How to Advance Shared Goals Through Cross-Campus Collaboration 

Meredith Metsker:

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Career Everywhere Podcast. I’m your host, Meredith Metsker, and today I am joined by Claire Klieger. She’s the assistant vice president and executive director of Career Services at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania. Thank you for being here, Claire.

Claire Klieger:

Thanks so much for having me, Meredith. I’m delighted to join you.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I’m super glad to have you and I’m excited to talk to you today about how you have built cross-campus collaborations there at Swarthmore, and then how those collaborations and relationships have helped you and your team advance some really important shared goals. I think we can all agree that it’s much more effective to try to work with other departments and leaders, rather than trying to continuously invent the wheel. Who has time for that, right?

Claire Klieger:

Right. Definitely.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, right. But it’s not always easy to know exactly how to do that, where to start. And I know you’re an expert in this kind of cross-campus collaboration. So I’m looking forward to getting your insights today. But before I get into my more specific questions, Claire, is there anything else you would like to add about yourself, your background, or your role there at Swarthmore?

Claire Klieger:

I don’t think so.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, great. We will just get right into it. So I’m going to kick us off with a question that I ask all of our guests here on this podcast, and that’s, what does Career Everywhere mean to you?

Claire Klieger:

Yes, I love Career Everywhere. And like many of your previous guests, this is a phrase that I throw around quite a lot. I think people are excited about this concept. And to me at least, this is the idea that really of career connectedness, and that there are all sorts of things happening across campus in classrooms, and on sports fields, and within clubs that are career related. And it’s about making sure that you’re providing not just the students, but your colleagues who are having these conversations organically with students all the time about how to articulate those transferable skills and think about the ways in which what they’re doing within and beyond the classroom is very much in line with preparing them to succeed in life beyond college.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I love that, especially your emphasis on transferable skills. Anyone who’s listed to this podcast has heard me mention this before, but I always think back to my time in college. I was in the marching and pep bands at my alma mater, and I learned a lot about leadership, soft skills, communication, things like that, from just being a leader within the trumpet section at the marching band. And I wouldn’t have thought about that so much until much later in my career and I was like, “Oh, I’m starting to make those connections now.”

Claire Klieger:

Right. Yeah, definitely. I think that happens all the time. I think every Career Services person out there has countless examples of times when they talk to students who will say, “Well, I don’t really have any experience. I haven’t done anything.” And you’ll say, “Well, what sorts of things are you involved with on campus?” And then they list the things that they do, usually many, many things. And very quickly, you’re able to turn a frown upside down and get students to realize, “Oh yeah, I do a lot. And there’s a lot that I,” like, really? This is really 100%, these are time management skills, or communication skills, or the ability to prioritize things, or communicate effectively, or teamwork. And they go, “Oh yeah, I hadn’t really thought about that.” But it gives them a little boost in confidence to help them feel like they have things to talk about for interviews, or grad school applications, or anything like that.

Meredith Metsker:

Yes, absolutely. And as you were saying, Career Everywhere is about making sure that anyone across campus can help them make those connections. It’s not just Career Services.

Claire Klieger:

Yes. And I think that’s where some of the collaboration piece starts, frankly, is in recognizing the value of the work that others do on campus. And so it’s not just a matter of a listening tour and figuring out people’s priorities, which is, again, I know something people have talked about and as I think a sort of known strategy. But I think really sort of figuring out where are the strengths that currently exist and what are the signature programs on campus or within a department, and things that people are really proud of? And lifting that up and acknowledging the merits of that initiative, and what’s career related about that so that you’re not reinventing the wheel, but you’re creating, again, that career connection to things that might already exist, and providing this ability to let others shine in ways that give both departments or other offices as well as those individual students a chance to talk about the merits of what they do and the value that brings, both to students and the institution.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Love that, could not agree more. And I think that’s a good segue into our topic today, which is again, how to advance those shared goals through that cross-campus collaboration. So I think to get us started, Claire, can you just explain a bit more about what that means to you? What does cross-campus collaboration mean to you and why is it so important?

Claire Klieger:

Yeah. Well, I would love for the folks to raise their hand who say that they have all the resources and all of the staff that they would ever need to get what they want to. I think it’s very rare for people to be in a situation where they have unlimited resources, and unlimited people, and gosh, we just don’t know how to fill our days.

Part of this is necessity. You cannot accomplish the things that you want to accomplish without bringing others on board. So it’s about resources and bandwidth. But I think it’s also about, again, how can you leverage things that might already be existing once you figure out what those shared initiatives are?

