Embedding Career Events/Assignments in your Course
As the Walton Career Connections office’s mission includes empowering students to take ownership of their career path management, our staff see the value in incorporating career education into the classroom, organizations, and the whole student experience. Increasing a students’ ability to articulate the skills they are learning within course content and connect those skills to a career they are interested in is a part a student’s career path management. The office hosts events, workshops, and career coaching appointments which could all be incorporated in a course. Here are some of the opportunities, best practices, and ways to get students involved early in thinking about their career path.
Career Connections offers a variety of coaching appointments which are available to students. These appointments serve students with 1:1 assistance on their career path management and can be chosen based on a student’s current needs. Students enrolled in the Walton College of Business will be served by the Walton Career Connections office and students enrolled in any other college would be served by their college or the general major coaches. Within Walton we offer coaching session in the following:
- Career Fair Preparation
- Cover Letter Development/Review
- Graduate School Coaching (for graduate students)
- Internship Questions (academic course, international internships, etc. this is not for searching)
- Internship/Job Searching
- Major Exploration
- Mock Interview/Interview Preparation
- Offer Evaluation/Negotiation
- Professional Photo Session (photobooth session)
Students will receive an email from Handshake after the appointment is completed. They cannot receive this email until our office staff have “clicked” the complete button when the appointment is finished. If a student does not show, is more than 10 minutes late, or does not participate in the appointment, the appointment will not be counted as completed.
If you would like to include career coaching appointments in your course, we ask that you please provide the office a notice prior to the semester start date which includes number of students enrolled, types of appointments that are approved, and a due date for your assignment. This will help us best prepare to serve your course.
*Best Practices:
- Students who are graduating in the semester you are requiring this assignment may already have secured a job offer. Consider accepting their offer letter as proof of this assignment or a previous appointment verification as proof of this assignment. This allows us to serve the students who truly need and/or seek out our office.
- Accept the completion email a student receives from Handshake as proof of their appointment. Please see more information above.
- Consider allowing us to host a workshop for your class on any of the topics listed in Workshops for your students, if you know a majority of them need something specific.
Walton Career Connections has several group coaching options available for résumé reviews. These group coaching workshops happen each week and are offered multiple times throughout the week both in-person and virtually. Students will go through a short 20-25 minute presentation and then be provided the opportunity to ask questions and receive 1:1 coaching.
Students are offered a QR code to check-in to the Handshake event at the end of each presentation. Handshake provides the opportunity for students to view their check-ins and a student can provide a screenshot of their attendance as verification of this event.
Steps for students to view check-ins:
- Login to https://uark.joinhandshake.com/
- Navigate to the events tab
- In the right hand corner are three options, saved, registered, and check-ins, choose Check-Ins.
- This will show all the event check-ins for this student.
- Screenshot the page including your name and the event check-in for class credit.
Current Résumé Review Workshop options:
- Creating and Editing your Résumé: This workshop is geared to students who are just starting their academic journey and are ready to create a professional résumé. If a student has a résumé from high school, an academic résumé, or is beginning to think about what to include in a document to take to the career fair this is a great starting place.
- Résumé Tailoring: This workshop is for students who are ready to apply for internships and/or jobs. It is well known you should not apply for multiple jobs with the same résumé; skills, keywords, and objectives will need to change based on the job for which a student is applying. This workshop will teach you how to look for keywords and implement them into a document without keyword padding.
*Best Practices:
- Accept the screenshot or check-in with the students name included as proof of completion.
- Consider adding a Résumé Review workshop to one of your classes. We can provide 20-30 minutes of content and answer questions as needed.
- Students who are graduating in the semester you are requiring this assignment may already have secured a job offer. Consider accepting their offer letter as proof of this assignment. This allows us to serve the students who truly need and/or seek out our office.
Career Connections hosts workshops throughout the semester geared to a students professional development. Topics may include but are not limited to:
- Résumé Development
- Internship/Job searching
- Interview Preparation
- Networking/LinkedIn Optimization
- Career Fair Preparation
- Job Offer Evaluation/Negotiation
Students are offered a QR code to check-in to the Handshake event at the end of each presentation. Handshake provides the opportunity for students to view their check-ins and a student can provide a screenshot of their attendance as verification of this event.
Steps for students to view check-ins:
- Login to https://uark.joinhandshake.com/
- Navigate to the events tab
- In the right hand corner are three options, saved, registered, and check-ins, choose Check-Ins.
- This will show all the event check-ins for this student.
- Screenshot the page including your name and the event check-in for class credit.
*Best Practices
- Accept the screenshot or check-in with the students name included as proof of completion.
- Consider adding a workshop to one of your classes. We can provide 20-30 minutes of content and answer questions as needed.
- Allow students to choose the workshop topic which fits their current needs instead of making them attend a certain topic that you would like them to choose.
- Students who are graduating in the semester you are requiring this assignment may already have secured a job offer. Consider accepting their offer letter as proof of this assignment. This allows us to serve the students who truly need and/or seek out our office.
Each semester Walton Career Connections hosts the Business Career Fair along with several other networking events that happen on campus. Events include but are not limited to:
- Career Fair
- Corporate Comes to Campus
- Résumé Rescue
- Pitched Perfect
- Career Fair pre-Party
- Company of the Day
- Signing Day
Many faculty and staff currently encourage students to attend for either course credit or professional development credit. Some ideas for students obtaining credit for attending these events include:
- A selfie at the event
- A reflection of what the student learned or got out of the event
- Counting a student’s event check-in for credit
- Creating an assignment for a student to prepare for the career fair and then follow-up post-career fair
*Best Practices
- Accept the screenshot or check-in with the students name included as proof of completion.
- Consider attending the event as well, students will love seeing you there.
- Send students to Walton Career Connections to prepare before attending the business career fair or include a career fair prep workshop in your course. It can be as simple as encouraging them to attend Career Fair pre-Party
- Students who are graduating in the semester you are requiring this assignment may already have secured a job offer. Consider accepting their offer letter as proof of this assignment.