How to Scale Career Services as a Team of One

Meredith Metsker:

Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Career Everywhere podcast. I’m your host, Meredith Metsker, and today I am joined by Nick Edwards, the guided career advisor at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas. Thank you for being here, Nick.

Nick Edwards:

Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Me too. Yeah. I’m super excited to talk to you today about a topic that I know is going to hit home for a lot of folks who listen to this podcast, which is how you have scaled career services there at Hardin-Simmons as a team of one. Yes, you heard that right everyone. He is a team of one. He is out there doing the thing and doing a great job. So again, I know this is a challenge that a lot of folks in our audience can relate to, whether they are also a team of one or they just have a really small team. So I’m excited to learn more about how you scale your work, how you prioritize, how you use technology, honestly, how you stay sane, and whatever else you would like to add. So before I get into my questions, Nick, is there anything else you would like to add about yourself, your background or your role there at Hardin-Simmons?

Nick Edwards:

Well, as far as my background goes, I’ve had a very diverse background. I’ve worked in various industries. Food service, retail. I worked seven years a correctional facility. Worked seven years in public education. And now I am two weeks away from completing my first year at the higher education level. So I’ve definitely had a very diverse way of getting to where I am right now. But the thing I enjoy the most is that each of these experiences have really given me different perspectives, which ultimately can help lead to having better opportunities for students and helping them find their career path. Here at Hardin-Simmons, we are definitely a very small private Christian institution where we serve approximately 1100 undergrad and about 300 graduate students. So we are a very close-knit community. Got a really strong liberal arts program, especially in business, nursing, health sciences. And one of the things that we really pride ourselves on is the emphasis on integrating faith within learning, which is really a central component and theme to the students and their experience here on campus.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. I love that. Thank you for all that context. It’s especially interesting to hear about your non-linear path into career services. And it’s funny because I find that to be the case for pretty much all of the guests I’ve talked to. I mean, there’s no degree for career services in higher education as far as I know.

Nick Edwards:

There’s really not.

Meredith Metsker:

So, yeah, that’s really cool. And if I recall, in our prep call, you said you were an English teacher, correct? At the secondary level?

Nick Edwards:

Yes. Yes. I taught secondary English. Absolutely loved it. It was a small, small school district where I taught ninth, 10th, 11th, 12th. Yearbook book, junior class sponsor. I mean, all sorts of hats that you typically have to wear in a small district. And then of course, also whenever we moved here to Abilene, I started teaching like a career exploration class to seventh grade students as well as robotics and manufacturing. So I mean, tons of different industries, and I always like to joke around the typical adage of jack of all trades, master of none thing.

Meredith Metsker:

Well, I imagine that gives you a lot of great and diverse insights that you can give to students if they are not sure what they want to do in their career, be like, “Hey, it’s about skills.”

Nick Edwards:

Exactly.

Meredith Metsker:

As long as you’ve got these transferable skills and a desire to work, you are good to go.

Nick Edwards:

Absolutely. Yes.

Meredith Metsker:

Cool. Well, before I get into the specific questions about our topic today, Nick, I do want to kick us off with a question that I ask all of our guests here on the podcast, and that’s what does Career Everywhere mean to you?

Nick Edwards:

Absolutely. And I love that term and the question of Career Everywhere. To me, Career Everywhere means that career development should not just be a one-time event or something that happens two months before you graduate and you come to the end of your academic journey. It’s the ability to weave in career readiness and exploration into every aspect of the student’s experience from day one. It’s helping students see their career path and see how their career growth happens in all kinds of places from their classrooms, through internships to the organizations that they’re a part of. Even down to the volunteer work. The idea that I have is to really encourage students to build those skills, to build their network and explore opportunities at every stage of education so they’re ultimately over-prepared for whatever career path that they choose after graduation.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. That’s a great way to put it. I like your emphasis too on it’s not just about Career Everywhere. It’s like at any time.

Nick Edwards:

Exactly.

Meredith Metsker:

Ideally early.