So for example, when I came on board, we kind of reevaluated, and updated, and realigned the first destination survey that we were doing, which had been a joint effort already between multiple offices, including admissions, and institutional research, and advancement, and IT who, it was an internal survey. They did it on their own. And once I learned that IT really kind of grumbled about how much work it was and they really didn’t want to make changes to anything because it was a lot of work, then being able to offer an alternative which would allow us to reduce their workload by transitioning it over to being administered through Handshake, which also gives us more control, was something they were much more amenable to.

Or in the case of alumni relations, this is also how they get contact information for graduates once they leave, and then they can stay in touch with them to engage them as alumni.

So they’re very invested in making sure we have a good response rate. And I was just sort of figuring out, again, what does senior week look like? What are the things that students do to prepare for graduation? And there were all of these events that were already taking place.

And so rather than us suggesting something new on top of that to be able to say, “You have a zero-year reunion dinner that you do for graduating seniors, and you give them some nice swag just for coming to this.” They get a blanket, or a Tervis cup, or something they’re paying for already. “Gee, do you think we could maybe… Are you short on staff? Could we man that table for you and maybe have five minutes to make a little announcement about how we can continue to support them as alumni, and make it seem like in order to get their giveaway, they need to fill out the survey?” And they’re like, “Yeah, that sounds great. That’s less work for us. And it helps up the response rate.”

And there were multiple events like that that were happening across campus, which meant I didn’t have to buy any myself. We didn’t have to plan any of those events. They were already there. We could just plug people in to elements of those things. And even in the first year, we were then able to significantly up the response rate by graduation. And each year now, we sort of find something new and finesse the process, so we have much better return. And it didn’t cost me a dime, just some people to send over to leverage these events that were already taking place.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. And if I’m recalling correctly, you saw some pretty good ROI on that in terms of response rate, right?

Claire Klieger:

Yes. I think if I’m recalling correctly, we had a response rate before of around 60-ish, 60-some percent by graduation. And now two and a half years in, we’re above 80% by graduation.

Meredith Metsker:

Wow, that’s awesome.

Claire Klieger:

And it’s a much more robust survey too. So there’s more information we’re collecting, and so we have both more complete data and more people filling it out to begin with, which is fantastic.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, it’s win-win.

Claire Klieger:

Absolutely.

Meredith Metsker:

So I’m curious with that specific example, how did you just go about finding out about all these other things that were already happening? Were you just reaching out to contacts? You had these other departments, did they contact you? How did that work?

Claire Klieger:

This is going to sound really silly. But for me at least, it starts with reading email. We, at least at my small institution, everybody is automatically added to email distribution lists and get every possible announcement under the sun. And I had colleagues say, “Oh, aren’t these messages annoying? It just clogs your inbox.” And sometimes that’s a feeling that one might have, but more often than not, I’m just sort of curious to know what’s going on across campus. And so I would see an announcement go out to the student list about, “Hey, senior week is coming up.” And then I would go, “Hey, there are these things going on. Who’s doing that?” And plug in with those folks and then just say, “Tell me more about this.”

In addition to your traditional listening tour and getting to know colleagues on campus, I find a lot of the leveraging what already is there is just paying attention to announcements that go out, and sort of building up an awareness then of what might be possible.

So similarly this spring, there were a bunch of departments that were sending out announcements like, “Hey, come to our senior showcase where our poster presentations and come see what our senior thesis projects were.” And I saw that a bunch of different departments were doing this. And our employer relations team was talking about how do we innovate with thinking about different ways to engage employers. And we had a different group on campus that was talking about, what are the options for undocumented students and how do we lift up things if they don’t have the same sorts of opportunities for traditional employment?

And I thought, all these departments are doing these poster presentations already. I get the emails about them. Could we have a reverse career fair, which is not a unique idea, but that where instead of us planning that, we sort of bring together the different departments who were having some of these and maybe use that as an opportunity for students, whether they’re undocumented or not, to showcase their senior projects, and invite folks who might be interested in that from a variety of disciplines?

And departments are excited about this. None of that has happened yet. It was sort of something that came out of seeing things unfold at the end of this spring. But I think there’s a lot of enthusiasm around continuing to explore this idea further.

