Changes Come to YU’s Career Center
As many students have noticed, there were a lot of changes on the YU campus over the summer. One of the biggest sources of change came from the Career Center, specifically to their staff and YU CareerLink website. While change can lead to concern, especially in regards to something as important to the student body as the Career Center, this article gets to the bottom of the true nature of these changes.
The change students may notice most immediately is that a number of popular staff members made the tough decision to move on to, as the Executive Director of the Career Center, Marc Goldman, puts it, “a position at a higher level than they had at YU.” Specifically, Jocelyn Coalter, Laurie Davis, Heather Novak, Terry Sabri and Rebecca Weiler are no longer with the Career Center. For Goldman, to watch staff depart is always hard, especially when some of those leaving have been with his team for such an extended period of time. Goldman shared that, “All of their departures were bittersweet because we were losing great colleagues who enjoyed working here, but we could only wish them well in their next positive move.”
To counter this recent departure of staffers and keep the office fully staffed, the Career Center utilized the spring and summer to add five new staff members - Christina Jacques, Tina Lin and Diane Safer joined Wilf, while Susan Bauer and Dana Simpson were added to Beren. Speaking to the qualifications of the new staff, Goldman assured the student body that, “Our newest staff members bring experience from career centers at other institutions as well as industry backgrounds in media, fashion, consumer products, finance, PR, and consulting. These varied backgrounds will enhance the workings of the Career Center and provide more information, resources, and connections for our students.” In spite of all these hires, the organizational structure of the office has remained unaltered.
The other major overhaul which took place over the summer relates to the Career Center’s signature job site, YU CareerLink. When students log on to YU CareerLink, they will notice an updated design. The user interface has been modified to a sleeker version that is easier to navigate. Goldman believes, “The developer’s intent was to make a page that is more akin to today’s social media profile pages, so students would be more accustomed to the look and feel.” It’s of paramount importance that students feel comfortable using YU CareerLink, as it provides them with tremendous job searching opportunities among other resources. The Career Center is confident that students will find the new user interface to be a helpful improvement.
One reallocation of OCR requirements, which has been perceived by many students to be an addition to the requirements, is the mandatory video and accompanying quiz. This, however, is actually a simple restructuring to the on-campus recruiting process rather than an addition. Goldman’s thinking was “to provide more of a webinar, so students could access it at their convenience.” Moreover, the presentation is only twenty minutes long and the accompanying quiz is a brief ten questions. All this adds up to a much shorter duration than any live session the Career Center would offer.
The upper YU administration is beyond pleased with these changes and improvements to the Career Center. When reached for comment, Associate Dean of Sy Syms Michael Strauss, who oversees the Career Center, was sure to recognize Goldman and his team for having “done a superb job during the past several months with a smaller staff and not being tempted to settle; they were patient and went through many interviews to find the right people to fill the few open positions in the Career Center”.
In addition to these exciting changes, students should be on the lookout for further helpful advancements to come. A couple of weeks ago at the “Career Fair and Interview Prep Night”, Goldman announced that the Career Center hopes to have the entire orientation online by next year, thus completely eliminating the need for students to attend a lengthy in-person session. Additionally, Goldman looks forward to “collaborating with student clubs and hearing from students about their ideas.” In fact, the Career Center “will soon be implementing an online survey of all students regarding their career interests and experiences.” The hope is that this communication will foster further changes of benefit to the students.
