As the height of graduation season winds down, newly minted graduates are inevitably getting questioned on their next steps: What will you study? What job do you have lined up? How will you use what you learned?
A more general question that can be posed to society is how do we set students up for success so that they can complete degree programs that lead to promising career pathways? The business community has a vested interest in providing meaningful experiences for students that better connect their education with the workforce. Although corporate social responsibility has its place, companies with unfilled job openings, turnover and retention issues, and high costs of hiring are motivated by the bottom line to make young people aware of opportunities in their companies or industries. Employers are more likely to sustain engagement with institutions of higher education and expand opportunities to more students once a return on investment (ROI) has been realized.
What does meaningful engagement look like? This publication showcases promising examples of business-higher education partnerships that embed career development throughout a student’s college experience and treat both students and employers as customers.
To highlight in-demand jobs available in a specific region or state and which programs provide solid pathways to those jobs, USCCF has partnered with American Institutes for Research and Gallup since 2015 on the consumer information website Launch My Career. The Launch My Career national conference will take place at Gallup in Washington, DC, on June 20, 2017.
