We know the entire Colorado College community supports students in competency development. As students develop competencies throughout their curricular experiences, we want to support you in ensuring students can identify and articulate how they are demonstrating these competencies. The Career Center would like to partner with you in making this competency development explicit.

Examples of what this could look like:

• Competency brainstorming session
• Helping craft a competency statement for a syllabus
• Elevating competencies in assignments and/or classroom activities, which have included: virtual recorded mock interviews, alumni informational conversations, internship/job identification, teeing up group/writing/etc. assignments

You can find more information on competencies here. We welcome requests for consultations about incorporating competencies language into individual courses, curriculum, and student interactions. 

The Career Center can help with a variety of topics as it relates to professional development and the career process. We are happy to collaborate with faculty members to determine what might work best for the outcomes you are seeking to achieve. This could look like partnering on a lunch or after class presentation, speaking to your majors, visiting your class to talk about a specific skill/subject, or working with students on professional development, job/internship search, and/or the graduate school search process.

Examples of past presentations:

• Application materials such as resumes, cover letters and essays are often standard materials for any job or grad school. Standing out is important.
• Who am I? What am I interested in? What are my values? These are all very important to consider when applying to positions.
• Navigating the job and internship search.
• Networking can be intimidating to many, so practice helps. We can practice elevator pitches, brainstorm questions to ask, how to find people, as well as practice with friendly individuals.
• Interviewing can feel difficult and overwhelming. Preparation is key. What types of questions are common? How does one answer "tell me about yourself"? What are behavioral interviewing questions? What types of questions should you ask the employer? We are happy to help with interviewing skills as well as mock interviews.
• Workplace norms are important in organizations. What does that mean according to each industry? Standards are different. Email and phone etiquette are important. What are common mistakes made that can be avoided so a new employee isn't marked as being difficult to work with? How can we set each student up for success? This goes beyond the workplace. This is important at CC too!

Students love to hear stories from other people. Who are they and what have they done with their lives since CC? The Career Center can help find and host a variety of speakers from alumni to family members to friends of the college. Topics could range from:

• What are alumni from each department doing now
• Networking
• Interviews: technical, case, general
• 1:1 conversations and chats
• Company/industry culture and application specifics
• Connecting majors to industry
• Transferable skills from CC to the workplace

Every fall, returning students are asked to complete the summer experience survey. Check out internship highlights or the full Summer 2023 Experience Survey responses to learn more about the experiences CC students have pursued.

During the spring, graduating students are asked to complete the First Destination Survey to share their first outcome after CC. The first opportunities CC graduates pursue demonstrate that with a liberal arts education, major doesn't always equal career path. See the diverse range of opportunities reported by of our last 5 graduating classes. The compiled results sheet allows you to search and filter by factors like major, employer, or graduate school name.

Please share what you hear. We appreciate the special relationship faculty share with students. Students often celebrate their success with you first. Please share any CC student outcomes with us, such as internships, research, post-graduate job, graduate school, or fellowship. We invite you to send a quick email or even simply forward an email to graduateoutcomes@coloradocollege.edu.