Nick Edwards:

It would be in a perfect world.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Right. Yeah. If only everything was perfect, right? All right. So now I would love to dig into our topic today, which is again, how you, Nick, scale your work as a career services team of one. So maybe let’s start at a high level and then we can dig into the more specific strategies here in a little bit. So I’m going to kick it off with the big question here. How do you scale your work as a team of one?

Nick Edwards:

Well, that’s a very good question. And as I always say, being new to this realm of career services, I definitely don’t always have the perfect answers. But ultimately, as a team of one, it’s all about being resourceful. Leveraging the tools and the partnerships that are available to me right now to really make the biggest impact I can on students. First and foremost, technology. Technology has been a big game changer for myself. It’s really important to keep it front and center in everything that I do. I rely heavily on tools and partnerships such as uConnect to really build that central hub for everything and everything that has to do with careers. Helps streamline the communication and ensure that students can have access to anything and everything. With especially our untraditional students, as you said before, after cooking dinner, putting the kids to bed, doing their own homework, we need to meet the students where they’re at, and sometimes that is digitally. And so technology is extremely important because we never know those challenges or other commitments that students may have after class, and it really just helps me meet them where they are.

Another key component is faculty partnerships. Being new to the university, this is something that I’m consistently trying to help grow. But I mean faculty, they’re the frontline. They’re the frontline advisors for students and often have the best understanding of their strengths and their aspirations. And so if I’m able to work closely with faculty members, I can ultimately integrate career development conversations into those advisings and course materials, which would then obviously help me reach more students.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Yeah, I love that. It sounds like you’re really … I mean, you have to use other resources. Even if in an ideal world, every single one of Hardin-Simmons’ students came into the office, that’s what? You said 1100?

Nick Edwards:

Yes, ma’am.

Meredith Metsker:

1100 students to one career services advisor. That’s not doable.

Nick Edwards:

It would make for a very long day.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, it would. Yeah, I imagine. Cool. Yeah. So going back to the technology thing, you mentioned that you use uConnect. For those who are listening who don’t know, we’re a virtual career center platform. So we bring all of your career resources into one place, make it super accessible, easy to find, easy to use. So can you tell me a little bit about, I guess, why you went that direction? Knowing you were a team of one and you had to reach over a thousand students, how did that play into your decision making?

Nick Edwards:

Well, one of the biggest things was just having, like I said, just that centralized hub for everything and anything. When I took the position, we had one dedicated page on the general website for Hardin-Simmons, and most of the links were down, very outdated. And so being able to connect with uConnect, it’s helped streamline that communication. And I mean, I knew that I wanted to centralize the information for the students. We needed a system where students could access those resources. They could schedule appointments, they could find job opportunities, connect with employers all in one place without having to log into this service and pull up this service and attach this service to this service. It helped streamline everything that I needed for the students in one place.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Yeah, that’s great. I was looking at your virtual career center the other day, and it just looks awesome.

Nick Edwards:

Oh, thank you.

Meredith Metsker:

And we hear that from a lot of folks, especially the thing about pooling all of those resources into one place that makes it easy for the students to understand what it is. Because while we in the career services field might be like, “Oh yeah, we know what Handshake is, what PeopleGrove is, what Forage is or Parker Dewey.” We all know what that is, but a student isn’t going to see the word PeopleGrove and be like, oh yeah, mentors, okay.

Nick Edwards:

Exactly.

Meredith Metsker:

They’re going to be like, “What’s that? Am I supposed to log into that?” So that’s great that you’re using it for that capability. I’m curious, given that I’m assuming you probably have fairly limited resources as a team of one, so how did you go about deciding what tech to invest in?

