Career Services: Do We Enable or Empower Students?

1. Career Services: Do We Enable or Empower Students? Jessica Turos & Annette Badik BGSU Career Center

2. Learning Objectives • Distinguish among the generational characteristics • Identify key characteristics of millennial students • Understand the differences between empowering and enabling students • Recognize the challenges and opportunities practitioners face working with millennial students on career development issues

3. Programs/Services Individual appointments career development job search Assessment Courses Workshops Employer panels Resume critiques Mock interviews Job fairs / Recruitment Electronic employment database Career Services

4. Generations • Matures: ‘22-’45 (Silents ’25-’42) • Baby Boomers:’45-’64 (Boomers’43-’60) • Gen X: ‘65-’78 (Thirteeners ‘61-’81) • Millennials: ‘79-’01/’82-’02 (Echo Boomers ’79 or later)

5. Millennial Students • Special • Sheltered • Confident • Conventional • Pressured • Team-oriented • Volunteerism • Achieving • Tech-Savvy • Globally Conscious

6. MillennialStudents • New Puritanism • Political polarization • Spiritualism • Connection: PC, DVD, CD, MP3, IPOD, PS2, X-box, cell phones, texting, IM, blogs facebook, myspace.com • Girl power • Hip hop

7. Enabling versus Empowering • Enabling: “excessive helping” resulting in reinforcing non-productive behavior • Empowering: actively engaging students in their own learning process

8. Telling versus Teaching Telling: dictating what students should think, do, be, etc. Teaching: educating students to find their own answers

9. Enabling and Telling Millennial Students Enabling/Telling examples • Resume critique: writing it for the student (it’s faster) • Selecting a career: “my parents told me to major in _____, so I should be a ________.” (used to looking for others for “the answer”)

10. Empowering and Teaching Millennial Students Empowering/Teaching example Resume Critique • Ask students what they think of their resume • Provide a check sheet for key items/concepts • Give them examples (word choices, resumes, formats) • Provide them with resources (websites, samples, books)

11. Strengths and Challenges of Working with Millennial Students • Based on what you know, what strengths do the Millennial Generation embody? • What are the challenges in working with this generation?

12. Selecting a Career • Exploration of skills, values, and interests, and personality • Explore information about the world of work • Students learn how to match their interest, skills, personality and values to congruent occupations • People as resources (i.e. Informational Interviews, networks, parents) • Students learn application of decision-making and goal-setting models

13. How can you better serve Millennial students?

14. Chinese Proverb • “Give me a fish and I eat for a day. Teach me to fish and I eat for a lifetime.”

15. References and Additional Resources • Beck, J. C. & Wade, M. (2004). Got game: how the gamer generation is reshaping business forever. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. • DeBard, R. & Coomes, M. (2004). Serving the millennial generation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. • Giordani, P. (Spring 2004). Bridging the gaps: Managing the generations in the workplace. NACE Journal. • Howe, N., & Stauss, W. (2000). Millennials rising: The next great generation. New York: Vintage Books. • Northwestern Mutual Financial Network. (2005). Millennium generation studies.www.generationstudies.com

16. Jessica Turos, M.A. Annette Badik, M.A., M.F.C.S., P.C. Career Center Bowling Green State University 360 Saddlemire Student Services Bldg. Bowling Green, OH 43403 (419) 372-2356 jmturos@bgsu.edu abadik@bgsu.edu