Faculty & Staff

Gustavus Career and Vocation Champions is a campus wide program designed to equip faculty and staff to assist students with career and vocation questions or decision making. We understand many faculty and staff are currently doing this work and having these conversations already – we want to provide the background, resources, and tools, so that you can be prepared and confident while assisting students.

In this training, you will learn valuable helping skills and how best to make referrals to available resources. In addition, you will receive resources you can use to answer career and vocation related questions. We are also excited to hear from you how or what you are doing to assist our students with career readiness, vocation, and professionalism. This program and training is open to any Gustavus faculty or staff member. Contact Jill VanOsdol ’10 for more information at jvanosdo@gustavus.edu.

Have a career specialist speak during your class sessions on a variety of career topics. We will customize our sessions to focus on the needs of your department and students. Fill out this form to request a presentation . 

From attendance at career events and fairs, to Interview preparation, professional documents, career exploration or networking activities – you can tailor career assignments that fit your needs and ask your career specialist to help provide proof of completion. You could also give students the opportunity to gain industry experience by completing short real world online projects by embedding Forage into your curriculum.  Connect with Jill at jvanosdo@gustavus.edu to learn more about implementing any of the ideas below or ones that you have.

• TruMotivate Career Assessment Assignment: Include this career assessment tool to help students articulate their motivation and better understand how that relates to career interests. Outcome is that students gain career-related knowledge and individualized insight into what motivates them and possible connections to the world of work. 
• Résumé Writing Assignment: Students will gain an understanding of how to create and develop a professional résumé. Outcome is that students will produce a résumé to communicate previous experiences to use for applying for future opportunities. 
• Who Am I? Assignment: Students will develop a polished and professionally oriented elevator pitch and learn how to answer “Tell me about yourself?” Outcome is that students learn how to articulate their experiences, strengths, interests, and motivations into a specific response and how to tailor it for different situations. 
• LinkedIn Profile Assignment: Students will join the 1.1 billion professionals around the world utilizing this networking and job search tool. Outcome is that students learn how to utilize LinkedIn, develop a professional online presence, and build an online professional network. 
• Other Assignment ideas include: Behavioral Based Interviewing, Career Exploration, Career Fair or Event Attendance, Handshake job/internship search, or Informational Interviews. Career is happy to talk more about tailoring an assignment to fit your needs and working together to provide proof of completion or attendance. 

Here are some examples of conversation starters and our recommended questions for career conversations/check ins for each class year:

• First Year: Have you created your profile on Handshake? Have you met with a career specialist?
• Sophomore: Do you have a résumé? How are you planning to get career related experiences?
• Junior: Who are your career mentors? What are your post-Gustavus plans?
• Senior: What help do you need in transitioning from Gustavus? Have you built a professional network?

Use the Starfish flag, email career@gustavus.edu or call 507-933-7575 to refer students to career. Email students or include in your course syllabus (see below for templates/examples). 

• Self-assessments: Including the Strong Interest Inventory for students undecided about majors or specific careers.
• Our Peer Career Advisors for students needing assistance on résumés and cover letters.
• Industry specific groups and individuals to follow on social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) for career knowledge and exploration.
• Candid Career which has videos of hundreds of informational interviews and internship/job search strategies. Here is a List of video playlists on career development topics. Here is a List of video playlists for each college semester.
• Student groups on campus related to major/career field.
• Career Development website
• Handshake for knowing upcoming career events and job and internship opportunities for Gusties.
• Semester by Semester Career Video Playlists: This is a curriculum by college semester of career development videos from why go to the Career Development office to how to prepare for first day at a new job. Each list includes number of videos and total time.
  • Spreadsheet of all video playlists alphabetically: This is a list of all the video playlists to refer students to; may videos do have quizzes to make them easy to assign and grade.
• The Office of Health Professions website