NACE Awards:
2004 Academy of Fellows
Recognizing career services and HR professionals for their advancement of knowledge, leadership, and excellence in professional practice.
Julie Cunningham
As a community college career counselor at the start of her career, Julie Cunningham had a passion for career development. Now president of The Cunningham Group, a firm that provides college relations training and consulting services to employers, she says that passion has only grown.
“After 25 years of working in the field, it’s so rewarding for me to be able to share what I’ve learned with others so that they, too, can help young people start their careers,” she says. Because of her dedication and many contributions to the profession, she has been elected to the NACE Academy of Fellows.
An active NACE member for 20 years, Cunningham has been on the Board of Directors, an At-Large Director, and Vice President for Employer Relations—and has served on several committees, such as the Principles for Professional Conduct Committee, the Leadership Development Action Team, the Strategic Planning Committee, and the Honors and Recognition Committee. She also has been a leader in her regional association.
Her experiences on both sides of college recruiting (she worked as a college career services practitioner at Illinois Central College and the University of Kansas, and worked her way from technical recruiter to manager of global college relations at Tellabs) have given her a unique perspective; one she is happy to share. Cunningham is a contributor to NACE’s publications and has authored several books for NACE, including Building a Premier Internship Program: A Practical Guide for Employers, NACE’s Guide to Diversity Recruiting, and the 2003 version of the Employer’s Guide to College Recruiting and Hiring.
Cunningham also conducts conference workshops, and her consulting work and recruiter training help college relations managers and recruiters to be productive. In addition, she mentors others working in college recruiting.
The ways in which recruiters and career counselors “conduct business” have changed, and even though many of these developments have made life—particularly communication—easier, new challenges have surfaced.
“The availability of information and the rapidity of communications have forever changed the ways that employers, career center staff, and students relate and communicate,” she explains. “The challenge now is to keep the counseling, recruitment, and hiring processes humanized. Good career decisions for students and good hiring decisions for employers are still dependent on real-time, in-person connections.”
Cunningham understands the procedures and demands necessary for
successful career counseling and college recruiting programs, but
she treasures the outcome.
“Whether you’re a career center person or an employer,
you have this unique opportunity to watch the baby birds leave the
nest and fly off into what you hope are long and satisfying careers.
Playing some small part in that is what is so meaningful to me.”