Nick Edwards:

Oh, yeah, that’s a great question too. So when I was deciding what tech to invest in, my approach was all about finding tools, like I said, that would it help me work with students smarter, not harder. You always hear the phrase. And that would ultimately help serve the unique needs of all the different students that we have. I knew that, as I said, I wanted to make sure to streamline all the information, making it easier for students to get what they need and when they need it. And so I had to really consider the overall ease of use for both students and myself. I’m obviously not a coding professional, so having to create resources and get them uploaded and things like that had to be easier for me to use as well. So I mean, the tech had to be intuitive and accessible, especially since many of our students have busy schedules. Needed to be something that they’d actually engage with, not just another platform that is paid for and not used. I really wanted to make sure to also keep in mind the long-term scalability of it. I wanted it to grow with us, so whenever new resources or new data is out, I can easily go in and work up through the features. And so just having that flexibility and adaptability were some of the key factors in making the right decision to go with uConnect.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Well, I’m glad to hear that it’s been going well. On that note, I guess what have been some of the results? Is it reaching those students at odd hours? Is it helping at scale? Yeah. What have you seen?

Nick Edwards:

It’s been a slow takeoff, but productive at the same time right now. We haven’t even been involved for a full year, but I’ve had more and more professors put it on their syllabi that resources are available at so, so, so and really pushing for the students to become more active, which thankfully they are. This semester we’re seeing some of the highest activity on the website, and so it’s exciting to see the growth and the foot traffic increase that we’re having right now.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I bet. That’s a great foundation. You mentioned just now and earlier too, that faculty partnerships is a big way you’re expanding your impact there as a team of one. So can you tell me a little bit more about which faculty members are you working with, and I guess how are you working together? Are you providing them stuff for their syllabi? Yeah. Just tell me what those relationships look like.

Nick Edwards:

Yeah, of course. So what I did is I looked through the NACE competencies, and being a former teacher myself, I pre-made easy to induce lesson plans that have everything to do with career searching or resume building or interviewing or networking and LinkedIn profile creation, especially for our Capstone project faculty. And so having those easy to copy and paste lesson plans have definitely helped. But I’ve had a lot of business faculty communications, our health services, our nursing programs, they’re all really using our services in that they’re creating lessons where they say, especially for our juniors and seniors, soon to be graduates, to have a resume built and actually come in and have it reviewed with me personally. Those are some of the best ways that I’ve found to really work with faculty. Of course I, when needed, can go in and speak with students in the classrooms or the such, but really the biggest impact has just been when the faculty realizes the importance for it and makes it a priority in their lessons.

Meredith Metsker:

And I imagine it means a lot to them too, to have you reach out with some proactive things that they can do rather than being like, “You need to do more,” as if they don’t have enough on their plate.

Nick Edwards:

Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Yeah, and I suppose as a former teacher, you get it. You know what they’re dealing with.

Nick Edwards:

All the things that are required. Absolutely. Yes.

Meredith Metsker:

So you mentioned you have this work that you do with your uConnect platform, keeping it up to date. You’re doing this work with faculty, you do resume reviews. Are you also doing a lot of programming or things like that? I’m just curious how much you’re able to take on as a team of one.

Nick Edwards:

For sure. For sure. So on a daily basis, it is a lot of just the typical career research, helping students pick a path and identifying what workshops or what networking abilities need to be had to be successful in that career. The resume reviews, the mock interviews, helping them create cover letters. I’m working on a presentation right now for pre-health students about how to just network in general. With creating their elevator pitch and utilizing LinkedIn and different networking opportunities that we have in and around Abilene. So really just all encompassing. Anything that has to do with careers that the faculty aren’t already teaching in their curriculum falls in with what I do on a daily basis.

Meredith Metsker:

Do you also do work with employers? Do you have time to bring them in for things?

Nick Edwards:

I do. And that’s where I work really well with the faculty. Just this last semester, I worked with one of the business and finance faculty members and brought in a bunch of alumni that are pretty successful in what they’re doing right now. And so just having those networking capabilities, it just has been really, really beneficial. Especially when we’re able to really bring in alumni to showcase, “Look, they were in your shoes and in your same seats right now, two years ago, three years ago, 10 years ago. And look, based on their career choices, this is what they do and have done.” And so just working with faculty to help put those together and the business partners are so important to what I’m trying to accomplish here.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So on that note, you just listed off a ton of different things that you’re doing all the time. It’s just you. How do you balance being in the trenches like that on a daily basis with bigger picture strategy and setting goals and whatnot?

