Career and Professional Development Extends Far Beyond the Transactional: It’s an Ecosystem

[Link]Allegheny College delivers bountiful outcomes for alumni. The latest offerings of career support come by way of the revamped Center for Career & Professional Development (CCPD). The value of the Center is broad and tangible, but often not understood by students. That's where a refreshed look, new employer relationships, passionate alumni connections, and ongoing storytelling about student and alumni success are critical.

This is not your mother's career services. Nor your older sibling's. Allegheny's Center for Career & Professional Development is a hub for career activity and career resources that is so much more than a one-and-done meeting about writing a résumé. As a matter of fact, students who engage with the enthusiastic staff, alumni, and employer partners will discover a résumé is a small part of the journey to their first career.

Brian Collingwood, Ph.D., CCPD's executive director, says, "Our Center is not just offering a traditional advisor going through transactional work. We have exploratory advisors. It's definitely a place to connect. We encourage students to get involved from their first dayon campus through their last day before Commencement."

CCPD Makes Exploring Easy

[Link]At Allegheny, students are encouraged to explore all of their interests and are offered an entire ecosystem of support. Sometimes that leads to students having so many options that inertia sets in, and the thought of going to a career center is stifling. To circumvent that overwhelming sense, the Center team focuses on the importance of exploration. For example, if a student knows for sure that they want to go to medical school, they'll be prompted to dig deeper. What part of medicine is exciting? What type of classes, internships, or study away experiences would help to make an informed decision as to the right school and program?

This exploratory approach is a big piece of Allegheny's emerging first-year experience. It's part of how the College is reshaping the curriculum, and this initiative helps students in their first and second year discover their fit at the College and regarding what they might pursue professionally. And alumni play a critical role in this.

Alumni Passion = Student Success

Alumni connections and interactions are plentiful and available for just about any interest a student may have. They are always excited about helping a student. Alumni also love to share their own pathways to success.

[Link]Trustee Tom Sadvary '75 plays an active role with the CCPD. He says, "As an employer for 40 years, I believe in the notion of someone with a really strong liberal arts background, who has either a graduate degree in a more technical area like medicine or law or business or computer science, but has that ability to communicate, analyze, and think critically, is a phenomenal package. Those soft skills - they are as equal as learning how to be a CPA, how to become a computer scientist, or how to do surgery."

Collingwood is excited when alumni like Sadvary invest their time and passion into career services. "It's really starting to launch into the alumni community in a productive way, where students are connecting with people who can help them, and then they're learning how to connect and help students once they graduate," he says.

Another part of the CCPD ecosystem that is focused on the value of alumni connection is that of career communities. Through the Allegheny platform Gator2Gator, there is an encyclopedia of alumni who are eager to connect with students and each other to offer career guidance, professional networking, and advice on anything from relocation to how to get into a particular industry. The Center is in the process of expanding the platform to include groups of people and opportunities that focus on a specific industry or affinity.

Sadvary encourages alumni to jump in. "I think alums can help to be a sounding board, either with a phone call or Zoom session or with having interns. Obviously a lot of our students need internships that can really help them get exposed to a profession and a career that may or may not interest them - at least they can explore."

The CCPD also encourages alumni engagement through networking events. In October 2023, the Center recruited alumni to meet with students during a reception in Pittsburgh, where alumni shared their journeys from Allegheny to the successful careers they enjoy today. (See link below.)

Utilizing the Multifaceted CCPD

Key times to get students engaged in career planning are during their sophomore and junior years, when students are more comfortable on campus but aren't yet embroiled in their Senior Comp. A big part of this is encouraging students to consider experiential learning. If a student can meaningfully convey the value that they received through any of their Allegheny experiences, their viability as a job candidate increases.

[Link]One experiential learning experience includes study away, which Jim Fitch, associate director of the CCPD, considers pivotal to the students' desirability to employers. "We assist students who take advantage of studying away by helping them prepare to share that experience in terms that will appeal to prospective employers," says Fitch. He notes that being able to equate what they did to real-world issues is important. For example, students would be able to explain, "I studied in Australia for a semester where I was able to work in a rainforest ecosystem. This is something that I never would have been able to do here in the United States. I now have experience working in multiple ecosystems, and I better understand this industry / business / job that I am pursuing."

The range of services and benefits of the CCPD are vast and include the newly launched Alpha Chi Rho Internship Endowment Fund (see pg. 10), created by a committee of Alpha Chi Rho brothers who graduated in the '60s. This is one step toward the effort to bolster Allegheny's internship funding program. About 40 students per year benefit from internship scholarship awards averaging $2,000. The funds help supplement their internship experiences by providing housing, transportation, and meals.

Lastly, and most excitingly perhaps, are the range of employers who come directly to campus to showcase their companies, looking for talent. Recruiters frequently come away from these events with Allegheny students top of mind. They also post available internships and jobs through Allegheny's Handshake Recruiting Portal.

According to Collingwood, the average person used to spend 90,000 hours at work over their lifetime. New ways of working and the varied careers embraced by Allegheny grads might temper that number a bit, from fieldwork to graduate school and remote vocations. "We want students to love what they do throughout their career journey, and the best place to start is with the free resources offered right on campus in the CCPD," he says.

A Liberal Arts Education is Highly Valued by Employers

A recent survey by The Harvard Business Review of hiring executives across a range of industries found that 80% of employers agree that all students need a strong foundation in the liberal arts and sciences. The accompanying article noted, "Indeed, in the global knowledge economy, employer demand for graduates with a liberal education is growing."

Graduates of Allegheny understand the value of a strong liberal arts education. Our alumni are among the most successful professionals in their fields. The entirety of the Allegheny College experience is to prepare students for the winding path that often makes up the career journey, which is the heart of the first goal of Allegheny's Strategic Pathway: that every student will gain high-quality knowledge, skills, and abilities, rooted in the liberal arts, that prepare them for meaningful lives and purposeful careers in an interconnected world.[Link]

Just a glimpse into the unique combinations of majors and minors of our graduates illustrates that mixing disciplines makes for alumni who are prepared for anything, and highly desirable to employers, graduate schools, and entrepreneurial pursuits. Allegheny students are required to combine things that may not "go together." Math and art? Of course! Creative thinking solves problems, and problems are at the root of math. Biology and business? Naturally - from how diseases affect the global economy to ways of addressing climate through commerce. The list goes on and on. Employers recognize that they need well-rounded people to lead their teams. People with the ability to adapt and change with an evolving market in a world that moves at an unprecedented velocity are prized.

CCPD staff and alumni volunteers work to ensure students get direct, seamless access to anything they need to prepare for life after college. From major Hollywood producers to Wall Street leaders, rural teachers to world-class surgeons, students can access alumni they desire and receive guidance, a connection, a recommendation, an internship, and perhaps a job.

View a series of videos depicting alumni stories here.

Alumni who would like to network with fellow Gators and/or provide career guidance to current students should join Gator2Gator here.

To get started on the journey from student to career success, or if you are an alum wishing to connect, please contact [email protected]

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