Career Services Institute (CSI East) in Washington DC August 12 & 13

If you haven't already registered or know colleagues who would be excited to participate in a Career Services Conference like no other, please join us at Career Services Institute (CSI East), held at the NYU Washington DC campus located right off of Dupont Circle.  This annual program that rotates to different locations embodies the values of career services professionals and strives to create a unique two day experience for participants.  At CSI East, practitioners come together to learn and share best practices, learn from subject experts and interact with seasoned career services leaders and employers.  Faculty include Manny Contomanolis (RIT), Jeff Garis (Penn State), Marcia Harris (formerly UNC-Chapel Hill), Tim Luzader, (Purdue) and Trudy Steinfeld (NYU).  For more information on the conference, employer speakers and registration information, please visit http://www.rit.edu/emcs/oce/csi/

Corporate Internal Career Development to Retain Top Talent

Even in these uncertain economic times, the best companies continue to compete for and try to retain top new talent. As we have come to understand, Gen Y's in the workplace are not afraid to change jobs frequently – by some estimates roughly every sixteen to eighteen months and sometimes even sooner depending on their workplace circumstances and opportunities.

As we consistently hear from our employer colleagues, their significant recruiting and on boarding investments are wasted on candidates they can't retain. Several innovative employing organizations are developing internal career development programs and services that seek to respond to Gen Y worker needs for variety, movement, visibility and change.

Innovative organizations embracing this new strategy include AT&T, KPMG, Zappos, Deloite and IBM. Check out their web sites to learn more. These internal career development programs focus on acknowledging and understanding the motivations and interests of Gen Y employees and creating opportunities to address those in creative ways specific to their organizational circumstances and cultures.

What fascinates us is the potential for higher education career services organizations and these emerging workplace career development programs to exchange perspectives and best practice information about Gen Y and the services most effective in meeting their career and employment goals and interests. We will be pursuing learning opportunities in this arena and share our findings with you.

Getting from College to Career

Check out Lindsey Pollak's revised edition of "Getting from College to Career".  It's a must read for students and the professionals who help guide Gen Y's career decisions and ultimately their job search.  Trudy has several pieces of advice that are quoted in the book, but even if she wasn't included, it's seriously a great resource. 

Getting from College to Career, REVISED EDITION: Your Essential Guide to Succeeding in the Real World By Lindsey Pollak (HarperCollins, Revised Edition 2012) How do you get a job without experience and get experience without a job? It’s the question virtually every college student or recent graduate faces. In Getting from College to Career, Lindsey Pollak offers the first definitive guide to building the experience, skills, and confidence you need before starting your first major job search. This book is packed with career advice for students and focuses on how to get a job after college. Her 90 action-oriented tips include strategies ranging from the simple to the expert, including: Avoid the biggest mistake in career prep and job hunting Subscribe to a daily newspaper E-mail like a professional Make every event a networking success Practice the eight essentials of internship achievement Perform five minutes of stand-up Over prepare for interviews Persist (politely)

Manny to Present 'Employer Relations in the Age of Internships'

Want to start the New Year out right?

Don't miss this virtual keynote address in which Manny Contomanolis will discuss the changing relationship between career services professionals and employers in the context of the new focus on internships and their increasing importance in our work.

If you want to participate in this webinar, be sure to register with InternBridge.com prior to January 4th, by clicking on the 'Career Services Conference' tab.

4.3% Unemployment Rate for College Grads

Although the national unemployment figures continue to be a dismal 9.1% as evidenced by the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics findings released Friday, there is a bright spot in the data.

The unemployment rate for college graduates is a much lower 4.3% and industries such as health care and technical fields continue to add jobs. You can read the full report here.

Additionally other news sources are concluding that in general job postings are up significantly from a year ago. This is encouraging news for all of us who work with college graduates.