Nick Edwards:

Absolutely. And it is. It’s definitely a juggling act. On any given day, I’m focused on providing support to students, whether, like I said, it’s resume, job searches, career counseling, the like. But I also recognize that in order to be successful long-term, I need to take a step back and focus on those bigger picture goals such as building up partnerships with local businesses that may or may not already work with us, or creating sustainable programs or even staying up to date with best practices and industry trends. All of these things are so important to the long, big time picture of the career service. In order to balance both those daily tasks and strategic planning, it’s really important that I just create those just clear goals to begin with that align not only with what we need immediately, which is students and providing them the services, but just long-term objectives. I just try to make sure to carve out specific times of the day and during the week to work on those things. Whether it’s planning events, collaborating with faculty or one-on-one work with the students. So yeah, it’s really just about finding that balance between being present for the students, but also planning for the future students.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Speaking of the future, you mentioned in our prep call that Hardin-Simmons is really making a renewed investment in career services. So knowing that, what are your goals and your hopes for the career center in the future? Do you hope to expand your team?

Nick Edwards:

That would be nice. So yes, Hardin-Simmons, they are doing a renewed investment in career service as potentially part of our quality enhancement plan for accreditation, which we’re still finalizing. So while I can’t really dive into the details of it, it definitely presents some exciting possibilities. One of my main goals is to really expand the resources available to the students, making it more accessible and better integrated within their academic experience, whether it’s offering more industry specific workshops or creating and working with businesses to offer more internship opportunities. So those were all some of the baseline things that we’re trying to work on. But as far as expanding the team, that’s definitely something I’d love to see. While I am proud of what we’ve accomplished just as a team of one, having more specialties in areas like employment relations or career coaching or even outreach would definitely help me support students in a more targeted way. However, if additional hires aren’t possible in the future, I’ll still continue to do my best to provide the meaningful support that our students need.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. You strike me as the type of person who’s always going to want to do his best regardless.

Nick Edwards:

Absolutely. Yes, ma’am. I think that’s just the teacher in me, I guess.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, exactly. Well, it was funny when you were talking about your background as an English teacher, I was thinking, man, your students at Hardin-Simmons are so lucky. It’s like, who better to help you with a resume and a cover letter than an English teacher who not only can make sure your spelling and grammar are correct, but also knows how to tell a great story?

Nick Edwards:

Absolutely, yes. That’s definitely one of those transferable skills that has played a big impact on rewriting resumes and like you said, telling the best story that they can.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Because that’s what it’s about. How do you communicate your story in one page.

Nick Edwards:

Exactly.

Meredith Metsker:

Not easy. Not easy, as you know. So as you are talking about wanting to expand your team someday, and again, right now it’s just you, I’m curious with your investment in technology, how do you think about technology as it relates to resourcing your career center? I’m assuming you had some funding and you had to decide, do I hire? Do I get technology? How did you think through that?

Nick Edwards:

So really, I knew where the university was going in a certain path. I had known that in the past, they have had multiple, more than one, individuals in the career services career center, but then they took a step back, wanted to divert those funds elsewhere, so then it became a team of one. And so I knew going forward that I was going to be a one man crew, and so I knew that I was not going to be able to do it all. And so that’s when I recognized that I needed help. I’m very thankful that here in Abilene we have multiple universities. I mean, we have three universities here just in Abilene. We’ve got a junior college, we’ve got technical schools. So we have an abundance of educational platforms. And so I was working with one of the career services at another university, and then that’s whenever they told me about the capability that uConnect had. And so I did the research and realized that I was sold. I mean, it was just so much that it was able to do and just made it easier for me once I got the resources put in, because then I could focus my time on that one-on-one interaction with the students.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. It’s something we hear from a lot of our partners here at uConnect is that they use the uConnect platform to, of course, make sure all of those resources are available anytime, anywhere and that’s importantly up-to-date. You’re not having to just manually update or write new blogs every day. We have content libraries that pull it all in and update it for you.

