The New Career Services Value Proposition: Balancing Human Connection and Scale in the ROI Era

Meredith Metsker:

Hey everyone. Welcome back to The Career Everywhere Podcast. I’m your host, Meredith Metsker, and today I am super excited to be joined by Christine Cruzvergara, the Chief Education Strategy Officer at Handshake. Thank you for being here, Christine.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Thanks so much. I’m excited for the conversation.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, likewise. I am so excited to talk to you today about this crazy but important moment we’re in right now in higher ed and in career services. With the national conversation around the ROI of higher ed, just growing increasingly louder, it feels like career services is about to finally have its moment in the sun, which is great, but with all that attention comes a lot of pressure, but also a lot of opportunity.

And Christine, you’re obviously super plugged into the career services space and you are seeing this shift up close with all of the incredible work that you do for Handshake. So I am really looking forward to hearing your take on what’s going on right now with higher ed and career services, and how career leaders can seize this moment and position themselves as truly strategic partners. And then of course, what you think is on the horizon for career services. Before I get into my questions, Christine, is there anything else you would like to add about yourself, your background or your role there at Handshake?

Christine Cruzvergara:

I would actually just say for the listeners and viewers that may be watching that don’t know me, I actually spent a decade of my career working in higher education and working in career services. So I’ve worked at all of the Georges in the DC area, GW, Georgetown, and George Mason, and have also served as the associate provost for career education at Wellesley College before coming to Handshake.

So, some of the things that I might share, some of the stories I might share are both from my very personal experience sitting in the shoes of many of our listeners, as well as from the perspective now working at Handshake as the chief education officer. So, just wanted to preface that in case some people are a little confused about what I might be referencing.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, that’s some great context. And I also love how you worded it with all the Georges, ’cause I did notice that too when I was looking at your LinkedIn. I’m like, “There’s a lot of George names in here,” so that’s great.

Okay, great. Well, before I get into the more topic-specific questions, I do want to kick us off with a question that I ask all of our guests here on the podcast, and that’s what does Career Everywhere mean to you?

Christine Cruzvergara:

So for me, Career Everywhere essentially means having the conversation about careers, and sharing the responsibility of careers everywhere. And so if we’re talking about our partners that work in higher education institutions, it means not being territorial about who’s doing career work, making sure that you’re actually coordinating, leading, guiding the conversation, but not trying to control all of the career work that’s happening. It’s actually better that more people around campus might be invested in career, or might be trying to help students and support students in career.

I think it also means we need to be talking about career and this general topic more broadly all the time, because our students need the exposure, they need greater aperture, and they need to hear it repetitively more than once or twice, or even three times. And so Career Everywhere to me is about both frequency of the conversation and also the number of people that you’re engaging in the conversation as well.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I love that. It’s a great way to put it, especially the kind of encouragement to career leaders to not be territorial about it. As you said, it’s great for students to hear from others across campus, especially faculty who are seeing them all the time. So yeah, I loved how you put that.

Okay, well now, I would love to dig into our topic today, which is again, how career services leaders can meet this moment we’re in right now in higher ed. So, to set the stage a little bit for this conversation, can you share from your perspective what is going on with higher ed right now and what that means for career services? And I know that’s a big question.

Christine Cruzvergara:

That’s a huge question. To be honest, we need a lot more than the time we have to cover all of that. Let me actually zoom back out. So you mentioned at the opening, this is a particular time for higher ed to seize the moment. I would actually argue we’ve had times before for higher ed to seize the moment, and I think some schools and some leaders did, and I think others did not. And the time that I’m referring to, at least within my career, is the Great Recession, during 2008, 2009, 2010.

For me, in my career, that was the first moment for leaders to seize the moment. That was a time when all of a sudden students were not getting jobs, the economy was crashing all around us. All of a sudden, companies that had been growing, and that many students had even already had offers at suddenly didn’t exist literally within a few days or a few weeks. And it was this moment where suddenly everybody was looking to the institution to say, “Well, isn’t there some office at the institution that can help students get jobs?”

And I noticed at the time that there were essentially two buckets of leaders. There were leaders who said, “This is a really important moment for us to showcase what we can do, and to start advocating for how we can be positioned within the institution.” And there was another bucket of leaders who essentially said, “I’ve been doing things the same way for a long time. I am so close to retirement. Do not ask me to change what it is I’m doing.”

