Career Services Center
Senior and Alumni Services
Assessment Report
The Senior and Alumni Services Program used several different methods to gauge user
satisfaction with our services over the past two years. The Career Services Center is
unique in that we have several different groups of clients that other University
departments do not serve. Our clients include students, alumni and employers. Each
group has distinct concerns and expectations of the Center and we attempted to measure
our success in meeting those expectations in several different ways.
In Goal 1, “Increase satisfaction of seniors and graduating students with career advising
and job search services”, we used surveys to measure student satisfaction with the Spring
Career Fair as a venue for advancing their career plans. Over the past two years, we have
averaged 84% and 85% overall satisfaction with the event. Spring Career Week
workshops are a key means of presenting career advising and job search information to
students and alumni, and again, over the past two years, client satisfaction with these
events has remained high, at 95% and 85%.
One possible measure of satisfaction with our services is the degree to which alumni plan
to use the Center after graduation. In FY 02-03, in a survey conducted at
commencement, 73% of graduating students reported that they planned to use our
services after graduation. In FY 03-04, 30% planned to use the services. The
improvement in the job market may have had an impact on graduates’ plans in FY 03-04.
Student satisfaction with our career advising remained strong for both FY 02-03 and FY
03-04. A web survey was attempted in FY 02-03, but few people filled it out, so the
survey was dropped in FY 03-04. The measures already employed are adequate for
gauging student satisfaction.
In regard to Goal 2 “Increase student satisfaction with the use of technology in the Career
Services Center”, as the use of technology becomes more widespread, the Career
Services Center has also expanded and improved its use of new tools to help students.
We conducted a survey to check the effectiveness of the DISCOVER software we had
been using and found that there were more technical problems being reported by students.
Consequently, we changed software vendors and now use eChoices. Surveying students
in FY 03-04, we found that this program was much better in terms of reducing technical
problems while providing helpful information for students.
A web survey did not produce enough respondents to make analysis possible, so we used
the commencement survey to measure the degree to which students used our technology
services. There was a slight drop in the percentage of students who reported using our
VikingNET job posting service, but it was not significant.
Goal 3 is concerned with employer satisfaction with the Career Services Center. The best
measures of their satisfaction may be the Spring Career Fair evaluations and the On
Campus Recruiter evaluation. Employers participating in these programs are on campus
and can gauge our services first hand. Over the past two years, according to these
measures, employer satisfaction has remained high. A web survey did not produce an
adequate number of respondents, but the other instruments still provided the data we
needed.
The Career Services Center will continue to seek to improve services to all its clients,
students, alumni and employers by exploring the latest technology available, and
continued training and staff development.