Post 3 of 4 in a series on Strategic Planning in Career Services
Career Threads is a micro-blog series that offers quick insights into trending topics in career services, jointly composed by the Consulting Team at The Career Leadership Collective, from their experiences interacting with hundreds of career professionals and senior campus leaders.
Our team at The Career Leadership Collective has influenced hundreds of career services strategic plans, often being involved in creating and developing the plans themselves. As the Career Ecosystem Era unfolds, intentional strategic planning is even more essential.
We have learned that every strategic plan will necessarily be different. At the same time, we believe that there are five critical elements that every plan must have in order to create success. The critical elements are:
1. Meaningful Success Metrics
Setting specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals around your career learning outcomes, career success outcomes, employer partnership growth, and service offerings will help you clearly understand your goals and how to reach them.
2. Flexible Priorities
As job markets, student demands, and institutional constraints change, so must your team. It’s important to have measurable goals, but it’s equally important that your team be agile enough to pivot as academic and economic conditions change.
3. Stakeholder Buy-In
For change to happen, your career services ecosystem must support the goals of the strategic plan. External partners such as campus administration, alumni, and engaged employers also play a key role in resourcing and funding the change that must happen. The strategic plan process itself can be a powerful tool to create buy-in for many different stakeholders.
4. Regular Assessment
Regularly assessing the impact of your strategic initiatives will ensure that your team is on track to accomplish its strategic goals. Continuous assessment will allow your office to make data-driven decisions rather than guesses, and it will highlight successes to stakeholders, ensuring sustained support across campus.
5. Frequent Communication
Career services leaders should communicate their vision, goals, and progress to campus constituents on a regular and frequent basis. Transparent communication helps to build trust and buy-in across a campus community, and it creates opportunities for community collaboration and feedback.
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By working to include each of these five critical elements of strategic planning success, you can ensure that your team members and your wider campus community will support the growth of your career ecosystem and student career success in general.
The Career Leadership Collective regularly assists higher education with strategic planning across their career ecosystems. Stay in touch if we can assist your efforts!
See Post 1: The Importance of Strategic Planning
Access our: Toolkit on Strategic Planning for Career Centers