And now, I want to be fair. There were some people who were actually really close to retirement that were certainly in the first bucket, and there were some people who honestly had not been leaders for very long who just simply wanted to maintain the status quo and fell into the second bucket. So it’s not purely an age thing or a tenure thing, but it is a mindset thing.

And I think there were some schools about 10 years ago, 15 years ago who really did seize that moment, and you see them better positioned right now. There are a lot of the schools that we often refer to that have really great career programs and have really great career leaders who are often recruited, and people want them to go to their schools. And then you have others that are just trying to catch up now. You have some schools that are just starting to talk about some of the concepts that I remember writing about in 2014.

And that’s okay that some people have taken a little bit more time to get there. I’m glad they’re actually getting there. But I think if we then fast-forward to your question, which is what’s happening right now in higher education, the reality is the public perception of higher education is at an all time low. It’s less than 40% of the American public believes that it is good value to go to college. That is extremely low.

Meredith Metsker:

So low.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Then you’ve got government that’s also attacking higher education in a number of different ways, whether it’s research, whether it’s funding, whether it’s DEI, all around the board. But there is a moment, there’s a small piece of, I think, celebration that we should try to tap into, which is, generally speaking, bipartisan, everybody can agree students need jobs. They need jobs, they need well-paying jobs. And if we anchor on that and we anchor on outcomes, I think that becomes a really important component for all of our career leaders, certainly all of our EDU partners, to be able to come around and to coalesce around.

And I think that’s where we can have this conversation today, is really on how do we talk about that? How do we position that? How do you potentially redesign your offices to focus on some of those pieces? And it’s not to say that people haven’t been focused before, but I do think the evolving world and economy around us, and the technological changes, have required us to need to ask the question again, “What is our value proposition and how do we do our work differently?”

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. And I feel like a lot of career leaders, if they didn’t already have a seat at the table, like you were talking about, if they didn’t seize that moment during the Great Recession, or maybe they just weren’t in the field yet for our younger leaders, now is the time that maybe they are getting a seat or they’re getting some attention from senior leadership, and let’s hope they’re prepared for that.

But on that subject, how can career services leaders meet this moment knowing that more state and national focus and funding is tied to ROI and career outcomes? How can they be proactive?

Christine Cruzvergara:

So, I’m going to see if this makes sense, but what I would encourage leaders to do is focus on what really matters, and the outcome that you’re trying to see rather than on just your positioning. So let me break this down for you. Right now, what’s most important is that your students are actually getting jobs, that they’re getting hired. That’s what’s most important.

If you focus on that and you focus on making sure that whatever you’re putting in place is helping a student to ultimately get access to the most jobs, to the most opportunities and getting hired, you will have the data to better position yourself. You will have the stories to showcase the work that you are doing.

Don’t focus on trying to position yourself. Don’t just focus on trying to get a seat at the table. Don’t just focus on trying to prove that you’re important at your institution. That will come if you actually focus on the outcome that needs to happen.

And I’ve actually been saying this for a really long time. When I went to Wellesley, one of the biggest things that I was emphasizing to my team was, “Everybody around us right now keeps wanting to be innovative. ‘I want to be innovative. I want to do something innovative. I want to get an award for being innovative.’”

And I was like, “Stop focusing on trying to be innovative and start focusing on how we can get our students jobs. If we can get our students jobs and we can make sure that 100% of them are actually employed, guess what? We’ll probably have figured out how to be innovative. I don’t want you chasing innovation. I want you chasing the actual outcome that’s important.”

And that’s the same message here. What’s important is that students are getting jobs, so don’t let the other positioning get in your way. I get asked a lot by some of our partners to provide consulting or advice on how to position, and that’s a really big piece of what I focus on is, “Let’s actually focus on the work. What are you actually doing here? Because some of what you’re choosing to do sometimes is actually about your own workflow or it’s about your own comfort, or it’s about what your team is used to, but it’s not actually focused on whether or not students are getting jobs.”

