As WSU Academic Staff or Faculty, students may approach you with questions about choosing majors, resume writing, job searching, finding internships, or interviewing assistance. Maybe you already have a career component or teach a career course in your class. Academic staff and faculty can help students with their career development by encouraging them to take advantage of career services early in their academic careers before starting an internship or job search.

As college educators, we are all responsible for student College-to-Career (C2C) workplace readiness. The following are ways faculty and staff can incorporate career education into their courses, helping further prepare our students for their future in the workplace.

18 ways to incorporate College-to-Career (C2C) learning for student success

1. Put a link to Handshake and Career Services in your syllabus as a listed resource. 
2. Integrate scalable experiential learning projects from top companies into your curriculum using Forage for Educators.
3. Share the Career Services 4-Year Career Readiness Plan with your students.
4. Embed the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) 8 Career Readiness Competencies into course requirements.
5. Incorporate a resume writing session into your course and share a resume example for 2024 by experience level or industry. 
6. Offer students extra credit for downloading the Handshake mobile app from the App Store or Google Play, activating their WSU Handshake account, and completing their profile. Handshake is where they can find professional development workshops, internships, full-time job postings, and campus career fairs. Use this QR code to download the mobile app and have them log into their free account with their WSU Access ID and password. 
   NOTE: If they already have an account, offer extra credit for updating their profile and uploading a current resume.
7. Require students to attend 2-3 career development workshops listed on Handshake.
8. Offer extra credit to students who do a Career Counseling Appointment during the semester.
9. Require students to attend a campus career fair listed on Handshake.
10. Offer extra credit incentives to attend career development sessions and career fairs on Handshake.
11. Offer extra credit to students who participate in a Virtual Mock Interview. The program runs September - August.
12. Require students to submit a reflection assignment about their career fair experience, including describing the employers they met with at the fair and the opportunities they learned about.
13. Share the Senior/New Grad Checklist with your students.
14. Incorporate a Salary Research assignment, instructing students to determine the low, median, and high salaries of their dream jobs.
15. Incorporate a Career Self-Assessment assignment so students can identify their career readiness skills and what jobs match their skill set using Focus 2.
16. Require students to do a practice interview for their field using Career Services' online interviewing tool, Big Interview.
17. Offer extra credit to students who can conduct Handshake job research, create a list of 10 companies to work for in their field, and identify a job or internship they could apply to at each company.
18. Work with Career Services to have an employer come in for a classroom professional development presentation (e.g., resume writing for a specific field).

Bonus idea: Copy and paste Career Services information into your canvas course or add a link to Career Services.

Encourage your students to meet with a Career Services Career Counselor for a one-on-one appointment. You can also recommend students attend our workshops and events.

Common student career questions include:

• General career or job search advice
• Resume, CV, and cover letter assistance
• Networking and interviewing skills
• Identifying and preparing for part-time, internship, and full-time jobs

Connecting your employer partners to campus recruiting

If you know an employer that wants to recruit our students, feel free to send them this message (edit at will):

Thank you for reaching out and considering our students for your opportunities. To post your positions at Wayne State and begin recruiting our students and alumni, please join Handshake, our online job/internship platform. Use this Registration Link to begin. If you have questions as you are creating your account, please refer to this article with step-by-step instructions: Create an Employer User Account. If you are already a Handshake user, please add our school to your school list. If you need help adding us as a school, please refer to this article, School Network Management.  

College-to-Career (C2C) resources for the classroom

WSU Handshake mobile recruiting app 

Connect your students with jobs, internships, career events, and more!

Students can explore WSU's leading job networking site, Handshake, to find career events, job fairs, company information sessions, and full-time, part-time, internship, and campus job opportunities. All registered WSU students are provided a Handshake account. 

Students can download the Handshake mobile app to join the WSU Handshake career network. Have them log in with their WSU Access ID and password to access and complete their account. 

Getting Started in Handshake - for students

WSU Career Toolbox - Canvas module

The WSU Career Toolbox module is available to all WSU faculty and staff that use Canvas. This readily designed career module will help your students access essential job and career resources. Add this module to your course as a resource for students or incorporate the information and resources into your teaching. The module includes a 4-year career readiness plan for students, career competency information, career planning and readiness resources, links to the Handshake platform and Big Interview, and other valuable career resources for students. 

To import the module into your Canvas course, please follow these steps:

1. After logging into Canvas and selecting your course, from the right-hand menu, select "Import from Commons."
2. A new page will open. Along the top menu bar, click "filter." Then, ensure "Wayne State University" is selected under the "Shared with" title at the bottom of the menu.
3. In the search bar at the top of the screen, type in "WSU Career Toolbox."

• You may preview the content and then, on the right-hand menu, click "Import/Download."
• Click on the module that shows the author as "Susan Crowley."

