Partnering with the Alumni Office to Support Recent Grads

Meredith Metsker:

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Career Everywhere podcast. I’m your host, Meredith Metsker, and today I am joined by Emily McCarthy. She’s the senior director of career development at the University of Arizona. Thank you for being here, Emily.

Emily McCarthy:

Thank you. Thanks for having me, Meredith.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, I’m really glad to have you, and I’m excited to talk with you today about how your team is supporting alumni there at the University of Arizona, and then also how you all partner with the alumni office. I think with the ROI of higher ed continuing to face this really intense scrutiny, alumni career support is going to become even more and more relevant for a lot of schools. So I’m just thrilled to have you on the pod today, and I’m excited for this conversation.

Before I get into my questions, Emily, is there anything else you’d like to add about yourself, your background, or your role there at the University of Arizona?

Emily McCarthy:

Sure. My name is Emily McCarthy. As Meredith mentioned, I’m the senior director for career development here at the University of Arizona. Coming to you from Tucson, Arizona, where it’s 105 degrees right now, so I’m in my summer wear, could not fathom wearing a jacket today. I’ve been leading career development teams in the state of Arizona for the past 10 years, three years here at the University of Arizona, and then previously at Northern Arizona University.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, very cool. And speaking of cool, I hope you’re all able to stay cool down there in Tucson.

Emily McCarthy:

We appreciate it. Thank you.

Meredith Metsker:

All right. Well, Emily, before I get into the more specific questions, I want to kick us off with a question I’ve been asking all of our guests, and that is, what does Career Everywhere mean to you?

Emily McCarthy:

I think it’s a concept that was starting to emerge when I entered the field, and it’s one that I feel really strongly about. No career development office at any university, regardless of size, regardless of location, regardless of funding, has the capacity to serve every student at any moment that that student might need to be served. I think the larger the institution, the ratios tend to get very large in terms of how many of us there are to serve our students, but that’s okay, ’cause we shouldn’t be the only ones talking to students about career.

So there are really two aspects of Career Everywhere to me. One is that the career development office should not be the keeper of the keys and the holder of all the knowledge. We need to be thought leaders, we need to be educating our peers across the institution about what career means, what current best practices are, what current industry practices are. And I feel like we’ve had three or four different job markets in the last three or four years, so it takes a lot to stay on top of that. But we need to be educating our partners across the institution, but we shouldn’t be the only ones sharing that information with students. A lot of students might never walk into a career development office for a variety of reasons, so we want them to hear that same message from their faculty, from their academic advisors, and from staff across the institution. And I think that message resonates more, even if you hear it multiple times, I think that just reinforces the message, and it resonates more when it comes from a lot of different voices.

In addition, and I think this idea is starting to emerge more, and this is one of the reasons we wanted to partner with uConnect, it also speaks to availability of career resources 24/7. We live in a very self-service oriented world. We know that not everyone’s schedule is the same schedule, and a lot of students can’t, or do not want to, visit us during our open office hours because they’re in class, or they’re working, or often all of the above. So we want to have resources available to them. I have joked for many years now that I think, at 2:00 AM, students just might have a career question and want to learn a little bit more about a topic. Honestly, I don’t know how often that takes place. In my dream world, that takes place all the time. But if and when that does take place, we want them to have a place to go, and we want to have that self-service information out there for students.

And then, if a student does come to see us in person, they’ve also had that baseline information they’ve had exposure to. So hopefully they can study that prior to seeing us, and we’re updating our materials to encourage that prior to student appointments. So that’s a little bit about what it means to me.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. So it’s about facilitating that ecosystem across the entire university, as opposed to just within the walls of the career center?

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah, absolutely. And like a lot of universities, we are not just one campus. We have a lot of online students, we have students all over the world, really. We have students elsewhere in Arizona, we have a fairly large, in comparison to historical basis, not large compared to our campus here, but we do have a fairly large presence in Phoenix, which is about two hours to our north. So yeah, it’s less about walls and more about knowledge.

Meredith Metsker:

I love that. There’s the golden quote right there.

Emily McCarthy:

Thank you.

Meredith Metsker:

I am curious, how many students does the University of Arizona have?

Emily McCarthy:

We have a little bit over 51,000. That might go up again a little bit for this upcoming academic year, that’s the statistic for our fall of 2022 incoming class. About 11,000 of those, slightly under 11,000 are graduate students, so about 40,000 undergraduates, which is a lot. We also have a high percentage of first generation students, and we are a Hispanic serving institution, so about 29% of our students do identify as Hispanic or Latinx.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, cool. That’s good context. I’m curious, how large is your team?