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, that’s a great perspective. It’s like, to use more tech terminology here, it’s like focusing on marketing before you have a product. You’ve got to nail down the product first before you start marketing.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Yep. Yep. Actually build a thing.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, exactly. Right. Okay. Well, that’s kind of a good segue to this next question, which is how career leaders better share that value proposition, or find it and then share it with senior leadership?

Christine Cruzvergara:

Yeah, so I think it’s a really good exercise, honestly, for career centers probably, honestly, at least annually, to ask a question of their entire team, “What is our value proposition? Why does a student want to use us? Why would they use us over just Googling the information? Or why would they use us instead of going to talk to a friend or their parent, or their coach, or a faculty member?”

And it’s not an either or, it’s not like they can’t also talk to those people, but the question is why do they want to come see you? What is it that you provide that is differentiated from everybody else? And I would argue that most career centers at the moment are still functioning off of value propositions that they’ve had for a long time.

And a lot of times, it’s around resources. “I have knowledge that I can impart on the student.” Well, guess what? Students can get most of those resources or they can get most of that knowledge online these days. They don’t necessarily have to come in to see you to do that. uConnect is a great example, you facilitate making it even easier for students to be able to get some of that information. And that’s important because not all students are going to necessarily come see you in person.

So, the question becomes, what is your value proposition? What can only you uniquely do? And I will actually answer this for you. There is one value proposition in particular that I think career services can uniquely do that no technology is ever going to be able to take away from them. And that is human connection. You can be an actual extension of your student’s network, and you can provide warm introductions for your students to alumni.

And I know that what I’m saying is a fundamental shift for some of our field, where for a long time our profession has shied away from actually doing warm introductions, and instead tried to just teach students, “This is your alumni database,” or, “This is Handshake and this is how you search for folks, and this is how you write a message to reach out.”

Those are all also good things, but in this day and age when everything can actually be so readily accessible at our students’ fingertips, what you provide that is different is a warm introduction. And spending time and energy building those alumni relationships or those employer relationships, and those student relationships where you actually do feel like, “You know what? I know Meredith well enough. She has actually taken the time and energy to show what type of student she is. I would feel comfortable actually introducing her to David.” Makes a difference.

And you’re actually, as a career center, modeling the behavior that actually happens in real life. In real life, Meredith, if you were interested in another opportunity, you would actually come to a person and I would make a warm intro for you to someone. That is actually how it works. And so, I think being that extension of their network is certainly a value proposition. It’s one, it’s not all of your value propositions, but it’s one of them that is very uniquely you.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I’m so glad you brought that up ’cause I think that’s something we think about here at uConnect, I’m sure you all think about it at Handshake, and it’s as career services, tech platforms or ed tech platforms, we’re not trying to replace these folks. We are just trying to help scale, we’re trying to supplement, but we will never replace that human connection.

So I’m so glad you brought that up because I think that’s really important, especially in this incoming age of AI. Nothing can replace that human element of career services leaders. So I’m really glad you mentioned that.

Christine Cruzvergara:

And I think, Meredith, the tech actually if used properly, and fully optimized, allows you to free up the time so that you can do even more of those human things that only you can do. And I think that’s where the partnership actually can exist, but it requires a shift in mindset, and it requires an embrace of what technology can do so that you can actually reshift your time allocation in a different way.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, absolutely. Could not agree more. So, kind of going back to the ROI part of this conversation, so with this increased focus on ROI and outcomes, of course there comes a lot of opportunities for career services. So, what can leaders do to advocate for more resources and funding, whether that’s headcount or technology like Handshake or uConnect? I’m just curious what your thoughts are on how they can advocate.

Christine Cruzvergara:

I think when it comes to advocacy, one of the most important pieces is to understand who you’re advocating to. So, at some schools, you might be advocating to a dean. At some schools, you’re advocating to a VPSA. At other schools, you might be advocating to a provost or president.

You have to understand the agenda of the person you are advocating to. What do they care about? What are their priorities? What are they focused on? And how do you fit career within that framework? They’re not going to reshift their priorities for you. You have to figure out how to fit your priorities within theirs.

And that’s probably the number one lesson or message that I often give to folks that reach out for advice or consultation, is you have to understand that component of it. Once you do, you can frame frame your messaging, you can frame how this actually helps support wellness, if that’s the thing that they care about, or how this helps to support alumni community, if that’s what they care about, or this is how it helps to support revenue, if that’s what they’re focused on. Whatever it is, we can make it work. You just have to understand what it is they care about first.

