Best Practices

Volunteering requires a willingness to contribute, but by doing so, you can learn from others and develop leadership skills.

UConn’s Center for Career Readiness and Life Skills created an AI Committee to develop a sustainable, intentional strategy for integrating AI into career services in ways that support student learning, staff confidence, and employer/alumni engagement.

When collecting data, more isn't always better. Gathering the right data, providing context, and using it intentionally allows career centers to demonstrate their role in the career ecosystem.

Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship is designed to develop talent to meet the state’s workforce needs. A study explored the relationship between HOPE status and student major selection specifically connected to the state of Georgia’s workforce needs.

Supportive career services often are sufficient to help stressed clients regain clarity and direction. At times, however, the distress that appears in career-focused conversations signals more than "normal" stress. Persistent sadness, impaired daily functioning, or expressions of hopelessness may indicate mental health concerns that exceed the scope of career-focused interventions alone.

Volunteering is a great way to both grow personally and professionally and to positively contribute to impactful organizations.

Volunteering to serve as a mentor can be one of the most powerful ways to give back because it directly shapes future generations and helps them grow both personally and professionally.

While it can be hard to take the first step, but through volunteering, you can gain more than you give through connection, growth, and becoming part of something bigger.

Volunteering can be a meaningful way to stay connected to your community and the professional spaces that shape your life and work.

Volunteerism can serve as a reminder about why early talent work matters, and why, when done well, it has the power to change not just careers—but futures.

Volunteering is a great way to engage with colleagues, contribute to shared goals, and feel like part of a community while also refining the skills needed to grow personally and professionally.

Project Rebound at Sonoma State is a high-touch, relationship-centered program designed to support students who are formerly incarcerated and system-impacted from admission through graduation.

Last summer, Queens College incorporated the NACE Career Readiness Competencies into its summer internship program and used the NACE Competency Assessment Tool to quantify gains interns made.

Affirmation from career center staff shifted a conceptual spark into a departmental priority allowing the Sophomore Career Accelerator to launch as a signature initiative at Muhlenberg College.

The University of Oklahoma Career Center has been using the NACE Competency Assessment Tool since this past summer. Staff saw it as a viable device to help support their focus on developing their students’ competencies.

AI isn’t replacing career services; it’s making it more necessary to ensure students are being authentic, carrying themselves professionally, thinking critically, and not losing their voice in an increasingly automated world.

Hospitality—a strong component in building fruitful relationships with those organizations that recruit ECSU students—is a foundational element of ECSU’s efforts to overcome any potential limitations associated with its rural location.

The University of Vermont launched six career interest groups to help students build their social capital through networking. The career center assessed the model to determine if members were benefitting and to adjust as needed.

Moravian University’s Elevate program aligns the school’s academic strengths with clear, tangible career and life outcomes, integrating leadership and teamwork development, experiential learning, global perspectives, and career preparation across the undergraduate experience.

As students prepare to enter the workforce, establishing a network of trusted advisers can be a helpful way to gain valuable insights.

Several schools that have attained high First-Destinations Survey knowledge rates shared their strategies for doing so.

Carnegie Mellon’s Career and Professional Development Center created a custom Google sheet dashboard to track career fair registrations and provide information that helps staff drive toward goals.

AI is creating new job opportunities for college graduates, and higher education and employers can adjust the ways they operate and interact to ensure students are prepared for these roles.

The winner of NACE’s 2025 Chevron Innovation Award, Arizona State University (ASU) Career Services partnered with ASU Family to develop a multi-model strategic communication and event plan designed to engage family members in support of their student's career journey.

A guide developed by the 2024-25 Principles for Ethical Professional Practice Committee applies the NACE principles to AI use in career services and recruitment, providing actionable recommendations to ensure responsible implementation.

The large-college winner of the 2025 NACE Career Services Excellence Award, the UConn Work+ Pilot integrated career readiness into on-campus student employment, enhancing the experience for more than 200 student employees and 40 supervisors.

As the needs of employers frequently change and potential career paths evolve along with them, students should begin working on career preparation earlier in their educational journeys.

The goal of the LER Accelerator coalition and for the release of its recent white paper is to be a catalyst for faster growth of the adoption of learning and employment records.

The college winner of the 2025 NACE Technology Excellence Award, the Kenyon College Career Development Office’s career rewards program incentivizes student use of career services in a way that makes it fun for the students and efficient for office staff.

Our workplace has become fragmented. Even with numerous options to connect and exchange information online, many professionals still experience a feeling of disconnection. Mentorship can restore workplace connectedness and belonging. 

There are no perfect jobs. The reality is, every job is what we make of it. There are better and worse jobs, roles that fit and those that don’t. Not everything we do in life will fit who we are or where we excel. As we work with students and employees to find places of best fit in response to this reality, we need to teach them how to job craft. However, job crafting needs to take on new depth if we are to truly help individuals craft worthwhile experiences out of their current and future work. Job crafting needs to start with purpose.

