Spotlight for Career Services Professionals
Centralized remains far and away the most common career services office structure, even with the introduction of the hybrid structure as an option, according to NACE’’s 2017-18 Career Services Benchmark Survey Report for Colleges and Universities.
This year’s survey introduced the hybrid structure—that is, a campus that has a central office to manage the overall career services operation along with a school-based office that delivers services to students enrolled in that specific school.
Still, overall, nearly three-quarters of respondents identified their office as centralized. (See Figure 1.) A greater percentage of respondents, however, did indicate that their campus has a hybrid structure than did those who reported a decentralized structure (17.9 percent versus 9.5 percent).
By Carnegie Classification, Research 1 and Research 2 institutions were most likely to have hybrid structures. (See Figure 2.)
The 2017-18 Career Services Benchmark Survey Report for Colleges and Universities is a comprehensive report detailing various components of college and university career services operations, including office structure, services offered, first-destination survey implementation, staffing, budgets, fees, assessments, the use of technology and Internet applications, and international student support. Data were collected from September 27, 2017, to January 19, 2017, from NACE member institutions; there were 666 respondents, representing 34.6 percent of all eligible respondents. Participating institutions receive complimentary copies of the report (see MyNACE > Research Reports); an executive summary is available on NACEWeb.
Figure 1: Office structure of career services
| Office Structure |
% of Respondents |
| Centralized |
72.6% |
| Decentralized |
9.5% |
| Hybrid |
17.9% |
Source: 2017-18 Career Services Benchmark Survey Report for Colleges and Universities, National Association of Colleges and Employers
Figure 2: Office structure, by Carnegie Classification
| Office Structure |
Doctoral |
Master’s |
Baccalaureate |
Associate’s |
| R1 |
R2 |
R3 |
M1 |
M2 |
M3 |
A&S |
Diverse |
|
| Centralized |
30.1% |
45.2% |
76.7% |
75.7% |
89.7% |
89.5% |
93.0% |
96.3% |
73.5% |
| Decentralized |
34.4% |
11.3% |
6.7% |
5.9% |
1.7% |
5.3% |
1.2% |
1.9% |
12.2% |
| Hybrid |
35.5% |
43.5% |
16.7% |
18.4% |
8.6% |
5.3% |
5.8% |
1.9% |
14.3% |
| Respondents |
93 |
62 |
30 |
152 |
58 |
19 |
86 |
54 |
49 |
Source: 2017-18 Career Services Benchmark Survey Report for Colleges and Universities, National Association of Colleges and Employers