Developing Career Readiness Among Collegiate Student Staff Members

Preparing graduates for full-time employment following graduation has become an increasing concern for universities. Student services departments who employ students have been tasked with providing intentional development opportunities for them. At Arizona State University those opportunities have been taken on by professional staff members (PSM) in Educational Outreach and Student Services (EOSS) who have served as the university’s support system and connection to resources to ensure student success. Many departments within EOSS have been student led and supported by PSM. This model provided PSM opportunities to work with student staff members (SSM) to ensure they were receiving professional development opportunities to grow professionally and personally. Unfortunately, this development has not always been intentional or targeted. Thus, I developed and delivered workshops, coaching, and facilitated an online community of practice (OCoP) to foster and support PSMs’ efforts in teaching transferable, career readiness, skills to SSM. The intervention components were based on three of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) career readiness competencies including communication, teamwork, and leadership. Participants were full-time PSM within EOSS departments and SSM who were supervised and mentored by PSM. These intervention efforts took place over the course of one academic semester and effectiveness of these efforts was assessed using quantitative and qualitative instruments. Specifically, PSMs’ perceptions of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and self-efficacy were assessed to determine the influence of the invention. Moreover, SSMs’ perceptions of transferable skills and overall connections to work were also evaluated. Quantitative results showed modest increases in PSMs’ perceptions of skills across the intervention. On the other hand, quantitative results for SSM exhibited very slight changes in their scores about transferable skills. Interview data indicated PSM developed knowledge and skills to share the NACE competencies. Further, in their interviews, students indicated their competencies had grown and they felt better prepared for the future. The discussion was focused on describing complementarity of the data, explaining the findings based on the literature, communicating the limitations, portraying the implications for practice and research, describing the lessons learned, and offering conclusions.