The small college winner of the 2025 NACE Career Services Excellence Award, Furman University developed its “Four-Year Pathway,” a program that spans students’ undergraduate career and prepares them to enter the workforce.

The Olinde Career Center at LSU launched Talking Tiger Talent as a way to modernize and scale the center’s employer outreach efforts.

This piece offers details about the reliability and validity of the Career State Inventory (CSI).

The Career State Inventory enables practitioners to evaluate career interventions.

Group coaching prepares students for the world of work they’ll be joining. It also enables colleges to deliver career services more efficiently by allowing a smaller number of career staff to provide rich learning experiences at scale.

Far from being at odds, career coaching and career advising are complementary. Each offers distinctive advantages to help students navigate their career trajectories.

Career services offices are often seen as places that offer help with resumes and run career fairs—but their impact beyond that is lost. Data can help pain a complete picture.

Volunteering with NACE can create uplifting opportunities to be involved with the changing workforce and allows members to learn skills needed to be a better director, professor, and a person.

When the University of Texas University Leadership Network launched in 2013, it had two main goals that remain in place today: to help students graduate in four years and to provide students who are under-resourced with an opportunity to participate in various forms of experiential learning without having to work.

Volunteering with NACE is a great way to learn how an organization works while also making lifelong personal connections and developing the skills needed to thrive professionally.

The North Dakota State University Career and Advising Center team has found that its Employer Town Halls held via Zoom are a great way to disseminate information in a different format than just an email.

It doesn't matter if you've been part of NACE for just a short time or for years, there are many ways to get more involved and contribute in ways meaningful to you.

Getting more involved with NACE is a great way for members to grow personally and professionally, especially for those who are new to their industry.

The Career and Life Design process that Hassan Akmal created is evolving. Today, AI makes this pursuit more tangible than ever, acting as an unprecedented sounding board for self-exploration.

Large organizations can be intimidating, but getting more involved and finding your community within an organization can help you thrive both personally and professionally.

In the second of a two-part series, 13 NACE leaders offer their insight and guidance about what they have learned in their time in the profession.

The University of North Florida (UNF) has historically offered innovative programs, services, resources, and events to ensure students are successful and career ready by the time they graduate. This approach led leadership to embark on a new path at the intersection of UNF’s core functions and NACE’s career readiness competencies.

LinkedIn can be a valuable tool for students preparing to enter the workforce, but it can also cause students to miss out on opportunities if not used responsibly.

The College of Arts and Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington recently launched its Pillars Undergraduate Experience, a framework designed to prepare students for academic achievement and lifelong career success.

Career services professionals must prioritize teaching students how to build social capital and cultivate ties within their chosen career fields.

Among the main reasons why career center staff are not using AI with students are concerns about the technology collecting students’ personal data.

Networking is a valuable tool for students that offers both career exploration and access to opportunities, particularly in a competitive job market. To get the most out of its networking events, USC Viterbi School of Engineering Career Connections has taken them through several iterations to reach their current format.

There are two primary reasons that career centers might lack confidence in using AI in their work: speed and ethics.

In the first of a two-part series, 13 NACE leaders offer their insight and guidance about what they have learned in their time in the profession.

Aurora University’s career services office uses ChatGPT as a tool to help its students prepare for job interviews and teach them ethical ways to use generative AI.

As a job candidate, students should pursue openings where their skills match the company’s needs, and by dissecting a job description and ensuring those key words find their way into their resume, students can stand out during the screening process.

To produce career-ready graduates, the Lehman College School of Business intentionally equips its students with competencies through the promotion of applied learning in its three programs.

Matt Purdy of Murray State advises career services professionals to think about the resources they are trying to obtain and find data that not only align with what they are asking for, but to connect them to the priorities of their administration or institution.

Forté, winner of the 2024 NACE Business Affiliate Award for Excellence in Leadership, focuses its work on systematically addressing the barriers that prevent women from pursuing MBA degrees and business leadership positions.

Despite the changes caused by COVID-19, some employers and educators have reinstituted traditional recruiting practices that may now present barriers to students impacted by the pandemic.

The Georgia Tech Career Center, large-college winner of the 2024 NACE Career Services Excellence Award, hired eight new staff members across various functional areas within the office in a process that aligned with the institute’s DEI Blueprint to, in part, closely reflect the demographics of Atlanta.

With professional pursuits, quality invariably outweighs quantity, so career services staff should work with students to find good fits rather than trying to meet arbitrary deadlines.

Fear of AI has turned into curiosity, says Jeremy Schifeling, who reports seeing more and more career leaders getting excited about leveraging these tools for both their students’ and their own success.

My staff wants to go above and beyond. Unfortunately, wanting something and having the resources to do it are two different things. Acting as if we have the resources is harmful to the very staff who want to provide exceptional services.

AI can support first-generation students in the job search by bridging the gap in their professional network.

The University of Illinois Chicago, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Career Development Office, winner of the 2024 NACE Career Readiness Excellence Award, designed an innovative eight-week, one-credit career strengths-based course for its students.

