Top 4 Hurdles on the Career Decision Journey
Career Key has identified the top four hurdles high school and college students face in making progress on their career and education decision journey:
Existence of internal or external barriers,
Low levels of decisiveness,
Lack of self-clarity about their personality, interests and strengths, and
Lack of knowledge about occupations and postsecondary education programs.
Years of data from the award-winning Career Decision Profile career decision readiness inventory also show the majority of students need one-on-one advising or counseling support.
These findings matter because student retention and success in higher education is directly linked to how students make career and education decisions.
We can scale academic advising and career counseling. Career Key’s approach is straightforward,
ask students themselves what they need (gather data)
suggest ways students can help themselves (self-guidance), and
provide tailored support (advisors take action on the data).
Our intense focus on student user experience and easy administrative implementation makes all this possible.
Last week I attended the NACADA Annual Conference in Portland, where academic advisor after advisor told us they manage over 1,000 students. Not only are they responsible for helping large numbers of students navigate course requirements, most fly blind when it comes to targeting their support. They don’t know who needs the most help or how to make more students feel more comfortable and confident on the most stressful, expensive journey of their lives.
Fortunately, advisors at our partners like Kansas State University, the Culverhouse School of Business at the University of Alabama-Tuscaloosa, and TRIO grants at Enterprise State Community College don’t have to fly blind. Using Career Key’s online career and education decision tools, they know what their students need, and they act on it to meet student success goals.
Whether advisors serve 200 students or 2,000, they can help students overcome their unique hurdles and barriers – with the right data and targeted one-on-one support.