Emily McCarthy:

Oh, goodness. Not large enough. We have a really interesting model here, which is probably better for another podcast at another time, but we’re actually called student engagement and career development. And as career development professionals, we always tell students the best thing that they can do with their career is engage. And one of the really great things about the way that our team is structured here at the University of Arizona is we house a lot of those engagement opportunities within our department, everything from a leadership program that can go up to all four years of the student’s experience and result in a leadership academic minor. We offer micro internships grounded in design thinking. We consult with faculty to offer courses and include community engagement projects. We have a research team that councils students as they prepare to take on undergraduate research opportunities. All of that’s on the student engagement… I hate to say side, because we’re really not sides, but not necessarily within my purview.

And then I oversee the traditional career development portfolio, employer and alumni engagement, career education. Internships is something that’s really shared across the department, because those are so critical, and they’re both an engagement experience and a career development experience. And then, I also have one individual focused on functional skills development, and then I oversee Handshake and our career related technologies as well. And then, we have operations individuals, marketing, technology, administrative, operations. So I think across all of those things, it’s 28 people, which seems large, but my career education team is three people and a graduate assistant when fully staffed. So fairly lean from our side.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. So pretty high student to advisor ratio.

Emily McCarthy:

Absolute

Meredith Metsker:

And probably-

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah, and we do, as a… One, we’re very decentralized, so there’s a pretty robust career development function in our business school, the Eller College of Management, and then we have a couple embedded career development individuals or professionals in some of the other colleges as well. So we do have some support out there, but it is still a lean team.

Meredith Metsker:

And not only are you supporting your undergrads and grad students, you’re also supporting alumni, which I think is a good segue into our topic today, ’cause I know you all do a lot of work with your alumni there. So to set the stage, can you just give me an overview of what your team is doing to support alumni there at the University of Arizona?

Emily McCarthy:

So we directly support our recent alumni, so a year or less from graduation, through our career coaching services and our resume dropbox. Handshake is something that’s available to all alumni for the duration of their career. We also offer all alumni back to attend career fairs through the duration of their career. And then, our uConnect site, which we’ll delve into today, is designed really to serve students or alumni. There is a career development director in our alumni association, we partner very closely with her, and I think that role’s been in existence for maybe five to seven years, maybe more. And there’s always been a really tight relationship between our office and that particular individual.

And in terms of career coaching support, while we only work with those recent alumni, the Alumni Association has a robust list of career coaches, who are alumni as well, and will work with our alumni. Another thing that we have is the Bear Down Network that is powered by Graduway, which some may have heard of, and that’s a way for alumni to connect with each other, or connect with current students, around mentoring and career opportunities.

One thing to add, for our recent alumni who are graduating without a job, we want to make sure that they are provided with some additional intensive support, so they get a series of emails over the course of four or five weeks, after they indicate that they’re still looking for employment, pointing them to some of our more intensive resources, our career coaching, and then some of our other online resources as well.

Meredith Metsker:

I wanted to clarify, so the career development side in the alumni office, I assume they’re supporting alumni beyond the one-year out?

Emily McCarthy:

Yes. Well, they support forever, but it is through this network of career coaches who are also alumni. And then, they do things like advertised jobs that employers are looking to hire alumni, and things like that as well. But yeah, that support lasts indefinitely.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. That’s really cool.

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah.

Meredith Metsker:

What a great value to offer, especially these days when competition between universities can be pretty tight.

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah, and we know that alumni who feel supported in their career are going to be more engaged, and that could mean a lot of different things. That could mean volunteering with the university, that could mean coaching, mentoring a student when the alumni’s in a good place with their career. We love to see them give back and do informational interviews with students. We’re in the process of reviving our job shadow program, so taking those informational interviews from a quick conversation to up to a day long experience. And we know that alumni are also more likely to financially give back when they feel supported. So it’s definitely something that’s one of our values here.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. On that note, can you just tell me a little bit more about why you support alumni so thoroughly, and then what your vision is for alumni career support?

Emily McCarthy:

Again, so much of that falls under the purview of the alumni office, and they ultimately hold the vision, but my vision really is for that seamless transition and that a student feels supported throughout their whole life cycle, really, with the university, from starting on their… We always say start thinking about career on day one, even if that just means getting involved. So from that day one, through down the road, we want students to feel connected and supported in terms of career.

And what that looks like changes as well. And again, while that coaching and support is always available for our alumni, we’re also really hoping that they’ll give back in terms of supporting the career development of our current students, through mentorship opportunities, through job shadow opportunities, offering to have informational interviews. A lot of our attendees at our career fairs are alumni, and sometimes they also happen to be recruiters and sometimes they’re not. They may be in more of a programmatic role, but they just want to come along and give back and hire students from our institution into their company, which is always really fun to watch.

