Figure 1: Physical Attributes of the Career Services Office
| |
Overall |
Doctoral |
Master’s |
Baccalaureate |
Associate’s |
| R1 |
R2 |
R3 |
M1 |
M2 |
M3 |
A&S |
Diverse |
| Office square footage |
Percentile 25 |
600 |
2,523 |
1,950 |
1,236 |
800 |
400 |
600 |
800 |
300 |
251 |
| Mean |
2,721 |
7,161 |
4,626 |
3,849 |
1,831 |
1,577 |
1,235 |
2,501 |
777 |
738 |
| Median |
1,400 |
4,830 |
3,981 |
2,889 |
1,500 |
1,000 |
1,200 |
1,542 |
557 |
725 |
| Percentile 75 |
3,000 |
10,000 |
6,873 |
5,125 |
2,325 |
2,108 |
2,000 |
2,716 |
1,203 |
1,023 |
# of
interview rooms |
Percentile 25 |
1 |
4 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
| Mean |
3 |
13 |
8 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
6 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
| Median |
2 |
9 |
6 |
3 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
| Percentile 75 |
5 |
15 |
11 |
7 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
# of exclusive
interview rooms |
Percentile 25 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Mean |
3 |
8 |
5 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
| Median |
0 |
7 |
3 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
| Percentile 75 |
3 |
12 |
9 |
4 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
Source: 2016-17 Career Services Benchmark Survey Report for Colleges and Universities, National Association of Colleges and Employers