Big Interview - interviewing and resume writing tool

Incorporate an assignment to help your students with verbal and written communication. Students can watch video tutorials on interviewing and resume writing techniques and record themselves with the mock interview tool. Have them practice tough interviewing questions with the ability to record, review, and share the answers. This step-by-step system combines expert video lessons with AI-based virtual practice interview tools. Tailor the assignment to the industry you teach. Have students create a resume for their desired job with the online resume development tool. 

Getting Started with Big Interview (video)

NEW: Download the Big Interview mobile app and create a free user account using your WSU Access ID and Password.

Career competency development

Career readiness is critical to ensuring successful entrance into the workforce. Career readiness is a foundation to demonstrate requisite core competencies that broadly prepare the college-educated for success in the workplace and lifelong career management. For employers, career readiness plays a vital role in sourcing talent, providing a means of identifying critical skills and abilities across all job functions.

In 2021, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) identified eight new key career competencies for career readiness. Wayne State University Career Services advises that students understand, develop, enhance, and learn to articulate these competencies to transition into the workplace successfully. Utilize the resources below in your classroom or with your cohorts to help them be career-ready.

Understanding the 8 NACE Career Competencies

Career Competency Quiz (please email ad1112@wayne.edu if you would like an answer key)

Career Ready Guide Course - Based on the 8 NACE Career Competencies

Forage - project work from professionals

Create a classroom assignment for students to complete a Forage project. These Virtual Experience projects designed by the world's top employers (like JPMorgan Chase, Citi, Accenture, BCG, and Deloitte) let students try out 'life-like' on-the-job tasks that provide a better understanding of what it's like to be a junior employee at that company. These experiences take 5-6 hours to complete and are self-paced.

• After completing their virtual experience, students will receive a personalized Certificate of Completion. Students can then include each experience on their resume and LinkedIn profile to showcase their new skills.
• Some companies provide exclusive opportunities (like online networking events, competitions, and prioritized internship applications) to students who complete their Virtual Experience.

Interested in seeing the opportunities? Create a free account with your WSU Access ID email and password. Get Started Here

Resumes and cover letters

5 tips and resources to work on a resume:

1. Find a job posting BEFORE trying to write a resume. The posting tells what to talk about and include in resume content.
2. One page is typically appropriate for an undergraduate resume; two pages are acceptable for graduate students.
3. Formatting: Use font sizes 10, 11, or 12 for text. Margins should be .5 - 1" as long as they are identical (top, bottom, left, right).
4. Be sure the format is conservative, consistent, and easy to read. Avoid using too many elements (bold, underline, italics, capitalization). Your resume should be formatted for an applicant tracking system.
5. Use bullet points for descriptions and action verbs to begin each bullet point. Be sure to incorporate skills, keywords, and competency phrases from the job posting if you have those skills/competencies.

• Resume template 1 - Print version for emails and in-person networking events
• Resume template 2 - Print version for emails and in-person networking events
• Resume Template 3 - Online version to upload when applying through a website Applicant Tracking System (ATS)
• Resume Rubric (pdf)
• Resume Action Verbs
   
• Cover Letter Guide
• Cover Letter Rubric

Job Search Guide

Do you teach a career course on campus? Are you a Campus Career Advocate? The job search guide contains content for a 6-hour online course vetted by industry and higher education professionals. It includes 36 short videos and 18 learning activities. Use this content to build lessons for classes or cohorts. Are you interested in using this content? Send an email to ad1112@wayne.edu for access and details.

Topics include:

Starting your job search

• Choosing the Right Career Path
• Finding and Building a Career You Love
• Finding Purpose in Career
• How to Find Company Review Websites
• Researching a Company
• Webinar Series on Remote Jobs

Resumes and your writing

• How to Write a Skills-Based Resume
• How to Write Work Experience Section in Resume
• Keywords and Applicant Track Technology
• Networking Email Tips
• The Do's and Don'ts of Cover Letter Writing

Networking and professional brand

• Branding Yourself on Social Media
• Designing a Purposeful Personal Brand
• Elevator Pitch Examples
• How to Create an Elevator Pitch
• Importance of Personal Brand
• Networking Essentials
• Networking Questions to Ask
• Networking Tips for Introverts

Preparing to interview

• Behavioral Interviewing Questions with Example Answers
• First Impressions Are Everything
• Guide on Informational Interviews
• How to Dress Professionally
• Researching a Company Before Your Interview

Your interviews

• Common Phone Interview Questions
• Interview Tips
• Overcoming Interview Mistakes
• Questions to Ask an Employer
• STAR Technique

Interview Follow-up and Offers

• 15 Follow Up Email Templates
• Negotiating an Offer
• Second Interview Do's and Don'ts
• Second Interview Questions
• 4 Strategies for Interview Follow-Up

CareerSpots Videos

Career Services has a video channel with career-related advice videos to empower students to launch their careers. These fast, fun, career-related videos, 1-4 minutes in length, contain real-world advice from global experts. Work these videos into your coursework or cohort content to help students be career-ready.

Click below to review the videos.