With public trust in higher ed at an all-time low, and ROI under the microscope, career services is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s central to proving the value of a college degree. In this episode, Christine Cruzvergara of Handshake joins host Meredith Metsker to discuss how career services leaders can meet this moment with clarity, courage, and strategy. Christine shares how leaders can redefine their value proposition, position their teams as essential partners on campus, and scale their work ...
Aug 05, 2025•48 min•Ep. 71
Rebekah Paré shares five ways career services leaders can measure career center effectiveness—beyond the standard metrics. -- In this episode of the Career Everywhere Podcast, host Meredith Metsker is joined by higher ed career services veteran and Paré Consulting founder, Rebekah Paré , to explore how career centers can measure (and improve) their effectiveness. With a wealth of experience in both academic affairs and career services, Rebekah shares five core strategies that career leaders can ...
Jul 22, 2025•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 70
In this episode, James Tarbox and Theanne Thomson share how Stanford’s career education and alumni teams collaborate to support graduates for up to five years post-graduation through the innovative Stanford PlusFive program. From 1:1 career coaching to alumni-led networking groups, this program offers recent grads a meaningful bridge from college to career—and the data proves it’s working. Here are a few key themes from episode: What the Stanford PlusFive program is and how it works The importan...
Jul 08, 2025•46 min•Ep. 69
Danny Pape, Executive Director of the Center for Career Engagement at Washington University in St. Louis, shares the story of how WashU shifted from a long-standing decentralized career services model to a unified, centralized structure—without losing a single position. With decades of experience across multiple institutions and roles—from career coach to administrator—Danny brings a thoughtful, people-first approach to leadership. He walks us through the why behind the unification, how his team...
Jun 24, 2025•51 min•Ep. 68
As prospective students and their families become increasingly focused on ROI, post-grad outcomes, and career readiness, collaboration between career services and enrollment management has never been more important. When these two functions work in tandem, institutions are better positioned to not only recruit and retain students, but to tell a more compelling and authentic story about the value of the college experience. In this episode, uConnect Founder and CEO David Kozhuk talks with Rebekah ...
Jun 10, 2025•52 min•Ep. 67
Lexie Avery and Melissa Lawson of Binghamton University share how career services and admissions collaborate to recruit, retain, and support students with career development—before they even step foot on campus. Lexie, the Senior Associate Director of Student Engagement and Career Readiness, and Melissa, the Director of Admissions Communications, have worked closely together for years and built a strong partnership between the career center and admissions. Here are a few key ways the two offices...
May 28, 2025•53 min•Ep. 66
In this episode of the Career Everywhere podcast, host Meredith Metsker welcomes Dylan Houle , Executive Director of the Career Center at Santa Clara University, to discuss the misalignment between the importance of career outcomes for students and the positioning of career services in higher ed. In short: If career outcomes are a major reason most students choose to go to college, why are career centers so often underfunded, understaffed, and positioned as mid-level offices on campus. A former ...
May 13, 2025•59 min•Ep. 65
In this episode of the Career Everywhere podcast, host Meredith Metsker welcomes Dr. Erica Kryst , Executive Director of Career Services at Cornell University, to discuss how she leads a decentralized but highly collaborative career services function. Erica, a first-generation college student with degrees in musical theater and communications, brings a unique perspective to her leadership. She draws on her own experiences growing up in rural Pennsylvania with limited early exposure to career opt...
Apr 29, 2025•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 64
BSGU President Rodney Rogers and Steve Russell , AVP of Corporate Partnerships and Executive Director of the Kuhlin Hub for Career Design and Connections, share how Bowling Green State University continues to shatter records when it comes to enrollment and retention. In fact, the 2024-2025 academic year marked the second consecutive year that BGSU has set enrollment records. This year, they welcomed one of their largest and highest-achieving freshman classes in university history , with new stud...
Apr 15, 2025•52 min•Ep. 63
Justin Morris and Robin Huston , both of the University of Oklahoma, share how their team is implementing Career Everywhere and building a career ecosystem across campus and beyond. In the episode, they discuss: How they built a three-year strategic plan for the career center to implement Career Everywhere How they secured high-level buy-in from university leadership to drive the Career Everywhere initiative forward How they secured budget to nearly double the career center staff and create role...