Then it’s about positioning and framing the data that you do have and how you’re going to talk about it. It’s also really important to understand some leaders actually really love the data, but some leaders actually don’t respond to that, and they respond to a story, or they respond to a more emotional appeal from the students, or from the alumni. And so that’s the other piece too, is sometimes you have to adapt your approach in how you’re communicating.

And then the third component is you have to build a coalition of people that are going to help come behind you around the advocating. The advocating is not just going to be me talking to you, Meredith, my president or provost, and you’re just going to give me a yes or a no. It’s not that simple. It is multithreaded.

You need to figure out, “Who does the president or provost trust? Who has Meredith’s ear? Who are those people? Am I building relationships with those people? Have I figured out how to talk to those people? Am I in meetings with those individuals? Who do those people trust? Am I building relationships with those folks? Have I gotten those people to be champions for what this is? Are they saying the same message I’m saying in the rooms that they’re in that I’m not in?”

This is like a multipronged, multithreaded approach that has to happen in order to actually get a seat at the table or to get the resources that you need, or to get the advocacy that you’re looking for. And some places, it will be harder and it will take more time. And I think that’s the other piece, is you have to be persistent. It’s not going to happen immediately, it’s not going to happen in one fell swoop, and it will take a lot of consistency and persistency.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, that’s a great piece of advice, and a good point too at the very end. You’re not just going to put together this one one-pager or this one dashboard, just share with the president and magically you’ll get all the funding you’ve ever wanted. It’s like this multipronged, almost lobbying process.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Yes, lobbying I think is actually a really, really good analogy.

Meredith Metsker:

That’s what came to mind. I’m thinking in terms of political lobbying. It’s a very multifaceted, long process.

Christine Cruzvergara:

That’s right.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, so that makes a lot of sense. I am curious, I know you talk to literally hundreds of career services leaders all the time, so I’m curious what you have seen work well on this advocacy front recently with some of the folks that you work with.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Yeah. Well, I will say, the schools that have actually done the three things that I just mentioned are the ones that are making a lot more headway than the ones who feel like they just keep hitting a brick wall over and over and over again. So I will say those things work. I think for me, what I’m really seeing are the schools that are unafraid of trying to do something different are the ones that are really standing out to me. So I’ll give you an example.

Cody, who’s the exec that we work with at Michigan Tech, and I’ll call them out. Michigan Tech also happens to be the home campus of our co-founders and CEO as well. They got new leadership. Cody joined not too long ago, and he was courageous in essentially saying, “I know that things have been done a particular way, but it is possible to do it differently. And I’m going to set a new standard and a new bar of excellence around what that looks like, and we’re going to do things differently. We’re going to do more in some places. We’re going to cut in other places, and I’m going to use that. If you all do what you’re supposed to do on the team, I can take those results and I can share that up with our leadership to advocate for a different seat at the table, for more support, for more advocacy, for more visibility.” And he was able to do that, and he’s been able to be very successful in what he’s done over the past several months, and I applaud him for the work that he’s doing.

He’s also being very, not only strategic, but I think shrewd in looking at what’s actually, to my earlier point, innovative, and what’s actually just kind of, quite frankly, table stakes. There are some things we do not need to be innovative about, we just need to do it. And then there are other places where you can actually be more creative in some fashion. So anyway, he might be a great next guest for you.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I’m going to have to write that down. So Cody from Michigan Tech. All right, so I’m curious. I kind of want to bring in enrollment and admissions into the discussion now, but how can career services teams and admissions team for that matter, better communicate about that ROI and outcomes to prospective students and their families? I know this is really top of mind for a lot of institutions right now as they’re looking at hitting their revenue numbers.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Okay, so there’s a few things here, and this actually also applies for when you’re advocating upward to senior administrators.

Meredith Metsker:

Perfect.

Christine Cruzvergara:

People who are not in career services have other things on their plates, so they can only remember so many data points. It’s usually one or two and that’s it, all they’re going to remember. So when you’re working with admissions, make sure they have the two best data points that they can use to talk to prospective students and parents. Most typically, it is going to be your outcomes rate. That’s usually what most families want to know. And it might also be your internship rate. How many students do internships, for example?