And again, it’s not anything new. So we’re not adding to things. We’re just sort of… I say, I don’t think you need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to strengthen the spokes. So it’s about getting a lay of the land. And sometimes, that’s just as simple as reading your email. And even if it seems irrelevant, just building up awareness about things that are happening on campus.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. I think that’s some really solid, tangible advice. It’s about knowing what is going on. Who’s doing what, what types of things are they interested in? And I know we’ll talk about that a little bit later in terms of figuring out different departments and leaders as goals and interests, but I like that. It’s just about staying up to date.

Claire Klieger:

Exactly. And asking a lot of follow-up questions.

Meredith Metsker:

Yes. Yeah, and the outreach part is important for sure. I am kind of curious, you’ve talked a lot about how you’re very efficient about all this. You’re not starting new things, you’re kind of just editing what already exists. I am curious what your team looks like, the size of the team, what kind of personnel you have to work with.

Claire Klieger:

Sure. So there are seven full-time positions on my team, and not all of those are student facing. Some of them are kind of administrative in nature. So it’s not a huge team, but I know it’s all relative.

So we are a small campus. We’ve got about, a little less than 1,700 students. So some people might say like, “Oh, that’s more than I would expect.” So it’s all relative, but everybody always feels like they could use more. And I will say we certainly have done some new things as well, but I think wherever possible, you want to take advantage of the things that might already exist.

And sometimes this takes time. I think this effort to maybe do less new things, and more reimagining of existing things, and seeking out those synergies is a lot easier now that I’ve been here for two and a half years and I’m a lot more aware of what all takes place and who the players are. And those relationships are kind of built. At the outset, I think it takes more time or you might be doing some new things too.

So an example of a new thing that we did do was to have a sort of career carnival. Again, not a unique thing to us, not a fresh idea that I brought. I certainly had done something similar at my previous institution. And since I started in 2022, people were just kind of coming back full-time to in-person events. And there was a real hunger for fun.

And so an idea like a career carnival to introduce folks to us, and what we do, and make it enjoyable, and gamify it, and invite other offices to help us staff it. Because even with seven people, that’s not enough to do the sorts of things that we were imagining, was a great way to educate folks across campus about what we did.

And it was initially a huge success. We had hundreds of students show up, they loved it. So we tried to repeat it last fall. I think by then, there was less of a desire to, there wasn’t the same kind of need. And it was fine. We had sort of reimagined some of it. Staff still really liked staff participating from other offices and staffing events, but we just didn’t see the same kind of student turnout.

And so I was ready to scrap it because I thought, “Oh well, we don’t need to spend time, and effort, and resources on this if it’s not going to get folks to show up. I think maybe the moment for this has passed.” But in talking to the on-campus employment office, they had heard about our carnival. They have a new director. They’re like, “Oh, we want to do something similar.” They wanted to have a campus employment fair.

And so we said, “Well maybe could we combine these events?” And we also reached out to the Office of Student Engagement who has a student activities fair to say, could it be a way to get involved on campus either in campus employment or student activities? And our carnival events might be that connectedness and tie-in.

And while student activities said they wanted to still have their separate fair, we’re doing it all on the same day and it’s all being cross-promoted. So hopefully everybody wins, and at least on-campus employment and our office are partnering on this event in ways that I think are going to bring it new life.

We’ll see how many students show up, but people had been done with it. And now I just had a conversation with someone earlier today, a colleague who’s working on it, and she feels really invigorated by this new campus partnership and collaborating with this colleague in this other office.

And that process means that they’re now thinking of other ways in which they can collaborate. And I think that’s the ultimate goal. Through this relationship building around shared initiatives, then you become known entities. You build this rapport, and people start thinking of you for other things.

So similarly, we did an alignment with institutional research on the [inaudible 00:18:19] survey because a [inaudible 00:18:21] school and when they do the senior survey, it sort of cannibalizes a little bit on the first destination survey.

So two years ago when that was the case, I reached out and said, “Hey, it’s too late to do anything about this now, but the next time this comes up, perhaps we can chat because I think we both want higher response rates.” And we had a coordinated marketing effort around it this spring that we had worked on that was perspectives and plans, so that students saw them as two distinctive surveys, but that were related and why they were both important. And we helped them have some in-person events to up the response rate.

And I think the [inaudible 00:18:58] survey had higher response rates than normal, and we didn’t take the same kind of hit that we would typically take when both of those surveys are competing.

So the head of institutional research just reached out to me this morning to say, “Hey, we’re imagining piloting something else. We wanted to get your thoughts on this other project that we’re thinking about, and we’re curious about how you’re engaging with seniors in the fall because we don’t want to cannibalize on anything you might be doing, and maybe there are other ways we can help each other out.” And of course there are. And I don’t think that wouldn’t have been a thought in her head before if we hadn’t worked on this other thing and seeing the value of, “Hey, we’re all trying to accomplish the same thing here, and by working together, we can make this better for everybody.”