Nick Edwards:

And I think that’s one thing that I thoroughly enjoyed too is just that. And that’s what I always tell students. If you check the website today, great, but in a week or two, there’s a ton more resources and articles and blogs and classes that they can take that are constantly evolving. And so it’s really not one of those one-stop-shop places and websites that they can go to, but it’s ever evolving. And that’s one of the things that I’ve absolutely appreciated.

Meredith Metsker:

Because I mean, that’s what Gen Z expects, right? I feel like Gen Alpha is going to be even more so. They want more and they want new. They don’t want a static website.

Nick Edwards:

And they want it now.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You mentioned that you regularly talk to folks at other higher ed institutions there in Abilene, which is really cool. There’s so many so close to you. How have those partnerships and those relationships helped you as a team of one? Because I imagine that’s hard not having someone else in house to bounce ideas off of.

Nick Edwards:

It really is. Which when I was working in the English department, I was the English department, so I was used to not having anybody to really bounce ideas off of. And so having the ability to work closely with the other career services in town have definitely helped. Especially me being new to higher ed, being new to career services, it was important. I mean, it’s been important, and I completely, completely cherish the time that I have with individuals from those campuses. Because like you said, we are able to share resources, we are able to bounce ideas off each other. Even putting together job fairs that benefit all of the college students in Abilene. Every year we put on a really large teacher fair for our education students. And so we work together to pull in resources and get those school districts to come on campus. And it’s a really, really wonderful collaboration that we have, and I could not be any more proud of what they’re able to do on their campus.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. I am really glad you brought up the career fair thing because I was just thinking that. I’m like how does one person do a career fair? So it sounds like you do a joint thing with … Is it Abilene Christian and McMurray?

Nick Edwards:

Yes. Yes ma’am. And then Cisco College. Yes. Now, we still each will have our own career fair, sometimes industry specific, but there are some that we work close with each other on just a consortium group where we really are able to kind of, like I said, work together to make it easier for everybody as a whole.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. Why wouldn’t you pool the talent, pool the resources? One thing I was just thinking about, I talked to Cameron, who was your customer success manager here at uConnect for a while, and he mentioned that there … Yeah, he’s great. He actually lives near me, so every once in a while we go and work together.

Nick Edwards:

Awesome.

Meredith Metsker:

But he mentioned that there’s a large student athlete population at Hardin-Simmons. So I was just thinking, I bet it’s useful to have the virtual career center for that. I mean, talk about a population that has a hard time getting into the career center.

Nick Edwards:

For sure. For sure. I mean, I think whenever … Now, like I said, we’re a small D3 school in hopes of obviously moving up, but our student population makes up the most of our campus. At the beginning of the year, last semester, obviously, we had a little over 200 guys show up to play football. Which is maybe normal for a D1 school, but for a small, like I said, 1100 student population university, that’s a lot. And that’s just one sport. And so being able to provide, like I said, the same services to those students that anybody that walked in the door is so important. And so it just goes back to meeting them where they are and if after practice, after their homework hopefully, and after anything else that they have going on in life, feel the, “Oh, I need to work on my resume, but I don’t know where to start.” Providing them with those resources is so important.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, absolutely. Especially with all the travel they’ve got going on too. It’s hard.

Nick Edwards:

Absolutely.

Meredith Metsker:

I’m curious, Nick, we’ve talked a lot about the work side of your role there at Hardin-Simmons, but I am curious how you personally stay organized, stay sane, avoid overwhelm when there’s so much that you could do and so much that you have to do and it’s just you.

