There’s no doubt that higher education is under a microscope right now (and under fire, in many ways).
In particular, everyone wants to know more about the ROI of a college degree, whether it’s prospective students and parents, board members, donors, or government officials.
Is college still worth it? Will it lead to good jobs and a meaningful life? Will students graduate feeling prepared for and confident about a job market that seems to change on a weekly basis, especially with the influence of AI?
These are all very valid questions, and anyone who works in higher ed right now is intimately familiar with them—especially our friends in enrollment and admissions who frequently get grilled about ROI and outcomes.
Stakeholders want to see proof of ROI, not just a promise.
That’s where career services comes in. Every institution has a not-so-secret superpower, and that’s the career center. They are the keepers of all the best student stories, the outcomes data, the employer relationships, and the insights gleaned from all sides.
As a result, career centers are perfectly positioned to be institutional drivers of strategy and key allies to cabinet-level leaders as they aim to:
- Grow and stabilize enrollment
- Improve student success, retention, and outcomes
- Demonstrate ROI
- Align academic programs to the labor market
- Ensure financial sustainability and operational efficiency
In this article, we’ll dig into specific strategies career leaders can use to align their work with institutional goals, speak the language of senior leaders, and elevate the role and visibility of the career center.
The first step? A mindset shift from “student services” to “strategic partner”
Too many career centers still think of themselves as a peripheral student service instead of a key driver of institutional strategy.
“Career leaders have to pivot that mindset of thinking, ‘We’re a student services function,’ and move into this mindset of, ‘We are an institutional mission function.’ Because they absolutely are,” said Jonathan Wehner, AVP of Enrollment Strategy at Carnegie and former 20-year VP for enrollment management in higher ed.
Career leaders need to start thinking (and talking) like institutional leaders. That means tying your work to the same metrics your president and provost care about: enrollment, retention, outcomes, and financial sustainability.
Longtime career services leader Rebekah Paré calls this strategic orientation:
“Is your center leading or reacting? Too often I see well-meaning lists of initiatives that don’t actually connect to what the university cares most about.”
Ask yourself:
- Do our goals map to the university’s strategic plan?
- Are we helping solve the institution’s biggest challenges?
- Can cabinet-level leaders easily articulate our value?
If the answer is “not yet,” you’re not alone. Here are a few strategies to help.
How to build alignment: 5 proven strategies for career leaders
1. Understand the goals and portfolios of senior leadership
Every cabinet-level leader on your campus has a list of goals and issues they care most about, things that keep them up at night. Here are a few examples for each leader, but this list is by no means exhaustive and responsibilities often vary depending on the institution:
- For presidents, it’s often finances/budget considerations, people management, upcoming board meetings, and of course, student success and outcomes.
- For provosts, it’s academics, program viability, faculty management, and being responsible for one of the largest costs on campus: personnel.
- For chief enrollment officers, it’s driving enrollment in a highly competitive environment and being very publicly responsible for the largest source of revenue: tuition.
- For heads of student affairs, it’s student experience and well-being, retention, student orgs and extracurriculars, and tying them all together with academics and career readiness.
- For heads of advancement, it’s finances and budget, donor relations, fundraising campaigns, and giving events.
For career services leaders looking to align with institutional priorities, it’s critical to understand what those priorities are, who is focused on what, and how the career center can support.
“Senior leaders are not going to shift their priorities for you,” says Christine Cruzvergara, Chief Education Strategy Officer at Handshake. “You have to figure out how to fit your priorities within theirs.”
Quick tip: Review your institution’s strategic plan and presidential speeches. Look for repeated themes and phrasing. Throw the strategic plan and speech transcripts (if you have them) into ChatGPT to help you quickly zero in on key themes and patterns. Mirror that language in your own goals and communications.
2. Lead with data and stories
Every institutional leader is looking for proof of ROI, both quantitative and qualitative. Numbers get attention. Stories make them stick.
Dr. Joretta Nelson, Vice Chairman at Credo (now part of Carnegie) and a longtime faculty member and VP of enrollment in higher ed, offered simple advice from a senior leader’s perspective on the Career Everywhere Podcast:
“Don’t give me a hundred pieces of data. Give me three pieces of data I can use and a rotation of real time stories that I can have in my back pocket for every conversation.”
