Career Coach, a tool on Salt Lake Community College’s website, can help with the process of finding which degree will best suit a particular student, as well as explore the types of jobs he or she can find with that degree.
This program was inspired by the complaints of state senators that Utah colleges have too many “degrees to nowhere.” It helps students in a way that has not been previously accessible. Students can go in, search for a profession and see what the pay is, what type of degree, training, and skills are needed to obtain that profession, as well as look at the future market of jobs. Career Coach will even take you to www.indeed.com where you can see how many jobs are out there, and who is hiring.
“Kids come to this college with or without an idea of what they want. This program will help them get where they want to be,” said Ray Emett, director of Institutional Research.
Another feature of Career Coach is that it will help you build a resume. Students can enter their information and the program will put it into a word document format so that it can be tailored to specific job applications. Some critics say that using an online source for resume building is not effective because each resume you do should cater to the job you are applying for.
SLCC has teamed up with Economic Modeling Specialists Inc. (EMSI) which does all the research and compilation that is necessary to provide the information. They use sources such as the US Department of Commerce, US Department of Labor, and the US Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. They also use local Department of Workforce stats as well as different surveys and other sources.
Although, this tool has not had an official launch date, it is active on the SLCC’s home page in the “What’s Happening” banner. Since the inception of Career Coach, the top search has been for nurses.
Mr. Emett said that most bugs have been small and easy to fix, such as some departments were not synching with the program. SLCC is planning to keep this tool around as long as it is being used, but will keep it for at least two years regardless of its success.