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, that’s a great, very timely example of the benefits of this kind of cross-campus collaboration and just putting yourself out there, getting out beyond the career center. Yeah.

Claire Klieger:

Exactly.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, and I kind of want to just keep going on that thread a little bit. So I think in our prep call, you mentioned that one of the benefits of this is that it has elevated the role of Career Services and maybe made it more well-known across campus. And I would love to just hear a little bit more about that. What have you seen as a result of these intentional efforts to be more collaborative across campus?

Claire Klieger:

I think we’ve seen so much. It’s been really exciting to see the awareness of what we do and who we are really bubble up. So when I got here and I was doing my listening tour, I would go out and have conversations with folks across campus. And sometimes they would say, “You’re the first person I’ve met from Career Services and I’ve been here for however many years.” And I’m not suggesting that nobody went out before I did. I think there’s more interest and excitement sometimes around somebody who’s new and coming in. So it’s not a knock on the team at all.

But I think now, we were as an office, I think doing outreach to different places. And how we know we’re an office that’s more well-known is that now, we get a lot of these requests directly as Word gets out about different collaborations. We’re invited into things that I think people wouldn’t normally assume are just career-related. So the vice president for Student Affairs, which is the area in which we report, said to me that she has learned, she’s relatively new, that she can never assume that whatever they’re talking about on campus isn’t related to Career Services, because it probably is.

And I think that in and of itself says a lot, that she’s realized through the different things that we’re involved with. And I think it’s exactly that Career Everywhere takeaway that you want, that anything is career-related, even if it isn’t career-focused on the surface.

So for her, wellness is really important. And sure, occupational wellness is part of the wellness wheel. But I think we get invited to committee meetings or working groups that are around academics, or around skill building, or around other things, campus involvement or leadership, that I don’t think would’ve been an obvious tie-in because people have seen how we can go in. And again, highlight what they’re doing and what those transferable skills are, and how it might be related. Same thing with alumni relations. They’ll reach out to us about alumni weekend, athletics, all kinds of things.

And our office, there was a new set of awards for the division this year that didn’t previously exist, and our office won the most collaborative office award, which was really great. Again, awards are nice. But, for me it was more the idea that since this was nominated by leaders of other offices across campus and voted on by them, and say not just my boss who picked folks, is a signal of where we sit on campus and how people see us as willing partners in efforts around shared initiatives.

And that’s the part that really means a lot to me, that it’s an indication of our ability to be seen as again, collaborators and partners in ways that I think maybe wasn’t happening before.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, absolutely. That award is a really great validation of all that effort. I’m curious. It seems like you’re very well established now with these cross-campus partnerships. People know that they should involve Career Services. You should be at the table. That’s great. What advice or steps would you advise other career leaders to take who maybe they want to start doing this now? You mentioned, make sure you read your email, stay up to date on events, but is there anything else that they should be doing to really put themselves out there and start prioritizing these cross-campus partnerships?

Claire Klieger:

Sure. So again, I’ve heard other guests mention figure out what other people’s priorities are. I think that’s great advice and is something that I second. If you sort of know what common pain points are and how you can be this solution to some of that, that is always going to resonate well.

But the other very tangible advice is just to be willing to raise your hand. I mean, I think there are times when folks will say, “Hey, we really need somebody to help out with commencement. Will you come and volunteer on the day of commencement?” Things come up all the time.

And I think especially when you’re new, but throughout your time someplace, the willingness to raise your hand and say, “Sure, I’ll do that.” Even if it isn’t part of what you see as your everyday job. That’s how you learn about things organically with little side conversations, or you get to know people in ways that you wouldn’t ordinarily, and they see you as a person. And the humanizing is a big piece of it there too. Because then if someone doesn’t say, “I’m not really sure what Career Services does, but I know Claire, I’ve seen her at this event or that event. I’ll reach out to her. Maybe she has some ideas or thoughts on this,” goes a long way. So just being willing to be a team player, and raise your hand, and volunteer for things that maybe don’t have an obvious connection is a big piece of it too.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. This reminds me of something, I think it was Junior Delgado said in his episode where he was talking about, he’s really interested in athletics, so he makes a point to go to sporting events and meet coaches, meet players, and just… It’s not like he’s out there evangelizing Career Services at these sporting events, but he’s making it known that he works in the career center and he’s here to support. And people make that connection and that’s always a positive thing.

