Description:

The COVID-19 pandemic brought varying challenges to students across the globe. At the University of Miami, we faced students having their internship and job offers rescinded or struggling to find professional development opportunities considering the state of the job market. These unprecedented times called for innovative and strategic ways of thinking to increase student morale and assist them in developing their skillsets despite the lack of workplace opportunities. The Skills Advantage Series, a free, self-directed, six-week virtual program that serves University of Miami students, was created to address this challenge. The program offers six tracks that provide students with new skills through virtual modules. These skills are directly transferable to essential functions in the workplace, and completing the program showcases a student’s versatility, aptitude to learn, and ability to navigate unfamiliar subject matter. The six tracks include digital marketing, healthcare science, project management, graphic design, coding, and non-profit and grant writing, with each track varying from five to 10 hours a week of module content. These tracks provide vital knowledge and certifications that employers seek. The platforms used to create the curriculum included LinkedIn Learning, CodeAcademy.org, NonprofitReady.org, and Facebook. The series also offered weekly reflection prompts students completed to support their practical learning. At the end of the series, students who submitted all six reflections received a Toppel Career Center certification with the number of training hours they completed. The certificates served as a substitute for an internship to show employers our students are dedicated to their professional development despite challenging times. Our use of external content platforms also allowed for students to walk away from the series with anywhere from five to seven recognized certifications they can use to sell their skills on resumes, LinkedIn, and during interviews. Overall, this series enabled students to take charge of their summer learning experience and implement it at their own pace. We marketed this initiative and received a great deal of student interest, with 300 students applying to receive the curriculum and approximately 60 to 75 students completing the full series. Additional students shared they would use the curriculum to complete the material at their own pace during the academic year. Throughout the program, participants offered positive feedback, stating how helpful the initiative was in supporting their professional journeys. The program was so successful in the summer that we offered it again in the winter where we observed almost identical numbers in student interest and matriculation. We offered weekly office hours to support students along the way with their questions, while also serving as a resource to help them articulate the skills they gained both in an interview setting and on their resumes. The Skills Advantage series proved to be a helpful resource for our students. Join us to learn how the Toppel Career Center implemented the Skills Advantage Series at the University of Miami and begin identifying how to create a hard-skills training program for your students. The presentation will include an overview of our timeline, curriculum, platforms used, and elements to consider at your institution.

Audience:

Career Services

Level:

Intermediate

Track:

Competencies & Skills

Type:

Traditional

Main Speaker:

Logan Caswell, Toppel Career Center, University of Miami

Additional Speakers:

ismaris Ocasio, Toppel Career Center