I know that you have a lot of other great data points. I’m not saying you don’t. I’m just saying you do have to boil it down to what are the most critical so that admissions can get your message correct every single time. So make sure your narrative is essentially a one sentence, two sentence thing that anybody that’s not in your function can actually remember, because if your message is too diffused, essentially, you’re not helping yourself.

Nobody’s going to remember what it is you’re trying to say. So don’t make it too long. Don’t make it too complicated, one or two sentences, keep it short and simple. And it is usually, out of the 1,600 plus schools that we work with, it is almost always those two data points are usually what admissions officers are typically asking of their career center partners. If you have a better data point that is more unique for your school that you wanted to highlight, by all means, feel free to weave that in, but sometimes you don’t have to reinvent the wheel, just make sure that those are as strong as possible.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, so outcomes rate, internships rate, correct?

Christine Cruzvergara:

That’s what hear admissions officers want to know because that’s what parents are asking. That’s what families want to know.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I’ve been hearing a lot about admissions counselors or campus tour guides are just getting grilled about first destination response rates, about outcomes rates, about internships, and so yeah, I can imagine that admissions teams will be very appreciative if they have concrete data to share with those families.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Yeah, absolutely. And we’re really excited. Some of the work that we’re doing at Handshake is allowing us to give our partners better sourced outcomes. That’s actually one of the things we’re rolling out in just a month or so, is scraping and getting a lot of that data and information. And obviously, we have some proprietary information as well to give our schools sourced outcomes so that they don’t have to go searching for it. They don’t have to go looking for some of that stuff.

And our next, I’ll give you a little sneak peek, after that is going to be on sourced internship data, and making sure that we’re actually getting our schools that data as well, because we know how hard it is for them to survey or use forms to collect that information from students. So, it’s critical, and we want to make sure that we’re trying to equip our schools with as much of that as possible so that they can do exactly what you’re saying, work collaboratively with admissions and advocate in the ways that they need.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, that’s a great example, again, of how career services teams can use technology to save time on certain tasks and spend more of their valuable time on those high-touch one-on-one interactions with students.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Exactly.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. So Christine, I’m curious for your thoughts on how can career services engage students early in their college career to ensure that they are using all of those services at the different stages of their internship and job search? I know it’s something you all think about a lot at Handshake.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Oh, for sure. Look, my ideal would be that every student at every university took career courses. That would just be my dream if they could do that, ’cause the reality is getting a job is a skill, and you have to actually learn how to do the whole process. And you and I are literally living through a moment where that’s starting to shift and change because of AI, but it hasn’t fully shifted yet. You still have to apply for a job and you still have to interview and you still have to do these things. And these are skills that so many students are just learning on the side.

They’re learning on the side because they went into a career center, they’re learning on the side because they have parents or older siblings that can teach them. If we could just embed this into the college experience as a class that every single student has to take, we would ensure that the students who need this information most are not the ones falling through the cracks.

That’s what I worry about the most, are the ones who don’t even know that they need to ask ’cause they don’t know what to ask. And if it was required and it was a class, we’d be able to engage all students much earlier in this process so that they know the information. Okay, so that’s my dream. Obviously, that’s not realistic for more than half of the schools that we’re talking to right now. So realistically, what can you do?

I think one is please befriend your orientation office so that you can find a way to actually get in front of students and parents as early as orientation. And you can begin talking about on-campus jobs, you can talk about internships, you can talk about how that leads to the things that you need. And then the second thing is use technology like uConnect, like Handshake, to figure out how you can actually reach the students that are unlikely to actually come in and see you in person.

The average stats that I’m sure you and I have both seen, we’ve seen it from Gallup, is that on average most schools’ career centers will see 30% of their student body. Some schools are obviously much better. They see 50, they see 70, they see 80%. Those schools are fantastic, but you’re still missing. Even if you see 70%, you’re still missing 30% of them. You see 80%, you see 90%, you still have a percentage of students who aren’t seeing you. You have to make sure that you’ve got other ways. And I would say technology is a great way to actually scale your reach for those folks.