For example, if your president is preparing for a board meeting or donor event, send them:
- Three key metrics (e.g., X% employment rate, X% internship participation, X employer partnerships)
- Two stories of students or recent grads who illustrate impact
- A brief summary putting the data and stories in context of institutional goals
3. Build relationships and rapport
A major part of career services leadership these days is external relationship-building across campus. There is, of course, still the in-the-trenches daily work of working with students, but as Paré noted in her episode of the Career Everywhere Podcast, career leaders should also “zoom out” when they can and initiate more conversations with other stakeholders:
“Go talk to 30 department chairs or faculty. Gather what you hear, reflect it back, and say, ‘Here’s how we can help.’ Suddenly, you’re part of the planning conversation instead of chasing it.”
Schedule regular check-ins with senior leaders. If you don’t already have a relationship, start by offering to buy them a cup of coffee so you can learn more about their goals. After the meeting, follow up with ideas, data, and stories that connect your work to theirs.
If you can’t get a meeting, start by proactively sharing some helpful information via email that makes it clear you’ve done your research on their priorities.
4. Integrate career into the academic experience
If career readiness and improved outcomes are major priorities, embedding career into the classroom is a powerful way to align career services with institutional strategy.
“I’ve had students tell me they didn’t learn any skills in college, and it’s heartbreaking,” Paré said. “Nobody told them they did. Helping faculty help students make that connection changes everything.”
Start small:
- Identify faculty champions open to collaboration.
- Co-develop assignments that connect coursework to career skills (use the NACE competencies for inspiration).
- Partner with departments whose enrollment is declining—career integration can help them demonstrate program value to prospective students.
Example: A liberal arts program partners with career services to map NACE competencies to capstone projects. Students begin articulating transferable skills early, and faculty can highlight career readiness in marketing materials.
Here are a few additional resources on integrating career into curriculum:
- How Oregon State Integrated Career Development Into Core Curriculum (podcast)
- Integrating Career Exploration and Skill Development into Curriculum (podcast)
- How Career Services Can Blend Academic Advising and Career Coaching (article)
- How to Make Career Services a Requirement by Embedding It Into Curriculum (podcast)
- How to Build and Scale a Career Champion Program (podcast)
5. Make career a shared responsibility across campus
The most forward-thinking institutions are those where career isn’t a department—it’s a shared responsibility.
“Career development shouldn’t be confined to a single office or event. It should be embedded across the entire student experience. Every department should see professional readiness as part of their mission,” Cruzvergara said.
When career becomes woven into advising, academics, student life, alumni engagement, advancement, and enrollment, it stops being a siloed service and becomes a shared institutional success story.
For specific strategies on how to integrate career into every facet of the student experience, check out the Career Everywhere Podcast.
How to work with the cabinet: Strategies and best practices for each senior leader
It’s no secret that an institution’s cabinet-level leaders are busy, managing large portfolios, and probably stressed out. So if you want to align career services to institutional strategy, you have to first understand what life looks like for the people shaping that strategy every day.
Nelson has spent years coaching university presidents and cabinet leaders. We asked her to walk us through a day-in-the-life of each of the five most common senior leaders and share advice for how career services can work with and support them.
Her first piece of advice? “Put your empathy hats on.”
Here’s the breakdown for the president, provost, chief enrollment officer, head of student affairs, and head of advancement.
The President or Chancellor
Presidents are the ultimate strategic multi-taskers. They sit at the intersection of mission, money, and message. Their calendars are packed from sunrise to sunset (and sometimes beyond) with donor events, trustee meetings, campus events, alumni visits, media interviews, chamber of commerce meetings, political briefings, 1:1s with direct reports, budget meetings, and more.
And often, these meetings are back-to-back-to-back.
If that didn’t sound stressful enough, consider all the pressure university presidents are facing right now.
“These positions are really hard to fill and we all know they’re taking a lot of hits in the industry right now. The individuals who have agreed to take these leadership roles need all of our support,” Nelson said.
It’s also important to note that presidents are working from a schedule based on the academic calendar, budget cycle, board meetings, fundraising campaigns/cycles, etc. Career leaders should keep those schedules in mind as they time their outreach and the content that’s included.
So, what’s usually keeping a president up at night?
- Enrollment, revenue, and long-term sustainability
- Declining public confidence in higher ed
- Fundraising goals and donor relations
- Campus morale and institutional culture
- Board relations and strategic positioning
Knowing this, here are a few suggestions from Nelson on how career leaders can connect:
- Be concise. Presidents think in headlines, not paragraphs.