Handshake, again, is available for the duration of the alumni’s career. We also know that not every alumni wants to actively go back into Handshake on a regular basis. And we implemented Handshake here in 2017, so if the alumni predates that time, they might not even necessarily know what Handshake is. So we also have a system set up to promote jobs geared towards alumni that are in Handshake, through our Bear Down network, powered by Graduway, so that alumni can see those more directly as well.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay.

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah.

Meredith Metsker:

So let’s say a recent alum is wanting to do a career pivot, or maybe they’re having trouble finding a job. What happens when they reach out to your office? What kind of services can they access?

Emily McCarthy:

If they are within their first year of employment, we would probably recommend that they meet with one of our career educators, who can coach them on everything from career exploration and figuring out what that pivot looks like, resume development, interview practice, networking techniques, job search strategy, and everything in between. We do have online resources that mirror all these topics as well, but these are also things that a career coach can go through with them in detail.

For our alumni that have been out past that year mark, that’s when the Alumni Association would step in. And they do have a career changers tag, I’m jumping ahead to our uConnect site, but they do have a career changers tag set up. So an alumni could also subscribe to that uConnect area and receive some targeted information around that career change. We would also recommend, again, that networking. We’ve got the Bear Down network, we have a LinkedIn group as well, designed to connect students and alumni. So I think, regardless of what they needed for us when they were at that right point, we so believe in the power of networking and we have such a strong alumni network, we would really encourage them to engage with that network.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, especially the networking thing. Even just looking back on my own career, I think every job but one that I’ve gotten was the result of a connection or somebody who knew somebody.

Emily McCarthy:

Not surprising.

Meredith Metsker:

I want to jump back a little bit to this full lifecycle philosophy.

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah.

Meredith Metsker:

Can you just tell me a little bit more about what that means and why it’s so important?

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah. I think just what it means is that support from day one at the university through the alumni tenure. While students are actively enrolled, we’re in the process of actually rolling out a career journey map for them. We’ve had it in a previous iteration, and we’re taking the next step with that. We do use Salesforce, as a lot of institutions do, there is a planning capability within Salesforce. So starting in August, an incoming student would see that they have this default career plan, which guides them, and I was working on this prior to our call, so it’s fresh in my mind, but guides them through these strategic steps, so that when they get ready to graduate, hopefully they’ll be in a good place with their career, and they can check off those steps within the Salesforce plan.

And then, again, we want that smooth transition. Hopefully, the student has a job offer, or a graduate school acceptance, prior to graduating. We’re hoping that if they’re following our guidance along the way, that comes to pass. But we know that sometimes life happens, and there are those that don’t always follow that guidance, so if a student is still seeking employment, that’s something that we want to actively support them with. As I mentioned, we do some targeted outreach over the course of a couple of weeks, letting students know about our resources and giving them some tips and advice. And then, we’re always happy to meet with them one-on-one. Also could do that throughout that first whole year, and then at that point, there is that handoff to the alumni office who has handoff for that one-on-one coaching to the alumni office.

But again, Handshake is always available, Bear Down network, always available. Career fair is always welcome to have our alumni back, in any role, really. And again, I see the life cycle being that when the alumni is at a place where they feel established in their career. And I feel like careers in the modern day, we might feel established one minute and not so much the next week, so that’s an iterative process. But if they are in a place where they feel established, we’re hoping that they’ll come to recruit at the institution, or offer themselves up for an informational interview or a job shadow.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I know as an alumni of my institution, one of my favorite things to do is to go back and speak to journalism classes, ’cause that’s what I got my degree in, and I love it.

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah.

Meredith Metsker:

It’s one of my favorite activities.

Emily McCarthy:

That’s awesome. When we were in deep pandemic mode, we worked with the alumni office and brought in, we have 10 career clusters that we recognize here, and we had a online networking event devoted to each career cluster, that started with a panel and brought in alumni who spoke to what it meant to be in journalism or in a related career, and then there was some small group networking. So that’s something I think we’ll reinvigorate at some point in the near future. And while we can be back in person now, we’ve realized that that virtual format opens things up to anyone, no matter geographically where they are, so I think that’s something that would definitely continue in a virtual format.

Meredith Metsker:

Very cool. Yeah, I don’t think hybrid and virtual is going anywhere anytime soon.