The reason I say use technology in those ways is because you often have a percentage of students that actually need a much higher touch, and I would rather you spend the time and energy on those students. There are other students that you point them in the right direction with some tech and they’re going to be fine. And so you just have to think about the 80-20 rule. How are you making sure that you’re spending that time valuably on as much of the percentage of students as possible?

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. This especially makes me think of first-gen students who just may not have that knowledge or that family knowledge about what is career services. There is a career center, it exists. You should go there.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Exactly.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I know that’s something we think about a lot here at uConnect, is how can we help career centers engage students even before they’re officially enrolled in classes? Before day one, all throughout their college experience, even after graduation?

Christine Cruzvergara:

Yeah. Actually, can I give you one other dream idea that I have?

Meredith Metsker:

Please do. Yes. Let’s dream.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Okay. So my other dream idea is that faculty would actually do their own form of externships. So they would essentially do their own tour of duty every summer, and so they would go back to alumni that they have actually taught themselves, and let’s say they choose three every summer, that they job shadow for one week. And they actually sit in all their meetings, they see exactly the work that they do, and they get a chance to really engage with their alum around, “How are you using what you learned in school in your job every day? Is there something you wish you had learned that you didn’t, that you had to pick up on the job that you thought maybe we could have taught you?”

Just the exposure alone for faculty would allow them to come back into the classroom. Even if they change nothing about their curriculum, it would allow them to use more real-world examples in class when they are teaching to help students understand how they will apply the skills and competencies that they are learning to different professions. And that alone is so helpful, because part of the issue for students is lack of exposure, and so they can’t open their aperture because they don’t know what else is out there. And one of the easiest ways to change that is to make sure that the people who are in front of students all the time, faculty, are infusing some of those different examples into the work that they do on a daily basis.

Meredith Metsker:

Plus, they’re making more connections to make those warm introductions that you were talking about earlier.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Yes. That’s another benefit.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I love that dream scenario. I think I was, in maybe a rare scenario in college, I was a journalism major, so all of my professors were either still in industry as a side hustle or they had just recently come from industry. So they kind of had that benefit of still being really connected, but I know that’s definitely not the case for every academic program.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Exactly, exactly.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. So, I’m going to hit you with another big question here.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Okay.

Meredith Metsker:

So what’s one thing that career services needs to do today or this year to better prepare their students for this changing workforce that we’ve been talking about?

Christine Cruzvergara:

Oh, just one?

Meredith Metsker:

I know. You can say more, but we’ll start with one.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Well, I think honestly, the thing that comes to mind first and foremost is the thing that I mentioned at the beginning, which is career services should focus on, “How do we get access to more opportunities for our students?” It is a tight job market right now. It’s a tough economy. Your students need access to more opportunities so that they can get hired. So what do you need to do to make sure that you’re opening up more opportunities for your students?

And recognize that students can sift through and understand what they’re interested in, what they might be willing to pivot to. Students, we know from our data, are willing to be flexible around different industries or different sectors, or different roles than what they might’ve come into school thinking they would do. So don’t shortchange your students. Give them those opportunities so that they can decide what it is they want to do.

And I think that’s, first and foremost, I think one of the most key pieces there is just focus on that component. Focus on doing whatever you can to get students in front of as many employers as possible that will increase their chances, and increase their aperture around what’s available and what they might be interested in.

I will give you one other thing that I think career services could do right now to really help students, and I think that is building a stronger network around the career center of alumni, of employers, of people that you can make that warm introduction. So I think for me, it really does full circle come back to a lot of the things that we talked about at the beginning, but in this day and age of a lot of applications, of employers feeling really overwhelmed by how many applicants they have, having a warm intro, social capital makes a difference. And as a career center, the more you can do that, the more you can figure out how to be an extension of your student’s network, the more valuable you also become to your students and to your institution.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Yeah, that’s great advice. And I’m kind of curious, I want to talk a little bit about scaling that last thing, like you mentioned making those warm introductions. I can’t imagine, I mean, I’m sure it’s possible to make one-on-one introductions for every single student, but is there a way that career leaders can scale that process a little bit more? That personalization?

Christine Cruzvergara:

Yeah, I think you can tier it, right? So, let’s actually take the hardest example, which is like I’m a one-woman shop. I’m a one-person career center. And what you’re talking about, Christine, sounds crazy because I don’t know how I’m supposed to do that and also have appointments, and also put on programs and workshops and do events.

