Career Center for faculty
Denise E. Williams
Career Readiness Project
We know that our students have many strengths that employers seek, including deep cultural ties and experience in navigating new and challenging situations. During their academic careers, it’s important to support them in connecting their lived experiences with career competencies. The competencies employers look for are similar:
- Professional Communication (more than 96% of employers and students rated this the highest)
- Critical thinking and Problem Solving
- Ethical Decision Making
- Curiosity
- Teamwork
- Cultural Agility, Inclusion and Anti-Racist Practice
- Community Engagement
- Digital Literacy
- Career Management
Metro State's Career Readiness Project
The Career Readiness Project strives to plan, build, and evaluate programs and processes that weave career education and the related competencies as the common thread throughout the Metro State student journey. The Career Readiness framework provides a way for faculty, advisors, and students to reflect on how coursework can prepare students for the next steps to meet their career goals. In our work, we seek to foster a culture of career development, cross-disciplinary collaborations and a community of practice.
We are grateful to all those involved for helping to share these ideas with students in the context of their curricula. The Faculty Workgroup is taking the lead in coordinating this important work, members include:
Guiding our project this year is the 2024–25 Career Readiness Workgroup (from left to right):
- Eric Fotsch – Urban Education
- Dr. Kate Ries – Sciences
- Dr. Caitlin Mahoney, Psychology/CCSPA
- Dawn Wing, Library
- Dr. Miriam Nkemnji-Enohnyaket, Nursing
- Dr. Erica Berte, Management/CBM
- Naomi Fernandez, Social Work/CCSPA
- Dr. Monica Roth Day, Career Readiness Faculty Director
Not pictured:
- Dr. Ailesha Ringer, Career Readiness Faculty Associate Director
- Dr. Denise E. Williams, Career Readiness Scholar
- Bill Baldus, Career Center Director
Background
What we are trying to do is infuse career development into the curriculum so that it is built into students’ college experience rather than tacked on as an optional component if time permits. A culture of career readiness will be the hallmark of a Metro State education and ongoing career management could be what keep our alumni returning to campus and giving back to their professional community. Drawing on both our Career Competencies and Career Steps (see below), we could weave at least one career component into every course creating a common language and building career readiness directly into students’ academic work.
Cindy Harley
What Employers Want – Career Competencies
This list of 10 career competencies can be thought of as a skill set that, in theory, students should be able to put on a résumé or talk about in an interview by the time they graduate. The idea is that, as students work toward their degree, they can gain clarity and confidence to be able to describe how specific classes — as well as internships and other college experiences — helped develop a palette of skills, personal qualities, and strengths.
Susan Hilal
Professional Communication
Professional communication is the ability to use interpersonal and intercultural skills to engage with individuals, groups and communities. It requires the use of interpersonal skills and self-reflection. Adaptations are made according to audience, purpose, and nature of communication (written, verbal, and other modes).
Skills demonstrating professional communication are:
- Using active listening to learn from and about others
- Engaging in self-reflection to explore thoughts and feelings when communicating with others
- Providing purposeful written, verbal or other modes of communication adapted to individuals, groups, and communities involved in the communication
- Reflecting respect and value of the person or people in the communication
Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
Critical thinking is the ability to question assumptions and discern biases, analyze information, and determine appropriate actions in relation to an idea, concept, or situation. It requires creativity in thinking and openness to fresh perspectives and new sources of information.
Skills demonstrating critical thinking are:
- Describing a specific idea, concept or situation for focus
- Determining what information is needed to explore the situation
- Identifying values and beliefs reflected in information, and discern how biases impact the understanding of that information
- Analyzing the information and suggesting possible actions to solve a problem based on that analysis
Ethical Decision Making
Ethical decision making is the ability to apply an ethical code of conduct or framework to a situation that is grounded in the values of a community, profession, and/or belief system. It requires perspective-taking to understand the impact of ethical decisions on the people involved in a situation
Skills demonstrating ethical decision making are:
- Describing the situation in need of ethical decision making
- Collecting information from multiple perspectives on the situation
- Applying an ethical model to identify possible actions
- Weighing the possible actions and their consequences
- Taking action and evaluating that action
Curiousity
Curiosity is the desire to learn new things and explore fresh perspectives, and in doing so apply that knowledge in innovative ways. Curiosity is a catalyst for growth and positive change. To be curious is to engage in learning for its own sake.
