Professional Standards

The 2009 edition of The Professional Standards for College and University Career Services  was approved by the NACE Board of Directors in June 2009, and is available in HTML and PDF formats.

Professional Standards Evaluation Workbook

The Evaluation Workbook, developed in 1998 by practitioners for practitioners, revised in 2006, and revised and updated again in 2009 by practitioners, is a companion to the Professional Standards for College and University Career Services. It is free for NACE members. Nonmembers can purchase a copy.  

The workbook is divided into sections that correspond to the 13 categories of standards. You can identify areas of your career services program that need improvement and those that fully meet professional standards. Using the workbook’s three-point scale to measure the dimensions of your program, you can calculate your composite and mean scores for each of the categories of standards and revamp, enhance, or overhaul your program.

Guidelines for Self-Assessment and External Review

This tool helps those using the Professional Standards to conduct a self-assessment of their career center and provides guidance for going through an external review. This is available in PDF format. (Free to NACE members. It is not available to nonmembers.)