Emily McCarthy:

Nope, me neither, which is good. I’ve been in that mode for most of my career, so it’s good to see higher ed catching up to that space.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, for sure. So now, I would love to talk a little bit about this partnership that you all have with the alumni office, because it sounds like it’s pretty involved, and I think it’s unique in that it’s been in place for quite a while now. So can you just talk a little bit about what that partnership with the alumni office looks like?

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah, and it definitely predates me, so I can’t really speak to the origins. But the work that we do is similar, and again, there’s that full life cycle. And I’ll add that that’s one of many partnerships that we have across campus. As I mentioned earlier, we’re large, we’re decentralized. There are career development individuals in a lot of different pockets of campus, and we really want to have a partnership with all of them, and work together, not work in competition. This is not related to the alumni office, but just as an example, I heard this morning that one of our partners in one of the colleges wanted to throw an online career fair. So I reached out to say, “Hey, we’re already planning an online career fair. How can we partner together to make this better, as opposed to creating competing events?”

And with the alumni office, I think it’s a little unique in that, again, we rely on our alumni too to be those career development mentors to our students, so it’s a little bit different relationship than it would be with another college. But yeah, something that’s been in existence for a long time. The role was vacant for a while, it’s been recently refilled, but the predecessor and I feel like spoke weekly or close to that. And it’s important to have that partnership, I think particularly in times when we’re resource constrained, it’s a lot more economical and strategic for us to work together, as opposed to work separately.

And then, the uConnect partnership is newer. We first started working with uConnect in January of 2022, had our initial soft launch in August, and continue to refine the site.

Meredith Metsker:

And for the uConnect site, you two are partnering, you’re cost sharing that, correct? You and the alumni office?

Emily McCarthy:

We are, thank you for reminding me of that. It was a platform that I think we both were interested in, the person previously in the career development director role over there, and I, and it would’ve been cost prohibitive independently for either of us, but if we pulled things together, then it became affordable. And again, it just made sense to both of us to have one site, and then that’s just the site that students can use throughout that full life cycle. Also, about 80% of the content is going to be the same, whether you’re a student or an alumni. Resume advice, very similar, we do have some templates that vary. My first resume don’t have a lot of experienced template, which isn’t necessarily going to apply to an alumni, but then we have some career-changing articles of advice on resumes that may not apply to a current student, although it went to an online student. So there are some nuances in there, but I think a lot of the career guidance is similar.

A lot of the identity content is similar. If you’re trying to navigate the workforce as a disabled individual or as a member of the LGBTQ community, whether you are in a student employment position or an internship or a full-time role, I think a lot of those challenges are probably the same, and we want to make sure that we’re getting that same information to our students and alumni, no matter where they are in their journey.

Meredith Metsker:

Right. Yeah, that makes sense that it would be a lot of similar resources, so you may as well share the cost.

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah. No, absolutely. And again, the tagging system is wonderful, because where something isn’t similar, then we can target it that way. And what I love about uConnect is, and I promise, to those listening, this is not a paid endorsement, the content is so scalable, but it feels really personal, and that’s what I love about it. These resources can live on the same site, but if somebody’s just subscribing and focusing on it that way, they might not even know that the same content was available to students as well.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Yeah, and I love that you mentioned the scalability aspect of it, because I’m not sure how many alumni the University of Arizona has, but I imagine it’s a lot.

Emily McCarthy:

It is a lot. I’m not sure either, but millions upon millions.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah. And you have a career development team of, I think you said three or four?

Emily McCarthy:

Oh, it’s one for alumni.

Meredith Metsker:

One?

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah.

Meredith Metsker:

So scalability-

Emily McCarthy:

With some support from outside resources, but officially, one.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. So scalability is insanely important, and sounds like technology is a good way for you guys to do that.

Emily McCarthy:

Absolutely.

Meredith Metsker:

So I’m curious, in addition to cost sharing the uConnect platform, what else is involved in this partnership? Are you having weekly meetings? Are there interdisciplinary teams? How does that work?

Emily McCarthy:

I think it varies based on projects. We don’t meet weekly necessarily. There are interdisciplinary teams around different key projects, and again, there was a bit of a period of that role being open, so we’re trying to reset now that it’s filled again. But the panels, for example, that I mentioned, in online networking events, that was an interdisciplinary team pulling individuals from SECD, my department, and our alumni contact at the time, to create those events. We also, during the height of the pandemic, spent a lot of time videotaping our alumni about their career story.

Meredith Metsker:

Oh, cool.

Emily McCarthy:

Those are now on our uConnect site, so that was another interdisciplinary team. So that is definitely something that we do in an agile manner, where we’re all busy, so we don’t meet to meet, but we can coalesce really nicely around these different projects.