Claire Klieger:

Yeah, exactly. Or when I can, I help with move-in, right? I’ll just go and meet families and be out there in a T-shirt. And I think anytime people can see you as a person, just another normal person, it sort of lowers the bar to access or demystifies things.

Because I think one of the really challenging things is not just that people often I think don’t really understand what we do, but there’s an inherent anxiety stress I think about engaging in this topic or idea. And so if you could just humanize yourself and the people on your team in ways that reminds folks that yes, you put your pants on one leg at a time just like everybody else. That helps a lot with starting conversations with students and with colleagues.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I can imagine with move-in especially, what better way to make sure that new students know the career center exists at all than helping them with move-in, get it right in front of them super early.

Claire Klieger:

Right, exactly. So I’m not there all day. But I’ll do an hour shift or same thing. Anytime somebody’s looking for someone to staff something that is student facing, or parent facing, or alumni facing, it’s a way to be known in a different avenue, and to get to know colleagues, and be seen in a different light. So that I think has helped as well.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, for sure. I wanted to go back to a couple other examples of this cross campus collaboration, a couple of them that you mentioned in your prep call. One of them was, there was some kind of a budgeting class or something like that. It was something like an adulting series.

Claire Klieger:

Oh, yes. So this, I personally can’t take any credit for. I give full credit to my amazing colleagues, but my team has really taken this mantra and run with it and said like, “Oh yes, we’ll put ourselves out there.”

So one member of my team raised her hand to join a campus wide Wellness Coalition. And through that, they were talking about different things that are related to wellness and stress. And the group decided that they were going to do this adulting series and piloted this spring, and have things like budgeting, and benefits, and that kind of thing. And so they were kind of working on that on their own.

But I had been at some other event and was having a side conversation. I had been to the Black Cultural Center’s Barbecue, which is an amazing annual event, and I was chatting with somebody from Public Safety at this barbecue, and ended up… I don’t even remember how he got there, but he ended up telling me about how they’re trying to humanize themselves in Public Safety and that he does this budgeting class every year. He offers this workshop.

So when the Wellness Coalition said they were going to do a series and that one of the topics was budgeting, I said, “You should reach out to this Public Safety [inaudible 00:29:33] who’s doing this anyway. Maybe you all can work together.” And then Public Safety has another opportunity be seen in a way that is non-threatening or humanizing and adding value in a friendly way too. So he was delighted to be contacted. They were happy to have someone to work with this on. And so again, everybody won and it allowed people a chance to shine on things that they were already doing. But it was just because a thing came out at a barbecue. That’s how I knew about it.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I love that. It’s because you put yourself out there, and it reminds me of one of the tenets of Career Everywhere, which is basically making Career Services less of the sole provider of career information and a facilitator. And that’s a perfect example. You facilitated this collaboration and partnership that will ultimately benefit more students.

Claire Klieger:

Exactly. And everybody wins.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, exactly. So you kind of touched on this a little bit earlier, but that an important part of this building these partnerships, maintaining this cross-campus collaboration is really understanding strategic vision goals, other things going on campus. What are the values of senior leadership? Can you just talk a little bit about how you go about uncovering those things and connecting the career center’s initiatives to those things?

Claire Klieger:

Sure. So I was lucky in that the time that I started was a time where some of this was very easy access. I knew that the college was commencing a strategic planning process. I expressed interest in being involved with that. So I got to be on a working group for one of the… It was broken into themes. One of the thematic working groups, got a colleague on from my office. She was on another working group. And so that was a great way, while things were in development to see what was happening, be a fly on the wall of even before the strategic plan was formally announced, like, there are some definite things here that are bubbling up as common themes.

And because someone else on my team was on different working group, like, “Here’s where the cross germination is,” which was really valuable insight into what were going to be institutional priorities. If you pay attention and listen, your own leadership, your boss is going to give you, and whoever’s the head of your division is going to give you a good sense of what their priorities are.

I’ve had three bosses in two and a half years as it turns out. So some of this has been kind of keeping my eye on what are the larger institutional priorities and the shifting institutional priorities within my direct reporting line. And it’s not as bad as it sounds. I had somebody who was… I think they knew they were on their way out. I just didn’t when they hired me, and then there was an interim, and of course no interim wants to rock the boat. And naturally, the new person who’s come on, who’s my current boss has her own strategic vision for things. But again, it’s about listening and paying attention.

