Cheryl Swinger

Excellence in Career Services
CHEP Status: Active
CHEP Awarded: 09/24/2023

Badge Evidence | Completed Courses (4 Hours Each)

This course offers strategies to provide employment and job search skills training that enables students to seek jobs in the field for which they are trained. You'll learn how to offer comprehensive career services regardless of whether your career services department is staffed full- or part-time. The course provides strategies for an institution to set up a Career Services Department, enhance and run it, and measure results. It describes how a successful career services department can ensure that your students have the skills and self-confidence to succeed in the workplace. You'll learn techniques to increase placement rates and reach out to the community to meet and maintain relationships with hiring decision-makers.
In this course, you will be given tools to help your students find the job that's right for them, present themselves impressively on paper, and interview with ease. This course is designed so you can successfully support your students in four phases of their job search: doing a targeted job search, writing a powerful resume and cover letter, presenting professionally, and developing effective interview skills.
Social media is critical tool for career services professionals to interact with and reach their constituent groups yet many career professionals aren't aware of how to develop a purposeful social media strategy. Without a social media strategy, career services departments risk losing relevance with their audience, and they also lose the opportunity of harnessing social media to achieve department goals. This course describes the phases of planning and implementing a social media strategy for your career services department. Each module is based on the fundamental steps of preparing a comprehensive and measurable plan to achieve the goals of the career services department.
Educational institutions have opportunities to create unique alumni associations which will look and feel more like alumni communities. This course will show you how you can create active alumni communities to increase enrollment, retention and placement for your entire institution. You will learn how to provide your alumni with valuable services and how to seek their help to enhance your educational programs and career services, as well as marketing and admissions. From getting started to setting up an alumni data base management system and determining the institution's return on investment, this course provides you with operational strategies for establishing an effective alumni association.
Although job developing requires a mix of critical skills, many career advisors are forced to learn them through the "sink or swim" method. They're often asked to immediately make a specific number of cold-calls daily. They learn that "job developing" is synonymous with cold-calling. It isn't. This course covers how to properly prepare for job developing, how to prospect, prioritize employer contact, and communicate with employers to address objections, get job orders, manage them to completion, and continuously engage employers and candidates to develop long-term partnerships. Job developing should be more comprehensive than a simple list of employers to cold-call.
Securing gainful employment for students with an arrest or criminal conviction is filled with unique challenges. This course introduces many of the challenges your students have (and will face), not only from the student's perspective, but also from the employer's. Upon completion of the course, you will be in a position to counter potential stereotypes and 'negligent hiring' fears. Topics of study include reviewing effective interview practices and the importance of honesty, how attitude lays the foundation for success or failure, the value of developing a letter of explanation, as well as reviewing techniques to mend a problematic past.
Students with disabilities represent a unique minority group within higher education. Despite being the largest minority group in the world, all too often their access to and inclusion in programs and services comes as an afterthought. Career services practitioners pride themselves in their ability to serve diverse populations, yet many remain untrained in working with disabled students. This course helps career services practitioners understand federal legislation basics as they relate to disabled students, the unique challenges they face, and characteristics of the population as well as practical resources and career services strategies to help overcome their unique barriers to employment.
**While the course addresses interaction considerations for those with deafness, blindness, learning disabilities, acquired brain disabilities, and physical disabilities, it shouldn't be expected that the course will cover all possible disabilities you may want to specifically learn about. It provides a broad overview.
There are millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) job seekers struggling to find careers and even hold down a job, due in part to their sexual orientation and gender identity. What amplifies this issue is the fact that many college career advisors who are supposed to help struggling jobseekers are not trained to address the unique struggles their LGBTQ students face in their career development. This course equips career advisors with the perspective, knowledge, and practical skills necessary to provide quality career services for their LGBTQ students, who greatly need their assistance.
Effectively coaching students to achieve their goals in a way that builds autonomy, confidence, and accountability is fundamental to the role of a career services professional. Despite this fact, many career professionals have never engaged in professional development to build their coaching skills. This course helps career services professionals develop fundamental coaching skills so they can act as a catalyst and facilitator in assisting students to work towards their self-identified goals, with the belief that self-identified goals lead to increased student buy-in and motivation for attainment. Learn to put practical coaching techniques into action to maximize your results with students. *This course is relevant to a variety of career support professionals regardless of titles such as career counselors, advisors, coordinators, or "case managers" serving a variety of populations which may include students, out-of-school youth, or dislocated workers (youth or adults).
Professional networking is an essential career development skill that can lead to new job opportunities, higher salaries, and valuable relationships. Despite the numerous advantages of networking, many learners are unaware of its importance and not equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to effectively build and maintain professional relationships. Career professionals must be able to teach learners how to build the social capital they need to gain access to opportunities, information, and resources that drive career success. This course provides a structured, practical approach to helping learners develop the knowledge and skills needed to foster professional relationships that will assist in career advancement for years to come. *The course contains multiple done-for-you resources for download and use with learners.
Help students ace the interview with successful tactics to showcase their qualities and make them the best fit for the job. A career management specialist will be able to master the appropriate actions for students to take before, during, and after the interview. These tactics can then be implemented in a career management class or during the preparations for prospective job interviews. The goal of this course is to help develop a better understanding of the topic and produce tangible resources to help implement plans, strategies, and ideas at your school. In addition to lecture videos, resource links, and assessments, you will be able to utilize Journal and Learning Activities, which will continue to be useful after successful completion of the course.
In today's digital labor market, a strong online presence is a necessity. As the world's largest online professional network, LinkedIn is a critical platform for anyone serious about building their professional online presence and advancing their career. However, many learners may not know how to make the most of this powerful tool, and as a career professional, it's your job to help them succeed. This course will equip you with the knowledge and skills you need to teach your learners how to create a standout LinkedIn profile, expand their professional network, and tap into valuable resources that can help them stay ahead in their field. *The course contains multiple done-for-you tools and resources for download and use with learners.
In today's dynamic career support landscape, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has rapidly gained prominence and is poised to become even more prevalent. For career support professionals, embracing this technological shift is not merely advantageous; it's essential. Generative AI offers the capacity to create personalized assessments, optimize resumes, and provide immediate responses, making it a powerful tool in empowering learners on their career journeys. Proficiency in generative AI is no longer a choice; it's a fundamental skill that defines the modern career support professional. By mastering generative AI, you not only invest in your own professional growth but also elevate the support you provide to learners. This course will elevate your career support skills, ensuring you excel in the AI-driven era.
Accurate representation of graduate outcomes is critical to upholding institutional integrity. All involved in employment reporting must continuously identify ways to strengthen their system for tracking, collecting, and verifying employment data. When documentation is both a quality and a compliance matter, staff must understand the verification program as a whole, the role they play in continuously improving it, and how to use professional principles and best practices in documentation. This course is designed to encourage participants to critically analyze their own employment reporting practices while sharing ideas and best practices that can help lead to the highest level of data integrity.
This course will provide you with information to help you effectively communicate with students and encourage communication among students in an online environment. You will learn the importance of facilitating instructor-to-student (I2S), student-to-instructor (S2I), and student-to-student (S2S) communication. Technology tools play a vital role in the communication process and several are discussed in this course. In addition, discussion is also provided to help you further understand how to manage and measure communication in an online course and help students communicate effectively.