If I were a one-person career center right now, I would look at my week, look at my time, and I would determine how much time actually needs to be put towards individual appointments versus how much time needs to be put towards programming and events, versus how much time needs to be put towards developing relationships.

Now, I alone cannot build enough relationships to be able to connect, let’s say I work at a small school, but it’s 5,000 people. I can’t build enough relationships to be able to connect 5,000 people individually myself. So now, I’ve got to essentially build the infrastructure to essentially maybe I do something like alumni ambassadors, and I do it in each industry sector.

So now, Meredith, you’re in journalism, and you seem really engaged and you seem really interested in being able to build out more of a network or a connection around that, I’m going to tap you. And I’m going to make you sort of my volunteer coordinator around journalism, and I’m going to do that for each different industry. And I’m going to ask you to then deploy or find five other volunteers or five other alumni who are willing to talk to students.

And you’re going to keep doing that. With each person, it’s essentially a little bit MLM, right? So, I’m [inaudible 00:37:46]. And so, when I have a journalism student that is interested in getting into the field, I can say, “You know what? That’s great. Let me reach out to Meredith and see who she might be able to put you in touch with.” And now, you’ve got a pool of people that you might be able to do. I’m literally spitballing this on the spot with you right now. This is how my mind would work around building this type of infrastructure.

I would also not shy away from using other technology products that could actually scale me. So let’s take one-on-one appointments, for example. Maybe I’m really skilled at helping a student that is unsure about what they want to do. I’m really good at helping them gain clarity. So I should maybe focus my appointments on that population of students, but I’m only one person. I don’t have enough deep expertise on, “This is exactly how you would get into iBanking. This is how you would get into management consulting, this is how you would get into journalism, this is how you would get into software engineering at a tech company.”

Those are all really different processes, and they will require different things in the interview process. And me as one person is unlikely to be able to keep up to date on all of those pieces. Well, I would probably look at technology like Leland, for example, who actually has a whole network of people who are live advisors, who already work in each of those industry areas, who could essentially do the advising for my students. And I would spend some of the money that I have to contract with them around something like that.

So now, if a student wants to go work in iBanking, I’m not doing the appointment with them, I’m pointing them to an advisor in Leland’s platform that actually works in iBanking who’s going to do a far better job of helping them navigate that interview process, because they’re going to be able to help quiz them and really prepare them for the hard technical aspects of that, which any one advisor is never going to be able to do for multiple industry areas.

So, this is just me literally brainstorming off the cuff with you around what I would do if I were a one woman shop. And now you extrapolate that to be a two person or a five person shop and I’ve already gotten scale there. But that’s what I would do as a one person career center to be able to actually implement some of the concrete ideas that I’ve shared right now.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, yeah, that’s a great example of using what you do have and just relying on other people to help spread the impact, spread the influence there, and really build that network. So again, I’m going to hit you with another big question here, but.

Christine Cruzvergara:

That’s okay.

Meredith Metsker:

Christine, again, you’re super plugged into career services, so I would love to know what you think the future of career services will look like?

Christine Cruzvergara:

A topic that I do love and I’ve been writing about.

Meredith Metsker:

Yes, I know you do.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Look, you will not find a stronger advocate for career services than myself. I believe deeply in the work. I believe that institutions need career services because we need a convening, coordinating leader with a vision around how do we ensure all of our students get the guidance, the knowledge, the connections, and the opportunities necessary to be employed once they leave that school or college or university.

I think the future of career services is one that will be very focused on the human connection and those human relationships. I do think the future career services is an entity that truly is an extension of the career center, of the student’s network I mean, where a student sees, “I can actually meet more people by going to the career center.” Whether that’s through their events or through warm introductions, whatever the case may be, “The career center is my conduit for actually getting more connections.” It’s not their only conduit, but it is one of their valuable conduits to be able to do that, and I think that’s going to be really important and really key.

I also think the future of career services is one that relies heavily on being able to tell your story effectively. And obviously, data is a component of being able to tell your story effectively, but it’s not the only piece. Data alone does not tell the story. You have to determine what your narrative is and the data supports that story. I’ve been saying that for years, and I still believe that. And so I think that’s going to be another component.

