Experience Counts! Leveraging

Internship/Externship Experience to

Secure Employment for your Graduates

Dr. Connie Johnson

Ann Cross

Mary Beth Ryder

Many Thanks to Turning Technologies

Ann Cross Executive Partner

Anncross012@gmail.com

Dr. Connie Johnson Chief Academic Officer

Cjohnson@coloradotech.edu

Mary Beth Ryder Strategic Partnership Manager

About Us

The Sparrow Group Proven Student Engagement Success

The sparrow is known for being nimble, quick,

loyal, and attentive to details, and for unusual

vision which enables them to see opportunity from

a great distance.

About Us

Colorado Technical University

Founded in 1965, Colorado Technical

University (CTU) provides higher education for

today’s career-focused students and offers

students support, flexibility and resources to

advance personally and professionally.

CTU offers associate, bachelor’s, master's,

and doctoral degrees. CTU’s main campus is

in Colorado Springs, CO, with campuses in

Denver CO.; Sioux Falls, SD; and North

Kansas City, MO.

Nearly 25,000 students attend CTU through

ground campuses or online platform.

Approximately 82 percent of our students

attend CTU’s web-based Virtual Campus.

Colorado Springs

4435 North Chestnut Street

Colorado Springs, Co 80907

Denver

3151 South Vaughn Way

Aurora, CO 80014

Sioux Falls

3901 West 59th Street

Sioux Falls, SD 57108

North Kansas City

520 East 19th Avenue

North Kansas City, MO

64116

What You Will Learn

Trends in experiential learning

Identify executive level strategies

Practical tools - What Works!

Data, Data, Data- 3 Innovations

Site Development

Bonus! Leverage social media, alumni networks and technology to improve employment outcomes

TELL US ABOUT YOUR COMPANY

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1. One Campus

2. 2-10 Campuses

3. >10 Campuses

4. Consultant or Vendor

5. Other

TELL US ABOUT YOU

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1. Campus Administration

2. Career Services

3. Education

4. Admission

5. Student Services

6. Vendor/Consultant

WHY IS THIS TOPIC IMPORTANT TO

YOU?

We a

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to su

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1. We are looking for tactical tools to

help manage intern/externship

2. We need data to support the

importance of experiential

learning offerings for all programs

3. Because we want to improve

employment outcomes and want

to see some best-practices

4. All of the above

5. Other

Why Employment Outcomes Matter

The Perfect Storm

Major Lawsuits against highly selective

institutions

Gainful Employment legislation

Obama Administration dialogue

Media coverage - “The Value of Higher

Education”

Accreditors

Economy

Prospect shopping research

Experiential Learning is Everywhere

Experience is King!

• Portfolio project

• Internship/externship

• Volunteer work

• Related work

• Experiential assignments

• Capstone Projects

Impact of Experiential Learning

1. 83% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that

“work/internship experience acquired before, or during, graduate

school results in greater employment opportunities upon

graduation.”

2. Undergraduates in a business school were more likely to receive job

offers if they had completed an internship

3. Intern alumni had higher salaries than non-intern alumni

4. Internship statistics from the National Association of Colleges and

Employers' (NACE) 2009 Experiential Education Survey:

• 67.7% of 2007-08 interns were offered fulltime positions

• 83.6% of these offers were accepted

• 35.3% of employers' fulltime, entry-level college hires came from

their internship programs.

1) Cassidy, 2010 2) Gault, Leach and Dewey, 2010 3) Gault, Reddington and Schlager, 2000

Proof of Concept

“Internships help students see practical applications for what they learn in the classroom

and clarify their own career aspirations (regarding not just what they want in a job, but

also what they don’t want)” –Inside Higher Ed, 2012

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), over 55%

of 2012 graduates who took part in NACE’s 2012 Student Survey completed an

internship or co-op.

NACE’s 2012 Job Outlook survey found that 73.7% of employers prefer to hire job

candidates who have relevant work experience.

The 2012 NACE Internship & Co-op Survey found that the number of internships is

expected to increase by 8.5%.

NACE 2010 Student Survey: Graduates with internship experience are more likely to

receive a job offer than graduates without this experience (42% vs. 30%)

81% of employers who participated in the 2010 Association of American

Colleges and Universities survey said that completing an internship or

community-based field project to connect classroom learning with real-world

experiences would help to prepare college students for success.

BOTTOM LINE?

Executive Level Oversight

Standardize, Implement & Manage

Case Study

What Experiential Learning Data Tells You

Area’s for curriculum improvement

Area’s for student soft skill improvement

Area’s for student practical skill improvement

Is your Institution meeting the demands of the market?

Which companies are most likely to hire

Cultural fit of your students to specific companies

Which Employers offer the best learning environments?

Who are the market influencers?

… Just to name a few!

WHAT TOOLS ARE YOU CURRENTLY USING TO

MANAGE EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING PROGRAMS?