But for her at least, I knew both from her kind of background and the things that she was saying, that wellness was something that was really going to be a big piece of thing that she cares a lot about.

And similarly, I know that’s part of the strategic plan for the college. That’s a component that was there. So all right, we’re already plugged into the Wellness Coalition with someone from our team, so how can we reimagine then what we’re doing? We had an existing strategic plan that our team had worked on in the first year I arrived. And we sort of then spent part of this spring, summer kind of realigning now that the college’s strategic plan is out and given what we know about the prioritization for wellness as a particular area of interest within our division, what does that mean?

And I think if you kind of keep all those things in the back of your mind, things sort of naturally crop up. It doesn’t have to be a massive amount of work to say, “Oh gosh, what are we going to do?” It’s really about, again, what are the things we are already doing that might have a wellness component, and how might we lift that up or repackage that in a way to make those connections more clearly defined?

Or in our case, we needed to renovate some space. We had an existing conference room that was needing new equipment, new furniture, a new carpet. It was on the to-do list anyway. And so it was like, “Hmm, if we’re going to do this anyway, could this now also be a wellness focused space?”

And so we’re going to be piloting that this year and working on developing it, and then plugging in with the Wellness Coalition. My boss was so excited about it, she just threw me money and said, I have budget savings, “So here’s some money for you. Can you start this now if I’m able to”… I didn’t ask for anything, but it’s aligned with what she wants to do, and it’s helping her accomplish her goals. And it’s on my to-do list anyway to revamp this space. Why not do it in a way that also aligns with these other strategic priorities and becomes a cool space to be on campus? Who doesn’t want to be in the nature oasis of the reboot room? I don’t know. Seems neat. Maybe we’ll draw in people who wouldn’t normally be attracted to our space.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. And I bet your boss will probably be advocating for this space too, because she is already on board. She knows it exists, she has skin in the game, it’s a win-win. Again, that seems to be the common theme here.

Claire Klieger:

Right, yes. What’s happening anyway or is up and coming that you can plug into in ways that make sense for everybody else, or how can you reimagine what you’re doing in line with partnering someone else so that everybody has shared wins? So it’s that seeking synergies that I think is really the common theme here, at least for me, in identifying really valuable cross collaborations that last and continue to build.

Meredith Metsker:

Right. On that note though, the maintaining of those relationships, it sounds like when you first started, you did this listening tour. You’re just on an ongoing basis. You’re keeping track of who’s doing what, looking at emails, events, calendars, things like that. But is there anything else you do on a regular basis to maintain these relationships? Are you regularly meeting with other leaders across campus? How do you keep the career center top of mind?

Claire Klieger:

Yeah, it’s a great question. I think it really depends on your own personal style and the different personalities on campus. There are some people that I have standing meetings with. My counterpart in alumni relations and advancement, we also kind of started not… I started a little bit before her, but we’re also both semi-newish. We kind of just hit it off and said, “Hey, I think we would just want to have this informal coffee catch-up twice a month,” which is less strategic planning and more just like, “Hey, what have you heard? What’s going on in your area? What’s going on in my area?” And it’s really informal, but over time, it’s led to I think some helpful, both collaborations. And I think some maintaining of positive relationships in ways where things might’ve come up. The fact that she had a heads-up about something or heard it from me meant that there was no miscommunication about something.

And sometimes vice versa, where tone is often not easy to read an email or maybe there’s an announcement comes out, someone says, “Hey, why didn’t I know about this?” Or people’s feelings can get hurt. And so that’s been great.

Other folks I might have lunch with a few times a semester. Some people we have annual or semesterly check-ins with. I think there’s no one right way to do it. It’s really kind of what works for you and the people that you’re working with. And as long as you’re not dropping the ball, and that the main theme there is follow up. If you say you’re going to do something or an idea germinates, don’t just let it go by the wayside. Make sure that you circle back around to something and keep that line of communication open so it’s not just a one and done conversation.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, it sounds like intentionality is kind of the key there. It’s just about intentionally reaching out, following up, maintaining, keeping something on the calendar. Yeah, I love that. Cool. Well, I kind of want to be mindful of our time. We’re sort of coming towards the end here, but is there any other advice that you would share with other Career Services leaders who want to do what you’re doing and improve this cross-campus collaboration?

Claire Klieger:

Again, I think it’s just figure out who your advocates already are. Every campus has people who are already Career Services champions and think good things. And I think starting with those folks to figure out what they like about it, and what they would recommend, and who else they know, as well as I think don’t be afraid of your detractors.