Meredith Metsker:

I love that. And I know you mentioned that this partnership was originated before you joined the university, but from what you’ve heard, how did they go about establishing that partnership?

Emily McCarthy:

I can’t really answer that, unfortunately. I think it’s just, it’s been in place for a long time. I do know that at one point it was a shared role, and there was an individual who did both, and did work for this department and also worked in the alumni position. And I think both needs were too robust for one person, so that individual transitioned to this department. But yeah, that is what I know of that story.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. So what advice do you have for other career teams who may want to partner with alumni, or even cost share on technology?

Emily McCarthy:

I think, again, just remember that the needs are so similar. I’m a big fan of the 80% role. We’re never going to get everything perfect for every stakeholder that we have out there, but if 80% of the content works, that’s pretty good. So don’t let the little nuances come between that partnership. And yes, alumni are in a little bit different stage career-wise, although not necessarily, because we have a lot of online students too who are very experienced in their own careers, and are probably just here because they want to change careers, or they want to advance in their career and they require a degree that they currently were not able to get, to do so. So I think focus on the similarities, not the differences.

I think my other bit of advice is don’t let the administrative processes get in the way. I think sometimes, the broader systems in which we operate create a lot of administrative hurdles. And certainly, as I understand, as a state institution, we are stewards of our taxpayer dollars, and we do want to make sure that we have a lot of processes in place to make sure that we are using those wisely and responsibly. But I think sometimes, and I fall, again, guilty of this myself, sometimes you just think of the nuance or the hiccup in the process and think, “Oh, is this worth doing, because this process is going to be complicated?” But sometimes it’s just worth pushing through.

We had to have a lot of conversations around what the invoicing looked like, just because it’s two different accounts. Technically, our Alumni Association is actually a slightly different entity. But uConnect was kind enough to give us separate invoices, that was a relatively easy process to work through, and now that’s resolved, and this last year when we renewed for the second time, it was easy. So I think it can be easy, at least in a state institution, and I’m sure it’s similar in private to get just caught up in the process. But sometimes, it’s just worth pushing through the process that first time, because then things will be resolved. I’m just a big believer in every moment is finite and then it’s gone, and we want to use every moment strategically, so why not partner together, as opposed to trying to duplicate something that’s probably going to wind up 80% similar.

Meredith Metsker:

Right. Yeah, absolutely. Especially if you have smaller teams. I’m curious, when you decided that you wanted to purchase the uConnect platform, how did you go about getting the alumni office on board? Did it take much to convince them? What did that look like?

Emily McCarthy:

Well, we were actually really lucky in that it was a mutual-

Meredith Metsker:

Okay.

Emily McCarthy:

We both wanted it, so it happened just really organic. I know this sounds very utopian, but it did seriously happen very organically. They were interested in it, we were interested in it, and we knew that we would both stand a better chance of being able to procure it if we partnered together, so it just came together very organically.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay.

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah.

Meredith Metsker:

Very cool.

Emily McCarthy:

My counterpart over there at the time probably had to do some lobbying behind the scenes, but she was and is very articulate and persuasive.

Meredith Metsker:

Well, whatever she did, it was effective.

Emily McCarthy:

Absolutely, yeah.

Meredith Metsker:

Well, on the note of the website, I’d like to focus us there for a little bit. So there’s this platform, this website, that you and the alumni office have partnered together to bring to life, so how did you go about setting up that website to support both students and alumni?

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah, and again, I keep going back to the needs are really similar. So our structure has three different types of communities. The first is called programs and resources. We debated a lot of different titles and landed on that one, which isn’t perfect, but it works. And that is really career development advice, and it also tracks to what we do in our department. So that takes the students and alumni on that journey through career exploration, all the way through on that offer evaluation and negotiation. So we have a community around each key step in that process.

And again, whether you’re a student or an alumni, it’s going to be very similar guidance and advice. As I mentioned, we have some resume templates that look a little different and things like that, but we feel that we’ve got the right resources to guide either party through that career journey. And as we set up, I think I mentioned that we use Salesforce, and we’re setting up this plan that’s our career journey map in Salesforce, that’s going to start pushing users to each key community within this programs and resources area. So I’m excited to see our engagement continue to build as we roll this out in Salesforce.

Our second set of communities is career clusters. We recognize career clusters, like a lot of universities do, industry groups of professions, and a cluster can transcend the industry that a particular organization is in. For instance, data and technology crosses any industry out there. Every organization needs people who are skilled in data and technology. That could be health, it could be law enforcement, it could be more traditional management and commerce and everything in between. So we have 10 career clusters. Those communities both have job feeds and internship feeds unique to those communities, as well as where a lot of our alumni connections are posted that ties back into that Bear Down network, and these are all individuals who are part of that Graduway Bear Down network who have said that they’re open to holding career conversations or informational interviews, we use the terms interchangeably. We’re trying to shift to career conversations, but I know a lot of people still use informational interview. So those profiles are on those communities as well.