Apr 01, 2025•50 min•Ep. 62
Allie Danziger , Senior Vice President and General Manager of AscentUP, shares what professionalism looks like in 2025 and how career services teams can stay on top of new trends. AscentUP is a student success platform that bridges the gap and offers support for learners of all ages about professionalism, career readiness, academics, finance essentials, and more through training, coaching, and access to paid internship opportunities. They are also one of uConnect’s content partners for our Curat...
Mar 18, 2025•38 min•Ep. 61
Andrea Franklin and Tracy Austin , both of Clemson University, share how they’ve built a scalable, free, and effective professional development program for their career center staff. The program, called Spark Exchange, includes monthly presentations led by career center staff or external partners like faculty and employers about topics that matter to students and to the work of career services. In addition to providing valuable professional development for the Clemson career team (especially whe...
Mar 04, 2025•45 min•Ep. 60
Nick Edwards , Guided Career Advisor at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, shares how he has scaled career services for Hardin-Simmons’ 1,100 students as a team of one. Nick’s strategy relies heavily on the use of technology—in particular, uConnect’s virtual career center platform—to offer more resources to students and make them available whenever (and wherever) students need them. “My approach is all about finding tools that will help me work with students smarter, not harder, and th...
Feb 18, 2025•44 min•Ep. 59
Amanda Zielinski Slenski and Suede Graham of Out for Undergrad , a non-profit organization dedicated to helping high-achieving LGBTQ2+ undergraduates reach their full potential, discuss how career centers can support LGBTQIA+ students. In this episode, Amanda and Suede cover: Some of the unique challenges that LGBTQIA+ students often encounter as part of career exploration Barriers or biases LGBTQIA+ students might face during interviews or internships, and how career services can coach them to ...
Feb 04, 2025•49 min•Ep. 58
When it comes to student engagement with career services and resources, business schools are a different beast. First, most students enrolled in business schools (especially those in graduate programs) have specific goals and expectations around post-graduation outcomes. As a result, they often require more frequent and specialized engagement with career services. Second, it’s no secret that rankings and reputation play a critical role in the success of every business school. Career outcomes dir...
Jan 21, 2025•52 min•Ep. 54
Dave Merry , Associate Provost and Executive Director of the Center for Career Equity, Development, and Success at Suffolk University, shares how his team is working to improve career equity, address systemic bias, and provide equitable support for all students. “It [career equity] means not everyone has the same, but everyone has what they need. We try to really question how we can target and tailor our resources in a way that, to some, sometimes feels like we are providing more resources to so...
Jan 07, 2025•50 min•Ep. 57
Gerald Tang , Executive Director of the Career Services and Internships Office at Bridgewater State University, shares his top five elements for effective change management in career services. The five elements include: People : Understand the strengths, management styles, and buy-in of the individuals involved in the change process. Culture and environment: Assess the organizational culture, hidden rules, shared values, and dynamics among key leadership. Time : Consider the timing of the change...
Dec 10, 2024•57 min•Ep. 56
Nitin Agrawal , Co-founder and CEO of Interstride, shares best practices for supporting international students. Interstride is a plug-and-play platform to support international students across the full lifecycle, from admissions through graduation. In the episode, Nitin (who was an international student himself) covers: The unique experiences of international students as part of the career exploration process How career leaders can best support international students in career development How to...
Nov 26, 2024•48 min•Ep. 55
Claire Klieger, Assistant Vice President and Executive Director of Career Services at Swarthmore College, discusses how she advances shared goals by building cross-campus partnerships and collaborations. “I don’t think you need to reinvent the wheel. You just need to strengthen the spokes,” Claire says. In the episode, Claire shares: What cross-campus collaboration means to her (and why it’s important) What effective collaboration looks like How she builds and maintains relationships across camp...
Nov 12, 2024•46 min•Ep. 53
Jhillika Kumar and Conner Reinhardt , co-founders of Mentra, share best practices for supporting neurodivergent students. Mentra is an employment network for 1 billion neurodivergent professionals (with Autism, ADHD, Dyslexia, etc.) worldwide. Mentra is an AI-powered, reimagined hiring process that captures more nuanced skills-based and humanistic factors like a person’s unique neurotype, which is not currently captured in more traditional resumes and forms of hiring. In the episode, Jhillika an...