Some of our strongest relationships both here and in my previous role that I’ve developed over time are by not being afraid of talking to the people who are your critics to find out… I think especially when you’re new, because then it doesn’t have to, you can be, “You can tell me the things. I’m not going to be upset, I just got here.”

And that’s a great opportunity to really seek out those critics and find out what it is that’s been frustrating for them or their pain points real or imagined, and just giving them a chance to be heard, and acknowledging some of that. And I think that provides great opportunity to potentially innovate, but also really builds a lot of goodwill. So it’s both ends of the spectrum I think provide really good potential for collaboration.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And you don’t have to tell me who was the champion and who were the detractors. But in your case, who were some of those key players that ended up being really important for you in these collaborations?

Claire Klieger:

I mean, I think everybody is important. I think the most vocal detractors are, my experience tend to be faculty members.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. That’s not the first time I’ve heard that.

Claire Klieger:

Yeah. I don’t think that’s unusual. I think then again, it’s about lifting up the work that they do. Like many institutions, I’m a big believer in again, borrow good ideas. So if you see great things that are happening at other institutions, like the many places that have done good work with Career Champion programs for instance. And I remember one institution talking about like, “Oh yeah, we put a question on our FDS that said, ‘Who’s been impactful to you in your career?’” And I was like, “That’s a brilliant idea, stealing it.”

And so we did that, and we’ve used that as a way to sort of say, “Hey, this many students have said amazing things about look at the impact you’re having,” and whatever ways in which you can provide tangible opportunities and evidence to showcase the merits of what they’re doing and say, “Look, I just want to help your students, help them realize how to talk about those incredible skills that they’re getting from a liberal arts education and the value of that.”

Then it sort of changes the narrative of conversation. If you can again, acknowledge their work, and figure out where your team’s strengths and excitements are. Because if you have folks who have particular talents that are being untapped, that can be applied in new ways.

I have a staff member who has training in conflict resolution. So anytime people on campus are talking about like, “Tensions are high with campus activism,” you know we have somebody who is trained in this and could be a great resource. And so everybody’s teams are filled with people with particular talents, and how can you leverage those and let them lean into them in ways that let them shine? And that’s true for collaborations too.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I love that. It’s like approaching faculty members not so much with the view of, “You’re not doing enough,” because we all know they’re doing a ton. It’s how can we elevate and scale what you’re already doing, and help students make those connections.

Claire Klieger:

Yes.

Meredith Metsker:

That makes a lot of sense.

Claire Klieger:

Exactly. So I think we’re going to be starting, campus communications reached out to us to say, “Would you want us to work with you on a campus-wide newsletter that could be quarterly?” And I said, “Yes, absolutely. That sounds great.” And so we’ve been thinking about what are we going to put in that?

And from some of the conversations we’ve been having with faculty members and learning about things that they’re doing, one of the pieces I think we’re going to have is sort of this Career Everywhere or career connectedness kind of spotlight where it’s not about us, but where we can profile professors who have interesting class assignments that have career tie-ins, or administrators who oversee campus leadership, who are doing cool career tie-ins with their leadership development in their area, or coaches. Who are the people we can find? We already hear these stories, and let them shine. And that does the work for us. Because if the goal is to show the connectedness, it’s not to say, “Look at how amazing Career Services is.” This is not work we can do by ourselves. So we have to spread the wealth. And the best way to do that, I think, is to spotlight what others are doing.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, absolutely. Again, it’s that Career Everywhere concept playing out in real life. When you launch that, you’re going to send forward me the newsletter, because I want to read it.

Claire Klieger:

Sure.

Meredith Metsker:

I think that would make a great example to put in the Career Everywhere newsletter of a highlight of a career center doing something cool to highlight career-

Claire Klieger:

We’re going to pilot it and see how it goes. We’ve already got kind of a list of folks I think that we want to profile across different areas that we know are doing really interesting and great things.

Meredith Metsker:

Awesome. Well, I’m excited to see it when you get it live.

Claire Klieger:

Thanks.

Meredith Metsker:

All right, Claire, before I kind of close this out, is there anything else you would like to add about our topic today that we have uncovered?