And then, lastly, we have our identity and affinity communities. I was so excited, I think this was one of our drivers for using uConnect, because we were conceptually trying to create that on our own, and it was frankly just so daunting. And I also believe that those communities are best curated and created by people who have that lived experience, and none of us had those lived experiences across all of the communities. We had those that were part of our identity, but nobody would’ve crossed all of the identities that we wanted to represent. So we were really excited for that external blog content that we pulled in, and we’re excited to learn more about the identity kits. I know those are the newest, latest and greatest, but we’re excited to see how we might be able to leverage them. Two of our identity and affinity communities are also alumni communities, one for recent alumni and then one for other alumni. So that was also another way that we brought in the alumni specific information, was through those two communities.

And then, our landing page, our homepage, this is more relevant to current students and alumni, but maybe a little bit of both, in some cases. We have all our career fairs up there at the top where you can see them, we have our most relevant events showcased on that homepage. And while most of our events are attended by students, they are typically open to alumni. And then, we have our on-campus jobs, not as relevant for alumni, but really, really relevant for our students. The research shows that students who work actually are more likely to be academically successful, who work within a certain amount of hours, are more likely to be academically successful. It is something, we have a high first gen population, and a lot of our students do financially need to work, so we want to make those student employment opportunities visible to them. So that is a little bit about our site and the design.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. So it sounds like you’ve got quite a bit on this website. Are there any other resources or events, programs, anything else like that that you’d like to call out?

Emily McCarthy:

Oh, goodness. I think in terms of advice for potentially new uConnect users, you can have too much in a given community, so we’re reexamining… Like our resume community, not surprisingly, is incredibly robust, so we’re reexamining, do we need some sub communities there? We’re learning that so many of our students, and I’m sure alumni too, but they’re experiencing it on mobile, and in a really robust community, you’re scrolling a lot. So we’re constantly asking ourselves, what’s that sweet spot? More is not necessarily more, and yet we want to get the information out there. We’re actually doing a review this summer to enhance, in some areas, like our employer area was lighter than we wanted, so we’re working to enhance there, and then maybe streamline in some other areas.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. I’m curious, are you all using the website to do any outreach to alumni?

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah, it’s interesting. Actually, that’s how we deployed our campaign for recent alumni who are still seeking employment, was through the website.

Meredith Metsker:

So you touched on it a little bit previously, but why did you go about setting up your website the way that you did?

Emily McCarthy:

I think we just asked ourselves, what’s most important? And those were really the three lenses that we came up with in terms of the types of communities, we need to walk people through their career journey, we need to give them some cluster specific information, and we need to recognize that you do experience the world of work differently based on your identity. So that was really the framework for the types of communities. But there’s so many, I feel like with uConnect, every decision needs to be a strategic decision. But it was also just about making information available. We knew we wanted, for example, those student employment opportunities, and those career fairs, and those key events, right on the homepage so that they were easy to discover.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, very cool. That makes a lot of sense. And I imagine your alumni appreciate the fact that, again, it’s all available 24/7, whenever they need it, regardless of what phase of their career that they’re in. That’s really cool that you all do that. So I’m curious, Emily, what early results have you seen so far since establishing or maintaining this partnership with the alumni office, and then also since launching your website?

Emily McCarthy:

We’ve been plagued by a couple staff transitions, but overall, I think our early results are we’ve had over 140 users, and then quite a few, I have the page views. Sorry, I’ve been so good of not looking at my notes, but we’ve got almost 450,000 page views. And then, just anecdotally, we’ve heard a lot of good feedback from our partners, both inside and outside the university, about how much they liked the website. It’s great to come from within the institution, but we’ve also had a couple of people from other institutions reach out to us, because they discovered something on the website through Google search, which I think speaks nicely to the SEO So I think that’s been a fun, unintended consequence, is getting the word out about the good work that we’re doing, to other institutions.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, that’s always a nice little boost.

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah, for sure.

Meredith Metsker:

And then, is the 450,000 page views, is that since you launched?

Emily McCarthy:

It is, yes. And again, we did a soft launch, and we’ve had some transition on the team, so we’re looking forward to doing a lot more intentional promotion this next year. So looking forward to those numbers continuing to build.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. And is that since the soft launch in August of 2022?

Emily McCarthy:

Correct.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay.

