By Morgan Andrews, Sarah Hart, Greg Bintz & Daniel Bestul
The University of Wisconsin-Green Bay offers multiple Career Planning and Professional Development services on campus to help guide UWGB students to success and to become career-ready. These services include resume building, workshops, the Career Closet, access to Handshake (an online recruiting platform for students to find jobs), mock interview help, and Job Fairs. Along with these services, their mission is to assist students with professional advice, help with major and minor questions, and direct students toward post-graduation jobs or graduate school.
Career Planning and Professional Development is located in student services, downstairs of the Union. These services used to be titled Career Services, and they changed their name this past year in 2023.
Kay Voss, the Director of Career Planning and Professional Connections, expresses how crucial the resource can be for students. “Almost all students attend college with the intention to start or build on their career after graduation,” she says.
“Our office is here to help students get started navigating the journey from college to career, ease the immense pressure felt to explore career paths, offer advice on building experiences and skills for a resume, connect students with professionals and employer contacts, and more!” Voss says. “We are a key, important resource that is free to students as they plan for their careers after graduation.”
Career Planning and Professional Development is there to help students – but unfortunately, it has not seen as many people as they would like to utilize the services offered. Maddie Jones, a junior who works at the front desk for Career Planning and Professional Development, does not think enough people use the resources they have. “I probably get 3 phone calls and 5 people who walk in for the entire 7 hours I am there a week. I would also guess about 10 people walk in there on a daily basis for reasons other than career appointments.”
An anonymous survey conducted from November 27th to December 1st by Morgan Andrews, Daniel Bestul, Sarah Hart, and Greg Bintz was sent out to UWGB students via Snapchat and Instagram. The goal of this survey was to evaluate how many UWGB students know what Career Planning and Development is, where it is, and what services they offer. The results show that there were 44 respondents.
For the first question, “Do you know what the services offer?”, 34.1% (n=15) of respondents answered “Yes,” 18.2% (n=8) of students answered “No,” and 47.7% (n=21) of respondents answered “A little bit.” This question shows that around half of the respondents do not know or only know a little bit about what the services offer.
In terms of the second question, “Would you ever consider going to Career Services to get professional help for future use?”, out of the 44 respondents, 36.4% (n=16) said “Yes,” 56.8% (n=25) of students said “Maybe”. The rest of the percentage said “No.” This question was asked to analyze if students want to receive help from the services and from the responses, we are able to analyze that students want to use the services and want to engage with them.
One huge benefit that Career Planning and Professional Development offers is the Career Closet. It’s an opportunity for students to grab apparel they could wear in a job interview, all for free. The Career Closet has men’s and women’s business attire clothing that is interview and workplace-friendly. The clothes come from donations, mostly from community members looking to get rid of their “professional” attire.
One student who has benefitted from the Career Closet is Alissondra Quatsoe. Quatsoe is a senior majoring in Psychology. She used the Career Closet once before, leaving with a positive experience and five items. Quatsoe says, “I thought the clothes were very high quality, and I would definitely recommend students to stop by!”
Quatsoe heard about the Career Closet in her Introduction to Research Methods class. Quatsoe says, “The services benefit UWGB students by giving them the resources they need to excel in school and transition to their lives after graduation. I wish more students would take advantage of the great services.”
Jones says, “I think it’s a good resource because we live busy lives. There isn’t always time to drive to the store and pick out an outfit for a class presentation or an interview later that week. It’s easy to walk in and browse. You might find something, and you might not, but it’s a good place to start, even if it’s just to get an idea of what to wear.”
Another service in Career Planning and Professional Development is the Job Fairs. Job Fairs are open to all UWGB students once a semester and give students the opportunity to network and explore companies and what they offer. Ethan Feltz, a senior majoring in business administration, had success at the Spring 2023 job fair.
Feltz says, “The Job Fair was amazing to me because they had on Handshake all the employers who would be at the fair. Because of this, I knew right away which companies I wanted to talk to, and it made me seem more confident to employers, so that was extremely helpful.”
Along with his success story, Feltz urges other students to explore the on-campus Job Fairs and to use the services from the Career Planning and Professional Development Center in hopes that other UWGB students have success stories like his. Feltz says, “Using Career Planning and Professional Development puts you ahead of others because they help you with your resume, interview skills, cover letters, and anything else related to a job or internship. This will help put you in the best possible spot for the future.”
Career Planning and Professional Development website has active links, contact information, events to attend, self-guided workshops, and tips/tricks to lead to success. Along with this, the center tries to promote its services by hanging up posters around campus, promoting events, and TV slides on campus.
The social media platforms for Career Planning and Professional Development are run by Briuanna Konz, a senior majoring in Communication. Her posts promote the services by using photos of the Career Closet, showing events they have, posting tips on interview prep, etc. Konz runs the Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter accounts. “As the social media intern, I am constantly asking myself how I can engage more students,” says Konz.
Esperanza Acuna, a sophomore and an exchange student, has seen promotions and heard about the services on social media platforms. Acuna says, “I have heard of the Career Closet and Job Fairs. I have seen the posters around campus and the posts about it on the University’s social media. I have not used any other of the services, but I do think that Career Planning and Professional Development does a good job of sharing their services. I do think they should reach out to students in person and in First Year Seminar classes to promote everything they offer.”
For more engagement, Career Planning and Professional Development has been doing multiple things to try to increase involvement with students through the services that it provides. “Some things we’re currently doing to drive engagement and get more students to use our services is to team up with other organizations or other offices like MESA to get their students aware and understand what services we offer,” says Konz. “We put on different events like Job Fairs and practice interviews, and we also share a lot of success stories of students getting jobs before graduating or internships on our social media. This is a great way to show students that our advisors are very helpful, and our events/services can really benefit students.”
While Career Planning and Professional Development is making an effort to drive up their awareness, there are numerous ways for them to gain more attention. One thing Career Planning and Professional Development has done is to assign students a career advisor. Just this year, in August, located in the UWGB SIS account, students now know an advisor to get help. Kay Voss is happy to see this change. Voss says, “Students didn’t know who to contact or know who they would meet with before, but now students can log into their SIS account and send an email to their direct advisor in a matter of minutes.”
Jersey Mendenwaldt, a sophomore, met with a career advisor when she was unsure of what major to choose. Mendenwaldt says, “The advisor helped me go over the results of a career exploration quiz when I was unsure of what path to take. She asked questions that allowed me to articulate my thoughts about potential careers. She also pointed me toward more resources I could look at on my own to help me make my decision. It was super helpful!”
According to Voss, Career Planning and Professional Development can see between 70 and 80 appointments a week during the busiest weeks of the semester. “Since September 1st, we’ve had about 845 appointments virtual and in person with students,” says Voss. “I hope with our new direction, where every student has a career advisor assigned to help them, students do feel more comfortable scheduling an appointment and think of the Career Advisor as a key person in their support network as they navigate their college experience and plan for their future careers.”
UWGB Career Planning and Professional Development services offer many resources for students to use and help them get a head start on their careers. For more information, UWGB students can visit their website at https://www.uwgb.edu/careers/ to receive career help.
