Faculty

Students succeed when we create a culture of career and professional development support across campus. Doing so requires collaboration with faculty and academic departments. Studies show that faculty are the second most trusted influencers in a student’s life, behind their family. It is integral to our mission to partner with faculty in providing career education, planning, and resources to all students. Faculty can embed career development into courses and/or engage with CCPD in a variety of ways.

Examples of engagement:

• Create career-related course assignments. The CCPD staff are available to come alongside faculty to aid in the creation of career related content and assignments. However, it is necessary for the assignments to be directed, tracked, reviewed, and graded by the faculty member, not by CCPD staff. Some common assignments include:
  • Having students…
    • Activate their Handshake account and enhance their Handshake profile to 100% completion
    • Create a newly enhanced resume aligned to their current career goals and target job
    • Complete the career readiness questionnaires and self-assessments inside the Focus 2 system
    • Join a professional association as a student member
    • Use the “What Can I Do With This Major” tool and write a reflection
    • Watch a recorded career development webinar produced by the CCPD (on YouTube)
    • Create or enhance their LinkedIn profile
    • Attend one career related event (on campus, online, through employer offerings in Handshake, etc.)
    • Use the Big Interview tool to have students record their response to a custom set of interview questions
• Direct students to activate their Handshake account and complete their entire profile. What is Handshake? 
• Arrange to have CCPD attend a faculty meeting to discuss or do training on a specific topic.
• Encourage student to complete the career readiness questionnaires and self-assessments inside the Focus 2 system.
• Add the Canvas CCPD module to your course. The module gives an overview of services, events and tools offered. 
  • How to Add and Update (pdf)
  • How to Add (pdf)
  • How to Update (pdf) 
• Include one or more of our presentations on various career topics.

Presentations:

Our team of career development experts has presentations available on the topics listed below. The length of the presentation will vary depending on needs.

Premier Topics:

• Overview of the CCPD services and events
• Instruction on the use and importance of the Handshake career platform
• Instruction on the use and importance of the Focus 2 career planning system
• Instruction on the use of the Big Interview self-promotion and interview prep tool

Other Topics:

• Career and Self-Awareness Assessments
• Job and Internship Search Strategies
• Internships 101
• Resume and Curriculum Vitae (CV) development
• Employment Application Elements (Cover Letters, References, Short Answer Questions, etc.)
• Preparing for Interviews
• Career Fair Success
• Networking 101 (including LinkedIn)
• Professionalism and Etiquette (including attire)
• Salary Negotiation
• Job Transition

Delivery of Presentations

Presentations may be:

• recorded by CCPD staff and delivered to faculty for on-demand viewing in class
• created by CCPD staff and delivered in a .PPT format for the faculty member to present to the class
• delivered live by the CCPD staff via Zoom or MS Teams
• delivered live by the CCPD staff in-person (limited availability)

Please submit a request for presentation at least 2-3 weeks in advance of the desired date(s).

Presentation/Program Request Form

Career Outcome Data

The Center for Career and Professional Development (CCPD) provides career engagement and recent graduate career outcome data to Mercer University Faculty and Staff to assist with programmatic planning, curriculum development, research, and accreditation requirements. All data is provided in an aggregate form. To protect our Mercerians and to ensure compliance with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act and confidentiality, student and alumni personally identifiable information will not be released with any CCPD provided data.

Please be advised that personalized data requests may take up to two weeks or longer to prepare. Provide as much detail on the form below so that we can assist you with your request. CCPD data requests fall into two categories

• General Career Information and Engagement
  • Attendance at career related events
  • Student engagement and usage of electronic career related resources
  • Employer, jobs, and recruiting trends at Mercer
• Student Career Outcomes
  • Post-graduation career outcomes (within 6 months of graduation)
  • Complete data sets available for the classes of 2018 to 2020. Class of 2021 data will be available late spring 2022.

Data Request Form