Nick Edwards:

Well, that’s the big ticket question. Staying sane as a team of one. And some days it feels like a miracle. It really does. And really, to me, it comes down to three things. Staying organized, realizing when to set your boundaries, and knowing when to just tap out for a moment to save the sanity. I lean heavily on my calendar and task management tools and the such. If I didn’t have them, then I’d probably be buried under a mountain of sticky notes, which if you saw my office, I typically do anyway still. And so using those task management tools and my calendar really helps me break down and prioritize urgency. Because really, it’s a fine line between tackling everything at once, which will lead to insanity, or planning ahead, which is really crucial. As far as setting boundaries, this is one thing that I had to learn very quickly and that’s learn when to say no and how to say no.

I don’t want to say that I’ve always been a people pleaser, but in a way kind of yes. And so it’s easy to feel like you need to say yes to everything, but I’ve learned that I can only do so much as a team of one. And so when I’ve hit that limit or I’ve got too many things involved in one day, I just either have to delegate or work with faculty and staff on ways to limit and help lighten that load in some way. And then of course, learning when to just tap out. I honestly have learned that it’s really important to take time for breaks throughout the day. You can never underestimate the importance of what a short walk around the building or walk up and down the flight of stairs just to do a mental reset and the impact that it can have on your day and the difference between being overwhelmed and just handle it. So that’s how I end up staying sane are those three.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, that’s great advice. I think I need to take your third piece of advice more to heart and get outside and go for a walk. And I always think I’m like, “I should do that. I work from home. It’s easy to just go outside.” And yet I always forget.

Nick Edwards:

Yeah. Sometimes you’re in the groove and you’re just going and it’s before you realize it, three hours have passed and you’re still … Yeah, I completely understand.

Meredith Metsker:

Cool. Well, Nick, what advice would you give to other small career teams or teams of one on how to be most effective in supporting students?

Nick Edwards:

Yeah, absolutely. My advice to other small career teams is really to just leverage your resources as efficiently as possible and to build those strong partnerships, both not only within your institution, but with local businesses or organizations. In a small team, collaboration is key. I mean, partnering with faculty to integrate career services into their coursework has been a huge game changer for my office. Helping students realize that those career focused workshops and how they align with student academic goals is key when working with faculty. Additionally, utilizing technology. That’s been one of the main themes of today. Utilize that technology to the best that you can. Let uConnect help expand your reach without increasing your workload. Focus on those creating scalable solutions to help you meet the larger student all at once while still being able to maintain the ability to offer that one-on-one. And so really that’s my key takeaway is just collaborate and technology.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. That’s great advice and I appreciated your mention of how the virtual career center can handle a lot of the more … I mean, important tasks but it’s more like repetitive, like resume advice, things like that. Which frees up you or for a small team frees up all of you for the more high touch one-on-one interactions that still need to happen, but can be a little more personalized than maybe just answering the same resume questions over and over.

Nick Edwards:

And that leads me to one of the most important things that I’ve learned too as a career services of one is to learn how to celebrate the small wins. Each student that secures an internship or even lands an interview with their dream job is a success. And so those small wins should be celebrated. Even if it’s just you behind the scenes, finding a way to celebrate those small wins is big in my eyes.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. How do you celebrate the wins?

Nick Edwards:

I’ve got some pretty good support individuals, whether it’s the program director or my assistant provost or my president, or most importantly my wife and my family. Just being able to tell them of the small successes, it just makes me feel better. Obviously celebrating with the student and then congratulating them on being able to land the internship or the job or the interview is obviously big. But getting to celebrate that with them, but more importantly, like I said, my family, my work family and things like that is huge.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, that’s great. Yeah, someone has to know when there’s victories to be celebrated.

Nick Edwards:

Absolutely. Yes.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Well, Nick, I do want to be mindful of our time here, but is there anything else you would like to add before I start wrapping us up?

Nick Edwards:

Really, I just want to take this moment to thank you, Meredith, for everything that you do. The opportunity today to share these experiences and the insights that I have, it’s been definitely a pleasure discussing the challenges and strategies that come with running a career center with a team of one, but also a big thank you to uConnect for providing the valuable platform that helps me do what I do. And especially thank and appreciate those here at Hardin-Simmons for allowing me to do what I do on a daily basis. I appreciate everybody for this chance to be a part of this journey.

