Student career readiness
About this project
Being “career-ready” means that students have developed a range of skills that they can transfer to different settings once they graduate.
Students are often unsure or unaware of the many career readiness skills they are developing during their university studies. While we, as faculty, may be deft at highlighting the disciplinary knowledge and subject-specific skills students have developed, we often fail to make transparent the transferable, "career-ready" skills that are embedded in our courses. There are many reasons for this, but one concern is that if we focus on career-ready skills, it will detract from the humanistic and mission-driven part of our curricula.
We encourage you to think of highlighting career-ready skills as foundational to your curriculum and to the "whole person" education we offer our students.
This is also an issue of equitable pedagogical practice. We know that under-represented students benefit in myriad ways when transferable skills are made transparent. Moreover, the ability of our students to find meaningful work, that will pay for college and allow them to be stewards of our mission, hinges on their ability to recognize the skills they have gained.
A straightforward tool for faculty
To help you make the career readiness of your own programs transparent to your students, the Center for Faculty Development has created a course-level inventory and program-level map that faculty can complete and share so that prospective students can see what skills they’re likely to practice in their major and so that current students can reflect on those skills as they build their résumés or portfolios.
We’ve drawn on the World Economic Forum’s The Future of Jobs 2018, the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ 2019 graduate competencies list, and Seattle University’s own outcomes and mission to create the inventory. Conversation with our colleagues in the Career Engagement Office has led to further refinements.
Below you’ll find guidance for faculty on how to use the course-level inventory and program-level map, followed by a list of the various skills and their descriptions.
Holly Slay Ferraro, David A Green, & Katherine Raichle | Center for Faculty Development | July 2020
Guidance for faculty
You should not expect students to be practicing ALL the skills in every course! They have a years-long education with both curricular and co-curricular activities, all of which provide opportunities to develop and hone these skills. You are not responsible for this on your own.
In all likelihood, students are already practicing many skills in your course, so the purpose of this project is to make this work transparent to students, not to create additional work for faculty.
- Download the Career readiness - inventory to complete (Word document) for faculty.
- So that you have a good overall picture of the inventory, read through the descriptions of the various components before you rate anything.
- For each of your courses, rate the extent to which students will be able to demonstrate their abilities for each component of the inventory, using the following scoring key:
2 = Students will receive a grade related to this skill
1 = Students will practice this skill, but are not graded on it
0 = Students are unlikely to practice this skill - If it is helpful, make notes in the “examples” column on the right to remind yourself of when and how students demonstrate the skills in the course.
- If you’re thinking of sharing this document with students, then consider shading in the cells based on the color for each of the five sets of skills, using the present colors in the document. See this Example program map - International Studies to get a sense of how it would look (also in a drop-bown box below).
- Once you have completed the inventory for a course, consider how you will make your students' development of these skills more apparent to them. One good way to do this is by using the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) model for your assignment design. Contact us for further details on TILT.
If you and your colleagues in your program decide to work on career readiness at the program level, you can use this Career readiness - program map to complete (Word template) to create a bird's-eye view. Here are some suggestions on how to go about that:
- Remember only to compile data for the required courses in your major so that you can be sure that it applies to all students on your program.
If your program is primarily made up of electives, contact us at faculty-development@seattleu.edu, and we can get together to think through how to adapt the format to your program. - Be sure to include the name of the instructor for each of the courses. Clearly, a course is not always going to be taught by the same person, and different faculty members’ versions of a course will develop slightly different skills. The purpose of the program map is to give students a sense of what they can expect – it’s not a contract.
- If you find there are skill gaps in the program, discuss as a team whether these are skills that could be met through minor changes to individual courses, or whether they lie outside your major. If you decide the latter, then think about how what co-curricular activities might help students develop those skills.
- Consider putting this information on your program's website in a section on Careers. We have created a Career readiness inventory - overview for students that you can adapt to share on your websites or in your courses.
- Career readiness - inventory to complete (for faculty at the course level)
- Career readiness - program map to complete (template)
- Example program map - International Studies
- Career readiness inventory - overview for students (explanatory document for sharing alongside your own program map)
To discuss this initiative further
Career readiness skills and descriptions
Critical thinking
Identify the assumptions that frame thinking and analyze them for accuracy and validity.
Analysis
Analyze and monitor/assess your own performance, or that of other individuals or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
Problem-solving
Use logic and reasoning to evaluate alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches.
Quantitative abilities
Apply mathematical and quantitative reasoning to propose or evaluate solutions.
Systems analysis
Determine how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
Systems evaluation
Identify measures or indicators of system effectiveness and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.
Judgment and decision-making
Consider the relative virtues and drawbacks of potential actions to choose and justify a contextually appropriate decision.
Writing
Communicate effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
Speaking
Present to or talk with others to convey information as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
Teamwork
Work within a team structure and negotiate and manage conflict.
Collaboration
Build mutually rewarding relationships with colleagues and partners
Boundary-spanning
Reach across silos to gather and share information, especially with people who are different from us (e.g. demographically, politically, functionally, disciplinarily)
Anti-racist advocacy
Acknowledge the harm of systemic and personal racism, affirm the experiences of people of color, and act to dismantle racist systems and practices.
Curiosity
Value and learn from diverse cultures, races, ages, genders, sexual orientations, religions, and other human differences.
Openness
Demonstrate openness and humility in interacting across cultural, demographic, and positional differences.
Leadership
Inspire others toward a common goal or vision, offering direction and opinions as needed.
Social influence
Advocate for and encourage value-driven change.
Negotiation
Facilitate dialogue to reconcile differences.
Persuasion
Present evidence and argumentation to encourage others to consider alternative positions.
Concern for others
Exercise sensitivity to others' needs and feelings.
Cooperation
Present your most constructive, open-minded self in group settings in order to reach a common goal.
Social perceptiveness
Attend to others' reactions and adapt your behavior in response.
Service orientation
Engage with community members in the shared responsibility for social change.
Dependability
Fulfill obligations by being reliable, responsible, and dependable.
Integrity
Act responsibly and consistently with the interests of the larger community in mind.
Attention to Detail
Review, revise, and complete tasks thoroughly and carefully.
Adaptability/flexibility
Adapt to differing contexts, personalities, and tasks.
Self-control
Be aware of and express emotions in ways that invite yourself and others to entertain alternative perspectives.
Resilience
Adapt to experience of difficulty or critical feedback by reflecting carefully and making appropriate behavioral adjustments.
Prioritization
Manage your own time to align with priorities.
Coordination
Adjust actions in relation to others' actions and respect their time.
Transfer of learning
Integrate new information with prior knowledge and experience and transfer it to new realms.
Learning strategies
Select and use learning methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
Active listening
Fully attend to what others say, reflect on points or on critical feedback, and ask questions as appropriate.
Reflection
Make meaning out of experiences, ideas, and contexts through thoughtful consideration, self-exploration, and discernment.
Creativity
Generate unique ideas and interpretations or adapt them to new settings.
Originality
Devise unusual or imaginative ideas about a topic or situation.
Initiative
Show willingness to take on responsibilities and challenges.
Autonomy
Take responsibility for your own learning with little supervision.
Technology design
Generate or adapt equipment and technology to serve user needs.
Programming
Write computer programs for various purposes.