Emily McCarthy:

It’s been about 10 months.

Meredith Metsker:

Wow, that’s awesome. That’s a lot of eyeballs.

Emily McCarthy:

It is, yeah. We’re excited.

Meredith Metsker:

So, Emily, how will you measure, or continue to measure, success of this partnership with the alumni office moving forward?

Emily McCarthy:

I think specifically to uConnect, we want to continue to look at those subscriptions and the eyeballs and the engagement, and appreciate that we can look at what communities are getting more traction than others and can take the analysis from there. I think the broader partnership has been established for so long that I think it’s just continuing to collaborate together and doing things in partnership and not in competition, will be our measure of success.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. Do you all have any exciting projects on the horizon?

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah, we’re going to reinvigorate our job shadow program, and that is actually a great example of what crosses students and alumni. Prior to COVID, we had a pretty robust job shadow program, where students would go and shadow, typically alumni, some were employer partners, but many of them were alumni, for a day, to learn more about what they did and really get that insider perspective on a company, or on a particular career cluster, or on a particular role. We also had an employer trek program, which what it sounds like, taking a group to an employer to do a site visit. Those were a little bit shorter, but a really great way for students to get a sense of what a real environment looks like.

Those things were all really put on hold with COVID, and even after we were back, hybrid, a lot of organizations still had restrictions on letting outside individuals in to try to limit their traffic. But now that the vast majority of restrictions have been lifted, we’re looking to reinvigorate both of those programs, but maybe meld them together more. There’s no reason why a job shadow can’t be a one to many. You don’t want 20 students doing it at once, but if you had three, that could be even more meaningful than just having one. We’re also looking to leaning into more of the DE&I world with those shadows, and being intentional about making a connection where the identities align, because we know it’s not just about the work. Having a mentor who shares your same identity, I think, can just be so powerful.

So we’re in the early stages, but the individual on my team overseeing it has a great plan, and we’re looking forward to partnering with the Alumni Association to hopefully get some shadows in place at the end of the fall.

Meredith Metsker:

Awesome, that’s exciting.

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah, we’re looking forward to it.

Meredith Metsker:

Lots of good stuff.

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah.

Meredith Metsker:

So as we mentioned at the beginning of this conversation, the University of Arizona has a lot of students, I think you said over 50,000, correct?

Emily McCarthy:

Mm-hmm. If you count graduate, yes.

Meredith Metsker:

And even more alumni.

Emily McCarthy:

Yes.

Meredith Metsker:

So I’m curious, how do you go about balancing support for both audiences? I know there’s a lot of similarities between the types of issues that they need help with, but how do you go about finding that balance?

Emily McCarthy:

It’s hard. Just the scale of our student population is tricky, and that’s one of the reasons we are really excited to bring on uConnect, because we can have those resources available 24/7 in a self-service manner. I think that differentiation of role and clear handoff point of the flow from our office to the Alumni Association works really well. We have primary responsibility and accountability for them when they’re students, and then that one year graduation data, one year mark, is shared, and then it’s the Alumni Association. But we’re contributing across that whole life cycle, both offices are contributing. So yeah, I think scalability.

We also are really intentional about, and I can’t speak to the Alumni Association on this, but with our active students, we’re really intentional about outreach to those who we know are going to need us the most. As I mentioned, we do have a high first generation population here at the university. We know that those students tend to need more, not everyone, but in general, tend to need more career support than those who are continuing generation. We know that they complete internships at a smaller rate, and complete paid internships at an even smaller rate. So while we will enthusiastically serve any student that comes to see us, a lot of our proactive outreach does really revolve around those first gen students or other underrepresented students.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. And in that outreach, are you letting them know, “Hey, after graduation, you can still come to us anytime”?

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah, absolutely. Another thing that we’re working on is really intentional monthly messaging that ties to our career journey map. Sorry, just got distracted by an email, happens. We’re also doing some really intentional messaging that ties to our career journey map, so that’s also part of that departure message when the student’s getting ready to graduate, that we continue to be there for them.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay, very cool. Well, I want to be cognizant of our time here, so I’ll start wrapping us up. Is there anything else about this partnership with the alumni office, or your work that you’re doing to support alumni, is there anything else you would like to add about that?

Emily McCarthy:

I think we covered it from a couple of different angles, so thank you for asking such good questions.

Meredith Metsker:

I’m glad they were good. Thanks for coming with such great answers. I am curious too, that career journey or student journey map, is that something that could be shared?

Emily McCarthy:

Eventually. It’s not at the moment, but eventually, it will be on our site. And in Salesforce, which that’s protected, but I think a version of it will be on our site eventually.