Meredith Metsker:

Awesome. Well, I appreciate that, Nick, and thank you for taking the time to come on today. You’re my first interview since coming back from maternity leave, so thank you for making it-

Nick Edwards:

I feel special.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. Thank you for making it fun and easygoing. I appreciate that.

Nick Edwards:

Yes. Absolutely. My pleasure.

Meredith Metsker:

If anyone listening or watching would like to connect with you or learn more from you, where is a good place for them to do that?

Nick Edwards:

So obviously two ways. One of the easiest ways is just to reach out through LinkedIn. Pretty easy to search for. Or even just through email. My email address, just nick.edwards@hsutx.edu. Love to connect and speak with people, bounce ideas off of any individuals, whether they’ve got a career service of 30 or one. Love to work things out and share ideas.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, great. And again, for those who are watching or listening, I’ll be sure to include links to Nick’s LinkedIn profile and his virtual career center and his email in the show notes, so you can find all of that stuff easily. Okay. So Nick, at the end of every interview, I like to do this answer a question, leave a question thing. So I’ll ask you a question our last guest left for you, and then you will leave a question for the next guest. So our last guest was Dave Mary of Suffolk University in Boston, and he left this question for you. How do you measure success in your outcomes data beyond placement rate?

Nick Edwards:

Oh, Dave, that’s a good question, and I had to really think on this one. Measuring success in our outcomes data definitely goes beyond just looking at placement rates. While, yes, securing a job is important, there in my eyes are other key indicators that tell the full story of how well we’re doing. First, I typically look at career readiness. And we can usually get that from talking with the employers, identifying how ready the students were when they entered the workforce. Whether it’s those soft skills, communication, problem solving, things like that, all the way up to the technical skills. And so just being able to identify those career readiness abilities is one of the ways. Another way I monitor is I usually monitor student satisfaction, whether it’s through surveys, feedback forms, and the like. Are students really feeling supported and confident in their career paths?

If they’re satisfied with career services, then the resources that we provide, they’re more likely to be successful in the long-term. And then finally, I tend to really look at not just job placement, but as it aligns with their career goals and the positions that they land. As I said before, it’s not just about getting a job, but getting a job that aligns with the background and the skills that they’ve learned here at Hardin-Simmons. If a student lands a job that aligns more with those career goals and the lessons that they learned here on campus, then there tend to be a little more meaningful and potentially advancing their careers. And so I consider that a strong indicator of success.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. I love that. It’s getting a little bit of that qualitative data and with the quantitative as well.

Nick Edwards:

Yes. Yes.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Well, Nick, what question would you like to leave for the next guest?

Nick Edwards:

So my question would be, if you could give one piece of advice to a student entering the job market for the very first time, what would it be?

Meredith Metsker:

That’s a good one. Definitely one that’s relevant to everyone who will listen to this podcast. Okay. Great. I love that question. I’ll have to let you know what the answer is.

Nick Edwards:

Yes, please. Yes. I’ll have to make sure I’m listening for the next round.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. There you go. All right, great. Well, Nick, thank you so much for taking the time to join me on the podcast today. Like I said, this was just really fun, easygoing conversation.

Nick Edwards:

Absolutely. It was my pleasure.

Meredith Metsker:

Filled with lots of good information. Yeah. Thank you.

Nick Edwards:

Well, I hope so. Hopefully I can help in any way possible. And anybody, like I said, that wants to reach out and collaborate and just discuss, I’m always readily available.

Meredith Metsker:

All right. Well, we’ll definitely make sure that folks have your information so they can reach out if they want to.

Nick Edwards:

Absolutely. Thank you.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. All right. Well Nick, thank you so much again and I hope you have a great rest of your week.

Nick Edwards:

You as well. Thank y’all so much.