Though the work had been evolving over a few years, Elevating Career was launched in 2021 to propel the campus community to work collaboratively to prepare students for life beyond UW.  Nationally, 83.5% of incoming freshmen indicated that “being able to get a better job” was “very important” in their decision to go to college.  Job prospects was the strongest motivator for attending college.  Furthermore, 54.8% indicated that “this college’s graduates get good jobs” was “very important” to their decision to attend a specific school, which was second only to “this college has a very good academic reputation.”  Clearly, an institution’s ability to prepare students for successful futures is important to students.

The same is true for Huskies.  5,775 incoming Huskies (81%) indicated interest in hearing about “careers and internships” when they registered for Advising & Orientation; this was 48% percent higher than the student success interest area that came in second, which was “study abroad and global engagement.”  The results for incoming transfer students were similar – 557 transfer students (77%) wanted information about careers, which was 65% more than wanted information about the second most highly endorsed option of “academic support tips.”

Our website has experienced 163% user growth since 2018.  Clearly today’s college students want more dynamic, customized, integrative career resources than students of previous generations.  This requires that institutions approach career development work differently than in the past.  We must think bigger and act bolder.  That’s the impetus for Elevating Career.  In the coming years, we’ll work to elevate career using the following strategies.

Embedding Career Everywhere

Effectively preparing a large diverse student body is bigger than a career center, or even a few career centers!  It truly takes a village and we’re fortunate to have many wonderful partners – from Admissions to the Alumni Association – who promote and amplify career growth at every stage.  A few examples include First Year Programs, Educational Opportunities Program, UAA Advising, Counseling Center, UWIT Academic Experience Design & Delivery, Parent & Family Programs, and dozens of academic departments.

Equipping Campus Partners

Students have more contact with their faculty, academic advisers, and on-campus employment managers than they do with a career center.  Through our Career Readiness Partner Program, we equip campus colleagues with knowledge and tools so they have the confidence to facilitate career conversations and programming with their students.  You can learn about our efforts on our pages for Advisers & Faculty and Managers of On-Campus Student Employees.

Engaging Diverse Voices

Students need insight and inspiration from a range of perspectives.  We’re actively including student insights and successes, alumni profiles, and employer insights on our website. We’re also striving to ensure that the voices we showcase through our events and our website represent UW’s diverse student body; one example is our identity/affiliation communities.

A Note of Thanks to our Funding Partners!

Our state budget allocation does not enable us to provide the breadth or depth of service we would like.  We are immensely grateful to the individuals and units who are helping us Elevate Career.

  • Student Tech Fee funds LinkedIn Learning and our web platform
  • Parent & Family Programs funds PathwayU
  • Five UW-Seattle colleges fund Handshake
  • The UW-Bothell and UW-Tacoma career centers, the UW Libraries, and CIRCLE help fund other vendor contracts
  • The Gerald J. Baldasty and Randal A. Beam Career Internship Endowed Fund for Students was the founding partner of the Scholarship for Unpaid Internships

If you would like to help with our Elevating Career initiative, you can Get Involved or Donate Here