Meredith Metsker:

Okay. There you go, so if you’re watching or listening, just keep checking the University of Arizona career development site.

Emily McCarthy:

Yep. Career.arizona.edu.

Meredith Metsker:

There you go, you heard it here.

Emily McCarthy:

Yep.

Meredith Metsker:

Well, Emily, if anyone would like to connect with you to learn more from you, where’s a good place for them to do that?

Emily McCarthy:

Probably LinkedIn is the best place, and you can find me, Emily McCarthy, University of Arizona. That search should bring you to my profile, so always happy to connect on there.

Meredith Metsker:

All right. And I’ll be sure to include a link to Emily’s profile in the show notes as well.

Emily McCarthy:

Thank you.

Meredith Metsker:

So now, I want to close this out with this answer a question, leave a question thing I like to do at the end of every episode.

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah.

Meredith Metsker:

So I’ll ask you a question our last guest left for you, and then you’ll leave one for the next guest. So the last person I talked to was Monica Clem for Teach for America, and she left this question for you. When you were six years old, what did you want to be when you grew up, and how different is that from where you are now?

Emily McCarthy:

I’m so glad that the age was six, because I changed my mind a lot when I was growing up about what I wanted to do, and I’m actually a convert to higher education, I’ve been in the field for about a third of my career now. But I remember in first grade, we had to draw a picture of what we wanted to be when we grew up and they went up in the classroom, so that age was vivid. At the time, I was taking ballet, and I wanted to be a ballet dancer, which was never going to be in the cards. I have neither the physique nor the talent for that, but that’s what I wanted to do when I was six.

But it’s funny, I think since I’ve been in college and throughout my career, the theme has really been similar, and it’s been that intersection of the individual talent and the organizational talent and where those two intersect. And I’ve been a management consultant in the past, I’ve been in HR, I’ve been in university career development, and they really all touch on that intersection. So I’ve had that consistency, if not since I was six, at least since I graduated. But it’s funny because I think my personal interests are really similar to when I was six. I loved cats, I liked to travel, and I liked being with friends, so I still really like all of those things. So that has at least stayed consistent.

Meredith Metsker:

I wonder what the percentages of people who knew what they wanted to be when they grew up when they were six years old, and then actually did it.

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah, probably pretty low. But it’s funny because you see stats out there about how many people are in work related to their college major, and those stats always are my pet peeve, because I feel like it’s not just about the major, it’s about the skillset that you get and those transferable skills. I majored in business and I minored in psychology, and I feel like I’ve always had work that tied back into those two things. And I’m not a psychologist, nor, a marketing degree, I don’t work directly in marketing, but I feel like those skills have always stayed with me. This was an unsolicited answer, but yeah, don’t love those stats out there that say, “60% of people,” or whatever it is, “Don’t work in anything related to their college major.” Because I think if you dissected the skills they learned in their college major and changed that perspective, I think that percentage would be a lot higher.

Meredith Metsker:

Yes. Skills not necessarily degrees.

Emily McCarthy:

Exactly. And that’s where we’re going, in so many ways.

Meredith Metsker:

Yeah, could not agree more. Like I said, I was a journalism major, and I did work in journalism for a while, but now I work in marketing, which is adjacent, I guess.

Emily McCarthy:

But you’re doing journalism in this moment.

Meredith Metsker:

It’s true, yeah. I learned how to do audio and video production in journalism school, I learned how to be on camera in journalism school. All of that is extremely transferable.

Emily McCarthy:

Ask questions. Yep, all of that.

Meredith Metsker:

Yep, interviewing. It all comes right back around.

Emily McCarthy:

Absolutely.

Meredith Metsker:

So Emily, what question would you like to leave for the next guest?

Emily McCarthy:

If you could pick any person, alive or otherwise, to be your mentor, who would it be?

Meredith Metsker:

Ooh, I like that. That’s going to require some good thought.

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah, whomever the next person might be, I look forward to hearing what they say.

Meredith Metsker:

Do you know who your person would be?

Emily McCarthy:

I will probably get personal and say my dad, who’s been passed away for about 14 years.

Meredith Metsker:

Oh, that’s really special.

Emily McCarthy:

Yeah.

Meredith Metsker:

So Emily, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. This was a really great conversation with, I think, lots of just great nuggets for our audience to take away, in terms of supporting alumni, but also building that partnership with the alumni office. And it was cool to hear how that’s just one of many partnerships you and your team have there on campus. So thank you again for sharing your time and your knowledge.

Emily McCarthy:

Thanks for having me, Meredith. It was a lot of fun. Bye-bye everyone.