Our S

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1. Our Student Information System

(SIS) tracks everything

2. Our SIS tracks some things, and

we do others manually

3. It’s all tracked manually (in MS

Excel, or paper documents)

4. We have an Experiential

Learning Management System

(ELMS) such as RXPreceptor

that tracks everything

5. Other/I don’t know

ELMS

Job Board

Student Portal

Site

Portal

Field Instructor

Portal

Faculty

Portal

ELM Admin Portal

Document Management

Experiential Learning Management System -

Must Haves!

Preceptor View

RxPreceptor-

RxPreceptor-

Student View

Administrator View

RxPreceptor-

RxPreceptor: Feedback

Preceptors/Employers

“RxPreceptor made it extremely easy to

approve time.”

“RxPreceptor was very useful and easy

to navigate.”

76.7% of preceptors surveyed felt

very or extremely comfortable with

navigating the RxPreceptor site.

50 employers/preceptors have an

RxPreceptor login and are actively

working with students to complete

their PLE hours.

Students

“RxPreceptor was a fantastic

organizational tool and communication

tool that was super easy to use!”

“Rxpreceptor was helpful and easy to

understand.”

81% of students surveyed agreed or

strongly agreed that they felt

comfortable with navigating the

RxPreceptor site.

About 550 active students have an

RxPreceptor login. These students

are in various stages of their physical

PLE.

Evaluating ELMS

ANALYTICS TO GAUGE

OUTCOMES

Innovation: New Data

Data, Data, Data

• Employment Velocity

• Employment

Forecasting

• Employment

Dashboard

• Employ-Ability Index

Employment Velocity

Employment Velocity

The speed at which our graduates are employed

Graduate and start my job, not graduate and start my

job search!

Days from Graduation Percent Employed

At graduation* 50%

30 70%

60 80%

90 85%

Employment Forecasting

Employment Dashboard

Employ-Ability Index

5 Assessment Points – Month 1

– Early Term Skills Class

– Mid-Term

– Late Term Skills Class

– 1 Month prior to Externship/Internship

10 Professionalism Criteria – Reflects behaviors and characteristics deemed critical to

success in todays workplace

– Reflects attributes, tools, practices and skills equipping a job

seeker to compete for desirable positions

“Employ-Ability” Index

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Comm Attitude Timely Reliable Organized Image Feedback Team Integrity Application

New Student

Early Tenure

Mid-Tenure

Near Graduation

Graduation

Mitigation Strategies- Employ-Ability Index

Series of 8 Soft-Skill Workshops

1. New Beginnings- Your Map to

Success

2. Interviewing Strategies for Success

3. Maximizing Social Media to get a

great job

4. Conducting a Successful Job Search

5. Writing a Winning Resume & Cover

Letter

6. Time Management for the Busy

Graduate

7. Internship/Externship Excellence! Your

Open Door to a New Career!

8. Professionalism!

Which tools do you already use?

(Select all that apply)

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1. Regular employment velocity

reports

2. Employment forecasting

3. Weekly dashboard

4. Employ-ability indexing

5. None of the above

Best Practice

Maximizing Social Media

&

Career Service Branding

What Works!

Establish a Career Services Brand

State of Talent Acquisition

People no longer find jobs, employers seek

and source talent

Online networks at the core of recruitment

LinkedIn corporate hiring solutions used by

85 of the Fortune 100, $486.4 million spent

by employers in Q2 2012

Digital identity is becoming increasingly

important for candidates competing for

opportunities in a competitive market

Source: LinkedIn investor relations

Jobvite social recruiting survey, Aug. 2011

LinkedIn Networking

The nature of online networks today allow for powerful influence among professional connections

Student joins a university and broadcasts that update to professional network – a tacit endorsement

of school/program

Graduate completes education and changes jobs, indirectly influencing network on their career

achievements

Site Development

Leveraging Relationships

What is your greatest challenge when

recruiting new employers?

Findin

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1. Finding enough sites

2. Employers previous

experience

3. Employers lack of knowledge

regarding benefits to them

4. Career Services lack of effort

or ability to “sell” the benefits

5. Other

Innovation:

The New Internship

Site Development and Management

• Make it easy for employers to participate with clear

roadmap to becoming a site

• Provide site managers with training

• Provide employers with “perks”

• PAC participation

• Access to resources from campus

• Always say thank you

• Manage sites “out” when they don’t hire

Best Resources for New Sites

Alumni - leverage social media

Students - rewards & recognition

CS Staff- tie site-development to performance reviews

Faculty - bonuses, incentives, contests

University Brand - cross pollination (across departments)

Culture - support the idea that “Employment Outcomes” is everyone’s job!

Make them stake-holders to create buy-in!!!

Ann Cross Executive Partner The Sparrow Group anncross012@gmail.com www.sparrowgroup.biz http://www.linkedin.com/in/anncross

Questions??

Thank you! Please feel free to contact us with additional questions.

© Copyright 2013 The Sparrow Group. www.sparrowgroup.biz

Dr. Connie Johnson Chief Academic Officer Colorado Technical University cjohnson@coloradotech.edu www.linkedin.com/pub/connie-

johnson/42/601/a33/