Skills demonstrating curiosity are:
- Seeking out learning through connections with resources
- Acknowledging that discomfort can occur when learning
- Identifying questions to guide and motivate learning
- Engaging and exchanging ideas new people and participating in novel experiences
- Applying learning to situations to find solutions that are innovative in the respective setting
Teamwork
Teamwork is present when people work collaboratively to meet a goal or outcome. Each person provides skills and abilities to support progress and help with task, process, and relational functioning. This includes the ability of each person to step forward as a leader or collaborator as relevant to the situation.
Skills demonstrating teamwork are:
- Engaging communication skills and empathy to learn the perspectives of others
- Affirming the role of lived experience in how people approach teamwork
- Communicating own perspective with others and sharing information
- Acknowledging that conflict can be an important dynamic in teamwork
- Working with others to find a collaborative solution to conflict
- Accepting and sharing feedback with others
Cultural Agility, Inclusion, and Anti-Racist Practice
Cultural agility, inclusion, and anti-racist practice requires individuals to identify, challenge and change the values, structures and behaviors that perpetuate systemic oppression in order to create a more equitable society. People are agents of change.
Skills demonstrating cultural agility, inclusion, and anti-racist practice are:
- Acknowledging and exploring how identity and culture impacts personal and professional experiences
- Using empathy to understand the lived experiences of others
- Engaging in self-awareness to determine how intersectional identities impact others, creating connections or forming barriers
- Embracing differences while recognizing shared humanity
- Questioning how information is presented and by whom
- Adapting communication based on cultural context
- Advocating for change to challenge systemic oppression
Community Engagement
Community engagement is a collaborative process where people work together and leverage community strengths to address shared concerns, resolve issues, or enhance the community.
Skills demonstrating community engagement are:
- Demonstrating social responsibility by seeking opportunities to engage with others, including in own communities
- Intentionally learning a community’s perspective on a concern, issue or topic
- Adapting communication based on the cultural and community context
- Identifying and dissecting biases and stereotypes, allowing for the development of a new understanding of the community
- Participating in the collaborative process by being present and sharing ideas
Digital Literacy
Digital literacy is the ability to find, evaluate ,and use technology as appropriate to a specific purpose, including communicating, solving problems, and completing tasks. Technology can include simple programs (word processing) to more complex applications (artificial intelligence).
Skills demonstrating digital literacy are:
- Determining which current and emerging technological tools may be appropriate based on purpose and audience
- Analyzing the technological tool(s) for reliability and validity
- Assessing if the technological tool(s) follows ethical requirements, including copyright, confidentiality and safety of information
- Evaluating the ethical implications to the use of technology, including environmental and social impacts
- Implementing the technological tool(s) and evaluating the outcome
Career Management
Career management is a strategic approach to advancing one’s career, and includes setting goals, networking, and staying current with trends in the chosen industry. It requires continuous learning, curiosity and the ability to be proactive in seeking out new opportunities to develop knowledge and skills and build relationships with others.
Skills demonstrating career management and continuous learning are:
- Using self-regulation to manage time, organize tasks, and meet goals
- Developing connections with people who can provide career guidance and expand the professional network
- Utilizing resources to develop knowledge, including library materials and career-related events
- Establishing and evaluating achievable goals that align with strengths, capabilities and areas for growth
- Communicating professional goals to others and advocating for own needs and opportunities
Michael Stein
Ismail Bile Hassan
We started with two sources to develop our own set of career competencies – thanks to U of M CLA and the National Association of Colleges and Employers.
Career Readiness
Maureen O'Dougherty and Erica Berte
Resources to Weave Career Competencies into Your Classes
There is already a great deal of career-related activity happening in classrooms across campus – let’s elevate it. Building capacity in this area is the next phase of the Project.
Faculty Teams Site: we are collecting ideas and practices already underway: Teams site for faculty.