Oct 29, 2024•51 min•Ep. 51
Paul Maniaci , an Assistant Director in the Career Design Lab at the Columbia University School of Profesional Studies, shares how he’s hosting and producing a podcast for his career center. Paul’s podcast, called Rising to the Top , covers a variety of topics related to career development and features interviews with leaders and individuals who have achieved success in their careers. In the episode, Paul shares: What his production process looks like (including finding guests, pre-interview con...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 52
Willie Wittezehler, Creative Director at Roadtrip Nation , shares best practices for how career centers can use video to engage Gen Z with their services. Willie has produced and directed Roadtrip Nation’s award-winning documentaries for over 16 years and been behind the lens for over 200 interviews. Roadtrip Nation is a nonprofit organization that provides resources and tools to help people explore careers and build lives around their passions. Roadtrip Nation has conducted over 3,500 video int...
Oct 01, 2024•55 min•Ep. 50
Michele Doran and Melanie Murphy of Denison University share how their team built the Journey Program , a popular two-day workshop that helps sophomores with early career exploration. The Journey Program includes four 90-minute sessions designed to help students explore careers, think critically about what they want out of work and life, and come up with a plan to make it happen. The four sessions include: Reflect : Students look back on all the things they've done in high school and their first...
Sep 17, 2024•49 min•Ep. 49
Michael DeAngelis , the Senior Associate Director of Communications and Technology at the University of Pennsylvania, shares how he created a popular Improv for Interviewing workshop for Penn students. A former theater major, published playwright, and accomplished podcaster, Michael uses games and techniques from the theater world to help students think on their feet and keep the conversation going. Because as Michael says, “What is an interview anyway, but a conversation?” In the episode, Micha...
Sep 03, 2024•47 min•Ep. 48
Cheryl Rotyliano , Senior Associate Director of Market Readiness and Employment at the Wake Forest University School of Business, discusses the ATS simulation program she developed to demystify the recruiter experience for students. The program involves a one-hour simulation where students review resumes, cover letters, and video interviews to make hiring decisions. The simulation helps students understand how applicant tracking systems (ATS) work and empathize with the challenges that recruiter...
Aug 20, 2024•45 min•Ep. 47
In this episode, Nancy Bilmes of UConn, Christian Garcia of the University of Miami, and Mike Summers of Lafayette College each share how they’re making Career Everywhere a reality on their campuses. The University of Connecticut has built one of the most robust and successful Career Champion programs in the country, with over 1,000 faculty, staff, alumni, and employer participants who have been learning about current career-related trends, resources, and language to have more confident and mean...
Aug 06, 2024•53 min•Ep. 46
Sarah Coburn , Senior Associate Director for Experiential Learning and Employer Engagement at St. Lawrence University, shares how she built a successful on-campus internship program. The on-campus internship program (OCIP) provides paid internships for students to work in various departments on campus, gaining valuable skills and experience. The internships are structured to include additional professional development time and orientation (also paid) through the career center. In the episode, Sa...
Jul 23, 2024•45 min•Ep. 45
Dr. Audra Verrier , Associate Vice Provost of Career and Professional Development at Loyola Marymount University, shares her best advice, tips, and tricks for advancing a career in higher education career services leadership. In the episode, Audra discusses her career journey from career services coordinator to associate vice provost, and how she made it happen. She also shares advice on: How to map out a career path How to find and build relationships with mentors Negotiating for salary, profes...
Jul 09, 2024•58 min•Ep. 44
In this episode, Josh Domitrovich of PennWest, Kelli Smith of Binghamton University, and Mike Summers of Lafayette College each share their approach to strategic planning for their career centers. In the episode, the panelists discuss: What their strategic plans look like (and what their processes entailed) How they involve their teams in the process The importance of understanding the mission and goals of the career center Gathering feedback from the team and campus community Aligning the strat...
Jun 25, 2024•54 min•Ep. 43
Josh Taylor and Hayley Hollenberg of the University of Kentucky Gatton College of Business and Economics share three specific strategies their team is using to better engage Gen Z students with career services. Those three strategies include: A popular career-focused study abroad program in Paris A career development course A revamped web and social media presence (particularly on LinkedIn) All of these strategies play a part in the Graham Office of Career Management’s new approach to career ser...
Jun 11, 2024•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 42
