Address students’ three “trigger questions” to engage them in career development.

Every campus career educator would like to engage more students in their career development. Put simply, the goal is to: 1) involve more students in the programs and services available; and 2) get those currently participating to engage more deeply.

But how?

Every year I ask thousands of students across North America a wide range of questions through surveys, panel discussions, and focus groups. I ask about their career interests, how they evaluate employers, what they expect from their career services office, who influences their decisions, where they gather information, and much more. I have come to the conclusion that when it comes to decisions about job search and career development services on campus, students have some questions of their own. Consciously or not, these are the three make-or-break “trigger” questions in the back of their mind:

1) Is it good?
2) Is it relevant?
3) Is it here and now?

These questions are the key to understanding what your “customers” value – and what they value is really all that matters when trying to engage them. But before discussing these in detail, let’s look at how career educators usually try to get students to use their services.

The mandate to deliver more career education to more students usually leads to the conclusion that what is needed is better marketing. The assumption is that if you develop a strong brand with a great logo and a compelling tagline, maximize your impact through social networks, launch a shiny new website, and print massive quantities of posters, thousands more students will come to you for help. Effective marketing is certainly important (and a clear, simple message delivered consistently is crucial), but at best, this is only a partial solution.

Reaching and engaging more students has far more to do with the programs you deliver and how and where you deliver them than it does with marketing.

The first step in marketing any program or service is quite simply: fix the service! I don’t care how witty the advertising is, or how bold the branding is, for a new ketchup – if it tastes like pickle juice then I won’t be buying it again. More importantly, rather than recommending it to others, I will tell them how awful it is. This last point is especially important to career educators. The risk to a customer when buying a product is relatively low: I can almost always return the product for a refund. But when I use a service (even if there is no fee), I am taking a bigger risk because I can never get back the time I invest in using it.

This is why referrals (word-of-mouth) are such a critical part of marketing career education on campus. Your customers need to know in advance that what you are offering will be a valuable investment of their time. So the first step in your marketing is to fix your service. You must fix anything you do that is less than excellent to stop the bad word-of-mouth which always draws far more attention than the good. Chances are that you can’t bring everything up to the “excellent” level or you would have done so long ago, therefore you must eliminate it.

This is no small feat for career educators who by nature say “yes” to every opportunity to help. There is also a tendency to continue offering anything that requires very few resources or minimal effort. But this is because we vastly underestimate the damaging effects of less-than-excellent programs or services. In the networked world, this damage can grow exponentially.

So let’s assume you have award-winning marketing and nothing but excellent programs and services. Problem solved? If that were true then there would be career offices across the continent engaging 100% of their students in comprehensive career exploration. Great marketing may get students’ attention and quality programs will support positive word-of-mouth referrals. But these only address the first of the “trigger questions” that hold the key to students’ decision to participate.

Here is an explanation of the three questions and some suggestions for how career educators should explore them further:

1. Is it good? Quite simply, students want to know if the program, workshop, advice, or event you are offering is high quality. They are wondering: how do I know it’s good? What are the qualifications of the organizers or presenter? Where is the proof? Who said so?

Career educators need to brainstorm their answers to these questions and develop a plan to address them. What credentials can we boast about? What track record can we draw attention to? What testimonials can we offer? Who are the influential people (professors, student leaders, employers, advisors, etc.) who can recommend us?

2. Is it relevant? Now that I know it’s good, is it targeted to my needs? Is it relevant to me as a graduating kinesiology student or is this just another workshop that’s better for business students? How does it fit the stage I’m at? Is this about summer jobs or starting my career? Is it going to repeat the stuff I already know or take me to the next level? Will I really find it useful?

The big question that career educators need to ask themselves here is: how can we be more relevant to individual students with our limited resources? How can we have the greatest impact with the least investment in customization? How can we segment students into manageable sub-groups to increase our relevance? What partners can help us be more relevant to these students?

3. Is it here and now? Is it here where I spend my time – in my Faculty or campus hangouts? Do I really need this now? Do the venue and facilities reflect quality and give me confidence? Is it easily accessible? Is it available only in person or online too?

This is not about reinventing your programming in 30-second MTV-like sound bites or YouTube videos. The “here and now” factor is really about two things: 1) making it convenient and accessible; and 2) reinforcing the first two triggers with a time and a place that supports the messages of quality and relevance. How can you get your programming out of your career centre and into departments and faculties so that you not only increase participation, but also create opportunities to develop new partnerships and alliances?

It would be hard to imagine a better activity for a retreat day for career educators than to take on the task of addressing these questions. Ultimately, your work is about achieving positive change for your students. Engaging them in that change demands understanding what they value and responding in creative and innovative ways.