FloridaACE2025

This breakout session will explore how alumni networks can be leveraged to enhance career development for students, focusing on mentorship, internships, job placement, and career transitions. Participants will discuss how institutions can more effectively engage their alumni in supporting students throughout their career journey, from providing mentorship and internships to facilitating job placements and career transitions. Attendees will leave with actionable takeaways for integrating alumni into their career services, improving student outcomes, and fostering long-term alumni-student relationships. This session will provide FloridaACE members with innovative approaches to enhance their institutions' alumni engagement and strengthen career development initiatives for students.

Objectives:
Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how to leverage alumni networks to support student career development, including mentorship, internships, job placement, and career transitions. By the end, attendees will be equipped with actionable ideas and best practices they can implement at their institutions to strengthen alumni engagement and improve student outcomes.

Building Structured Mentorship Programs: Develop formal alumni mentorship programs where students are paired with alumni based on their career interests and goals. Utilize digital platforms (like LinkedIn, alumni portals, or mentorship apps) to create easier connections.

Creating Internship Pipelines: Engage alumni to help create exclusive internship opportunities, especially for students in fields with limited access to traditional internships. Alumni can act as liaisons between their organizations and the institution’s career services team.

Alumni Referral Networks: Alumni can play a pivotal role in job placement by offering recommendations, making introductions, and opening doors to their own professional networks. Building a system where students can tap into alumni referral networks can enhance job placement efforts.

Specialized Career Transition Support: Alumni who have successfully navigated career changes can provide valuable guidance for students looking to transition into new fields. Universities can set up alumni-led workshops or one-on-one sessions focused on career pivots.

This session explores the development of a structured career services pathway at New College of Florida, using digital badging to enhance student career readiness and employer engagement. The pathway validates career milestones with digital credentials that can be shared on LinkedIn, Handshake, and e-portfolios. Participants will learn how to implement a digital badging framework within career services, aligning milestones with employer expectations. Through case studies, interactive demonstrations, and hands-on activities, attendees will gain practical strategies to develop a tailored career services pathway. Join us to discover how digital badging can transform career services, strengthen employer connections, and empower students for workforce success!

Objectives:
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Explain the Value of a Career Services Pathway: Describe how a structured career services pathway using digital badges enhances student career engagement and employer recruitment processes.
• Outline the Implementation Process: Detail the steps for launching a career services pathway, including setting milestones, designing badge criteria, and integrating with existing career programs.
• Identify Opportunities for Employer Collaboration: Analyze how digital badging can align with employer hiring processes and workforce readiness expectations.
• Develop Institutional Strategies: Create an action plan for incorporating a career services pathway into their institution's career development programming. 
• Assess the Impact of Digital Credentials: Evaluate how a structured badging system improves student success, employer engagement, and career services effectiveness.

Changes in our labor market and higher education policies are rapidly unfolding as students and recent college graduates navigate their career pathways. Our ability to serve students and early career talent, especially in these times, needs to be grounded in empirical evidence.  Dr. Mary Gatta, Director of Research and Policy at NACE, will share the latest NACE research on the state of the job market for college graduates, skills-based hiring, experiential learning in and out of the classroom, internships and student experiences, to help ground our programs and recruiting strategies.

Objectives:

1. Participants will learn the latest research on hiring, experiential learning and students' experiences.
2. Participants will have the opportunity to discuss key insights, trends and patterns on the latest recruiting and career services data.
3. Participants will gain ideas of ways to deepen their work with the latest research and trends.