The use of gamification apps at in-person events can be invaluable for individuals who may struggle to focus or interact in traditional settings.

The college winner of the 2024 NACE Technology Excellence Award, University of California, Berkeley Career Engagement used Google Workspace products to create a data-visualization dashboard to tell its story in a low-cost, efficient manner.

The small college winner of the 2024 NACE Award for Career Services Excellence, Providence College’s Chirico Career Center has created and honed an engaging program designed to help students as they consider their majors and explore potential careers.

Although allyship with the LGBTQ+ community different for everyone, one thing is clear: It requires action.

Career services professionals can help students use AI tools effectively and avoid common traps and mistakes.

The UC San Diego Student Employment Program employs more than 6,000 students who work in more than 170 departments across campus.

Student employment can be a potent catalyst for transformative learning experiences, but is often relegated to the sidelines.

Winner of NACE’s 2024 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Excellence Award for colleges, the Georgia Tech Career Center’s Georgia Tech’s AuthenTECH Partnership initiative leverages staff to provide population-specific resources, expand programming, and cultivate partnerships to advance equitable career outcomes.

Because of the potential challenges of using career services effectively, international students may turn to artificial intelligence for their career-related questions without fully realizing the possible negative outcomes related to it.

Landmark College, an institution exclusively for students who learn differently including those on the autism spectrum, champions a strengths-based model and gives students the skills and strategies they need to achieve their goals.

When it comes to advising students on the importance of professional skills, demonstrating those skills in your day-to-day can go a long way.

For Spring Hill College, the work to attain a high knowledge rate on its first-destination survey begins in the fall.

NACE offers many options to get involved, and those who choose their pursue volunteer opportunities can experience both personal and professional growth.

Career centers that integrate into all parts of a student’s journey in college are better positioned to effectively serve students and demonstrate their value on campus.

Cayuga Community College’s career services office launched its microcredentialing program in 2018. Since then, it has been building microcredentials in the non-credit and credit side of the institution, including developing its microcredential program and updating it to an online learning platform.

Despite achieving a knowledge rate of 90.6% on its most recent first-destination survey, the Roanoke College career center is tweaking the survey’s process to improve it.

Centre College’s three-year average knowledge rate for its first-destination survey (FDS) stands at an impressive 98%. This is especially notable given that the survey wasn’t required for students until 2023.

Because students may lack the professional network to get noticed, career services staff can help by leveraging their own networks to highlight students to potential employers.

A pilot study conducted among cooperative education students at University of Cincinnati tested the value of providing students with flexible due dates to help them manage their mental well-being and grow their project management skills.

The University of Dallas career development office listened to student feedback to pivot from texting students career-related information to sending messages via email. The results have been impressive.

A former dean now working with hiring organizations offers five lessons for how higher ed can work with industry and move the needle for students—especially low-income and first-generation students.

Students who begin building their social media presence while still in college will have an advantage after graduating, and there are several easy steps they can take to get started on LinkedIn.

The University of Western Florida CDCE recently launched its AI Career Toolkit to address AI use, challenges, and possibilities by students exploring careers and the career coaches supporting them.

The career services office at Colorado Boulder launched an Artificial Intelligence Working Group to collect information on developments, discuss campus applications of AI, and more.

The classroom can be a valuable resource for students to develop the skill and mindset to think of themselves as professionals and describe how their skills relate to their field.

UCSD’s Rady School Career Management Center is addressing and creating resources around AI to guide students in its effective, safest, and ethical use during the college recruiting process.

Career centers looking to increase FDS response rates might want to focus on communicating regularly with students, providing participation incentives, and ensuring the process is convenient for students.

Automated video interviews (AVIs) are an emerging recruitment tool. As success factors in AVIs may differ from face-to-face interviews, it is important for career services practitioners to know how to help their students prepare for these new types of interviews.

Not only does PathwayU offer student assessments, but it also provides guidance based on predictive knowledge that accounts for the user’s sense of purpose and meaning.

Early data from a forthcoming NACE study indicate that the gender pay gap has widened over the past year, with female graduates now earning just 72 cents to every dollar earned by male graduates, down from around 81 cents.

Dominican University, a Hispanic-serving institution with 64% of students identifying as Latinx and located just outside of Chicago, launched its successful career development program in its Brennan School of Business in fall 2017.

The Career & Professional Development office at the University of Denver developed a multipronged approach to work toward its ambitious goal to engage 90% of undergraduates annually.

Tulsa Community College’s “Job Market Monday” Facebook posts include information from employers about current local job openings or internship opportunities, each in a digital flyer format.

The University of Illinois at Chicago College of Engineering Job & Internship Fair Tours were created to engage more first- and second-year students in job fairs and to reduce barriers to attendance.

Career services needs to be strategically positioned on campus to provide the vision, guidance, and relationships to demonstrate its importance and value and to maximize student outcomes.

Schools that conduct an annual FDS to capture information on how their new college graduates fare following graduation can benefit their own institutions and demonstrate the value of higher education.