- Provide data and stories they can share publicly, especially those that demonstrate ROI or impact.
- Frame everything in mission-centered language: “Here’s how we’re helping students live out the university’s purpose.”
- Time your communication strategically. Send updates ahead of board meetings, donor events, or the state of the university address.
Outreach example:
Send a quarterly one-page “Career Outcomes Snapshot” featuring your top three metrics and two short student stories. Presidents can weave these directly into speeches, donor letters, or media quotes.
Pro tip:
Get to know your president’s speech writer and make sure they’re receiving your data and stories, too.
The Provost or Chief Academic Officer
Provosts (also sometimes referred to as Chief Academic Officers) have a uniquely difficult position, which is one reason there are so many vacancies in provost roles across the country, according to Nelson.
Long story short, provosts typically oversee all things academic—from curriculum, new program development, and accreditation to faculty development and research. They also serve as leaders of the faculty, the single largest personnel cost on campus. And some provosts also oversee departments like enrollment management (or even career services).
Their calendars are typically packed with dean’s council meetings, faculty senate discussions, academic budget reviews, and more.
They’re constantly navigating competing demands: faculty autonomy vs. institutional priorities, academic rigor vs. market relevance, and more.
“Provosts are also managing the five stages of grieving coming from faculty right now. Because I think our faculty in the industry are in a bit of either the stage of denial or the stage of blame or a stage of acquiescence. And none of those stages put you in a spot of creativity and innovation,” Nelson said.
“So I feel for our provosts who often tell me, ‘I can’t find any hope out there.’ It’s very dismal in the faculty world as they see what’s really happening.”
For career services leaders hoping to build a good relationship with their provosts, Nelson suggests being mindful of all the provosts are managing right now between faculty frustrations and fears, financial realities around academic programs, and higher ed’s transformation at large.
So how can career leaders best connect with their provosts? Here are a few of Nelson’s suggestions:
- Arts and humanities programs likely need the most support from career services right now, so that’s a great place to start. Ask your provost, “Where do you need the most help to pilot or build out a career development integration or ecosystem? How could I partner with you to solve that?”
- Frame your work as academic enhancement, not extracurricular. Career should be built-in, not just added on.
- Show how career education helps students make meaning of what they learn.
- Offer to partner on curriculum mapping, experiential learning, or assessment.
- Provide evidence that career-integrated learning improves student retention and satisfaction. (If you need inspiration, you’ll find many great stories on this topic on the Career Everywhere Podcast)
Outreach example:
Share a short case study showing how embedding NACE competencies in first-year writing or capstone courses improved student confidence and engagement.
Pro tip:
When working with provosts, use data and pedagogy. Tie your initiatives to academic outcomes and current labor market trends. Tools like uConnect’s Labor Market Insights module make it easy to connect academic programs to the job market—for students and provosts.
The Chief Enrollment Officer
In most cases, the chief enrollment officer is essentially the chief revenue officer for the institution. No pressure at all, right?
They’re responsible for meeting enrollment and tuition revenue goals—the lifeblood of most institutions’ budgets. They manage massive data dashboards and often oversee large portfolios, with many departments and a significant number of personnel represented. Their days are filled with budget modeling, recruitment travel, and constant pressure from trustees and presidents.
“There were a lot of days when I felt a mile wide and an inch deep in everything, which was challenging,” Wehner said of his many years as a chief enrollment officer in higher ed. “There’s often a desire to go deeper in certain areas, and you just don’t have the capacity or the bandwidth to do that.”
What keeps chief enrollment officers up at night:
- Enrollment targets and net tuition revenue
- The ramifications if they fall short (e.g. people’s jobs and livelihoods being impacted)
- Competition from peer institutions
- Messaging around value and ROI
- Student retention and persistence
How career services can connect with chief enrollment officers:
- Ask to shadow enrollment colleagues during campus visit events, recruitment events, college fairs, etc. to hear what questions prospective students and parents are asking. Then proactively share whatever resources you have that can help answer those questions.
- Provide clear, current outcomes data that differentiates your institution. Give your enrollment counterparts a sneak peek at your FDS results.
- Collaborate on storytelling for admissions materials, websites, and recruitment events. Bring a mix of data and student stories to the table.
- Help train admissions counselors on career talking points.
