Career Services: The Secret Weapon of Student Success

When I first started my career at Bryant & Stratton College more than 19 years ago, I began as an advisor with Career Services on the Henrietta campus. Over the course of 10 years, I went from focusing on a single campus to all the Rochester and Western New York campuses, and now to all 17 campuses and online in my current role as systems manager of career services.

I have witnessed incredible student success stories, and I have had a unique opportunity to create a path of success for each student individually. Every college has a career services department, but we are actively working to give extraordinary service and opportunities to all our students and to provide offerings that most colleges do not have. Taking advantage of the full benefits of Career Services is one of the best ways students can prepare for job success after graduation.

A member of the Career Services team is with a student from their first semester to past graduation. When a student starts at Bryant & Stratton College, Career Services will be involved right from orientation. We want to know our students and support them from the start of their education. Many of the students at Bryant & Stratton may not be coming right from high school. Many of them are parents, employed full time, and going back to school to further their education. For these students, we need to be there from the start to ensure that they can balance their schoolwork and their personal and professional lives. Every student on-campus is required to complete an internship before graduation. This can be a daunting thought if you are a parent. However, Career Services will help that student make a comprehensive plan and schedule to complete their internship.

As students approach their last year, they attend a career development course to learn the ins and outs of writing a resume and attending job interviews. Many students do a graded mock in-person or virtual interview with actual employers to get that real-life experience. When a student is ready for graduation, they have a graduate transition interview with Career Services, where we discuss the student’s plans after graduation. We also set up meetings after graduation to check in on their progress.

We offer career service assistance to alumni too. I have had students who graduated 10 to 15 years ago call us after a layoff looking for assistance or needing help dusting off their resume – we are always there to help.

While students are still in school, each Bryant & Stratton campus has numerous networking opportunities when employers come on-campus for job and information fairs – it’s never too early or too late to work on your resume. We encourage all students to take advantage of these events. We are always working on developing new relationships with employers for these events and also for internships.

For online students, we have a full Career Services team to assist them as well. We’ve also worked really hard the past couple of years to build employer relationships nationally. Online students also participate in a capstone experience, giving them hands-on, real-world experience for their resumes after graduation. Many of our online students also actually live near one of our campuses, and they are always welcome to attend any event or stop by the campus Career Services office anytime. Building a bridge from our online students to the ground campuses is a priority.

Career Services in many ways is the secret weapon of continued student success. We work with every student, as well as student advisors and professors, to formulate the best path for every individual student. We are always here to help you.

Learn more about Career Services here.