And then lastly, I would say the future of career services is going to require a leader that is even more external than they are now. More than a decade ago, I’d say probably 20 years ago, a career services leader was really an operational leader. It was someone who made sure that all the services that were part of a career center was essentially functioning and working day to day.

And over the course of the time that I have been in the career services space till now, what I’m really seeing is that the leader in career services has to be someone who ideally is somewhat visionary. And if you are not, you better have somebody on your bench who is. You need to be a very strong communicator, especially externally, both verbally and written, because you’re going to need to be able to share that vision and advocate.

And you’re someone who needs to be extremely politically savvy, because the only way you’re going to be able to get your work done and to be able to champion and get a seat at the table, and convince people to all come around you and do the same thing, is if you can build those relationships and influence without direct line supervision or authority, it’s all through influence. That’s how we work in higher ed.

And so I think those components are sort of what makes up a future career center. I do think in the future too, you might see less of certain things and you might see more of others, right? There might be more time spent on integrating career into academics. And so there might be more focus on faculty integration or on career courses, and that might mean there’s less on workshops or events, or maybe there’s less on one-on-one appointments. I think those are all up for question, depending on the culture of your institution and what’s needed within your student population, and within your employers and your faculty. But I think those are all components of where I see career services going.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, that’s great. So career leaders who are watching or listening take notes, that’s what you’re likely looking at here in the future of career services.

Christine Cruzvergara:

And I guess I would be remiss if I didn’t say, obviously technology is part of the future, but hat feels like a given.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so Christine, I do want to be mindful of our time here. Is there anything else you would like to add before I start wrapping us up?

Christine Cruzvergara:

No, no, I think that’s great.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, great. So I am going to kind of close this out with a answer, a question leave a question segment that we always do at the end of every episode. So I’ll ask you a question our last guest left for you, then you’ll leave a question for the next guest.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Okay.

Meredith Metsker:

So our last guest was Rebecca Pere of Pere Consulting, and she left this fun question for you. You’ve been turned into a kitchen spice. What are you and how are you best used?

Christine Cruzvergara:

Okay, so the first thing that came to mind when you shared this question with me is I would be salt, although I fully recognize that technically salt is not a spice, it is a mineral, but I think we all use it as a spice anyway, so I’m still going to stick with my answer. But I think salt. I think it’s so incredibly versatile, I think it can be used in so many different ways, and just the right amount enhances whatever your experience is with what you’re making.

Meredith Metsker:

Love that. It’s perfect. So, what question would you like to leave for the next guest?

Christine Cruzvergara:

Okay. I feel like my question is perhaps much more serious, but what I would say is, what is a previous belief that you had that you have now changed your mind about, and why?

Meredith Metsker:

Oh, I love that one. That’s a great question.

Christine Cruzvergara:

What’s a previous belief you have held that you have now changed your mind about, and why?

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I’m curious, what would that be for you?

Christine Cruzvergara:

You? Oh, gosh, there’s so many things. I change my mind all the time. I think it’s very healthy to constantly question the things you think are true. I will give you one from a work perspective that has definitely shifted since coming to Handshake and working in tech. So, one belief that I used to hold when I was working in higher education is that the more, the better. “So the bigger my portfolio is, the more areas I have under me, the bigger my team, the better.” I kind of equated those two things together.

And since coming into tech, what I’ve actually realized is that you can often achieve much higher and greater impact if you have less context switching, which often can mean potentially more focused work in a particular area, maybe not having as broad of a portfolio so that you can actually get deeper and be more impactful and move faster in certain things. It might mean you actually don’t need a super large team. You might need a more lean team so that, again, you can move with more agility.

And obviously, this is contextual. If I was in higher ed, I would probably feel differently about this versus the context that I’m in, but it definitely has shifted my perspective of more is not always better. And sometimes being more focused is actually much more instrumental to your success or to the success of whatever your mission is or your outcome that you’re trying to achieve.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Yeah, that’s a great example. Cool. Well, Christine, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. This was such a fun conversation. I feel like we covered a lot of really important topics, so I just really appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge and your wisdom.

Christine Cruzvergara:

Thank you so much for having me. This was great.