- Offer to attend admissions events or parent panels to present career outcomes directly.
Example:
At Cleveland State, where Wehner oversaw enrollment and student success, his team used real student stories and career stats in recruitment marketing and saw much stronger yield.
“Career is higher ed’s core value proposition right now,” Wehner said. “If you’re not differentiating on your career outcomes, you’re missing the boat.”
Pro tip:
Think like a marketer. What stories, stats, or visuals would make a nervous parent say, “Okay, this school’s worth the investment?” Many career centers use uConnect’s Outcomes Data Visualization module to make this ROI data publicly available on their website and even on academic and enrollment pages.
The Head of Student Affairs
Student affairs leaders live at the heart of the student experience. They oversee everything from housing and health/wellbeing to student organizations, student success, and sometimes athletics. Their focus is belonging, wellness, and persistence. They are the keepers of campus climate.
Like the other cabinet leaders, the head of student affairs has a tough job. They’re constantly on call, fielding everything from crisis response to commencement logistics. They spend their days in back-to-back meetings with student leaders, counseling teams, and conduct officers.
Notably, there has also been a lot of turnover in senior-level student affairs leadership in the last five or so years. Between COVID, the student mental health crisis, and politically-charged events and protests on campuses across the country, many student affairs leaders are burned out.
“Post-COVID, the greatest departure of leadership en masse was within the student affairs division across the country. And that was true in private, public, community college, four-year, etc. We lost a wealth of knowledge,” Nelson said. “I think it was 37% of the industry experts in student affairs left the field entirely.”
Knowing that, how can career services leaders help?
At the end of the day, student affairs leaders want to be respected and treated as partners in the learning experience. Their roles go beyond managing student behavior or facilitating a fun experience on campus. They distinguish the value proposition of the institution and are experts in helping students learn and transform, Nelson said.
How career services can connect with heads of student affairs:
- Frame career engagement as part of belonging and purpose. Students who see a path forward are more likely to stay.
- Collaborate on first-year experience or orientation programs. (Then expand to second-year!)
- Share data and student stories linking career engagement to retention and confidence.
- Co-sponsor student success or identity-based initiatives (e.g., “First-Gen Career Confidence Week”).
Example:
One career center partnered with student affairs to embed career reflection activities into residence hall programs. The result? Higher engagement and better understanding of how college connects to life after graduation.
The Head of Advancement
Advancement leaders focus on fundraising, alumni engagement, donor relations, and brand reputation. They’re often on the road meeting donors, attending alumni events, and working with communications teams to tell the institution’s story.
“The advancement VP is always thinking about how to connect donor generosity to student impact. That’s where career services can be a goldmine,” Nelson said.
Nelson also notes that heads of advancement typically have a direct connection to the president. So if you’re a career services leader who’s having trouble getting facetime with the president, start with advancement. They can be your best ally.
What advancement leaders up at night:
- Meeting fundraising and campaign goals
- Maintaining strong donor relationships
- Inspiring alumni and corporate partners to give
- Finding fresh, emotionally resonant stories
- Demonstrating return on philanthropic investment
How career services can connect to heads of advancement:
- Share alumni career success stories and data that show long-term impact.
- Identify alumni employers and internship partners who might become donors.
- Partner on campaigns focused on student opportunity, internships, or career readiness.
- Offer to help craft thank-you stories or videos that showcase donor impact on student outcomes.
Example:
A career center shared a story of a first-generation student whose paid internship was funded by donor support, and who later became a donor themselves. Advancement turned that story into a campaign centerpiece that exceeded their giving goal.
Pro tip:
Be the advancement team’s go-to source for impact stories—the kind that show transformation, gratitude, and real ROI.
Conclusion
Each cabinet member has their own language, stressors, and jam-packed calendar. Understanding that context, and timing of important upcoming events, helps you position your work as part of the solution.
Checklist: Working with cabinet-level leaders
- Learn what each leader’s key goals and pressures are.
- Mirror their language in your communication.
- Offer solutions, not just updates.
- Be proactive and concise. Anticipate what they’ll need next and when.
- Share data and stories that help them meet their own objectives.
When career services leaders take that empathetic, strategic approach, they stop chasing institutional alignment and start leading it.
Increase your career center’s visibility, support students 24/7, and access the data you need to prove your impact with uConnect’s Virtual Career Center Platform. Watch our virtual demo.
