We are approaching one year of dealing with the new work situation in a time of pandemic. If you are a career services professional, you have likely been working remotely with the students you advise. How is it going for you?
I’ve been in enough Zoom meetings to know they are a life saver for safe face-to-face conversations in our current circumstances. I also know it can be hard to nail down a convenient time to meet, and once engaged, the meeting is a limited time to work together before both parties become fatigued.
A custom Career Guide would be something you could write once and distribute universally. You’ve already written a lot of the material—check your “sent” email box.
How About a Custom PDF?
A PDF is static content with a fixed message that you create. NMP can design your content into something more than a long document of text, and provide an Accessible PDF.
NACE research (see “Insight Into Student Use of Mobile, Other Tech in the Recruiting Process,” by Kevin Gray, January 25, 2021) shows students are engaging in their job application process via laptops instead of cell phones. The Adobe analytics NMP provides clients show heavier interaction on laptops than via mobile devices.
There are many ways to interact with an online edition, and certainly a mobile solution allows more frequent interaction. For example, you can reread that article on networking when you have five minutes on a train ride.
However, most job applicants require an hour or two of concentration at a computer when it comes to identifying the key words in a job description, and updating a resume to reflect their specific experience in those terms; writing a cover letter after researching a specific HR person’s information; emailing the application or filling out the online form; filing all pertinent information; and finally, recording the contact in a spreadsheet in order to keep 200+ applications organized.
Completing this concentrated work with a reference by your side or in a browser window can make life a little easier.
Varieties of Custom Career Guides
- The perfect textbook for a course on career planning. It is written by you addressing your students’ challenges. NMP has an article library for you to use as a starting point for your content.
- A workbook to accompany advising sessions. Have a student answer some basic questions and email you the results before you meet so your Zoom session is devoted to the specifics. NMP can output a separate PDF and convert it to a fillable form.
- A specialty guide can address the intricate application requirements, and educational and experiential details required by a particular field—law, medicine, or engineering. NMP looks forward to hearing what you’d like to accomplish.
Contact NMP to explore creating your own custom Career Guide.