Claire Klieger:

Don’t be afraid to try things. Right? No idea is a bad idea, and listening is really important. Again, I know that’s something else that others have stressed. So if you can be the good news, if you can show how you can help and not come in and say, “We have this great idea and we were hoping you would partner with us.” Flip the script and find out what they need and what their areas are, and then how your great idea might plug into that, as opposed to coming in and asking people to, “do more,” because everybody is tired. It’s not just Career Services colleagues. Higher ed staff across the board. So listen and don’t be afraid to try new things. If it doesn’t work, you can try something else.

Meredith Metsker:

Awesome. I love that. It’s great advice. On that note, if people would like to connect with you or learn more from you, where’s a good place for them to do that?

Claire Klieger:

Sure. Folks can reach out to me on LinkedIn or email me at my email address at Swarthmore. My contact information is publicly available. I’m flexible, but yeah, please don’t hesitate if anybody wants to reach out or if other people have great ideas. I’m a big believer in you keep learning from others, and certainly there’s not one right approach. So if this conversation has made people go, “Oh, I’ve done a lot of that,” and you want to tell me about what you’ve been doing, I love hearing about other people’s great ideas too.

Meredith Metsker:

There’s that collaborative mindset goes beyond campus.

Claire Klieger:

Absolutely.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, great. Well, I want to close this out with this answer a question, leave a question thing that I like to do at the end of every interview. So I’ll ask you a question that our last guest left for you, and then you will leave a question for the next guest.

Claire Klieger:

Great.

Meredith Metsker:

So our last guest was Paul Maniaci of the Columbia University School of Professional Studies, and we talked a lot about podcasting and the podcast that he produces for his career center. So on that note, he left this question for you.

If you listen to podcasts, what types of podcasts do you enjoy listening to? Or if you don’t listen to podcasts, what’s a recent book or movie that you’ve read or watched that you’d recommend?

Claire Klieger:

As somebody who I do like podcasts, I’m a big lover of true crime. So I have to say criminal is a podcast that I adore. And I adore it, especially because unlike some crime serials, it’s like anything that might be a crime. So it’s everything from the origination of the lie detector test, and how that’s been used in different ways, to body farms, and how those got started, and how those are used, to actual cases about things, to the world’s most prolific streaker who streaked various [inaudible 00:47:23] and was prosecuted for it. Or not prosecuted for it, it’s just so interesting. So that’s a big one.

And recently, I’ve also discovered SmartLess, which is Jason Bateman and a couple of other folks, and they just interview famous people and they’re hilarious. And-

Meredith Metsker:

I love Jason Bateman-

Claire Klieger:

Light and fluffy and the other, which is also semi light and fluffy, but informative. And I’m a big fan of both of those.

Meredith Metsker:

Awesome. I’m going to have to check those out. I feel like I need to broaden my horizons. I just listen to news podcasts, because I’m a former newspaper reporter, so I’m just like yeah, tell me what’s going on. So I’ll have to check those out. Okay. Well, what question would you like to leave for the next guest?

Claire Klieger:

Yes. Well, the reason I’m wearing glasses on today’s podcast is because these are actually blue light glasses. I’m recovering from a concussion, so I have been spending lots of time not on screens. So my question for folks is, when you unplug, what do you do when you can’t be on screens, connected to work? What are the ways that you unplug without technology? Because I’ve been doing a lot of that of late.

Meredith Metsker:

That’s a good question, and a hard one I feel like these days.

Claire Klieger:

Yes, it is amazing how much we use screens in ways that we maybe didn’t realize for everything. So trying to keep yourself from being on a screen is in fact quite a challenge.

Meredith Metsker:

I was even trying to think what it would be for me. I think reading books is a big one for me, or hiking. Because even if I just go for a walk around my neighborhood, I’m still listening to an audiobook or a podcast. So that probably counts as a screen.

Claire Klieger:

I mean not if you’re not looking at it. Right?

Meredith Metsker:

That’s a great question. Excited to hear what the next guest says for that one.

Claire Klieger:

Yeah, me too. I’ll have to tune in.

Meredith Metsker:

Yes, please do. All right. Well Claire, thank you so much for taking the time to join me on the podcast today. This was a great conversation. I think there was lots of good, high level advice, but also some really tactical advice on how to just build those partnerships, maintain those partnerships, and find opportunities to plug Career Services into the fabric of the rest of the university. So just thank you again for taking the time to join me today.

Claire Klieger:

It’s been a pleasure, Meredith. Very much appreciate being asked. So seek synergies, folks. That’s where it’s at.

Meredith Metsker:

There you go. You heard it here. All right, Claire, thank you again and have a good rest of your week.

Claire Klieger:

Thanks, Meredith. You too.