How to Build and Scale a Career Champion Program (feat. Nancy Bilmes)

Career Everywhere

Nancy Bilmes, Director of the Center for Career Development at the University of Connecticut, shares how her team has built and scaled a Career Champion program to include over 800 participants.

These faculty, staff, alumni, and employer participants learn about current career-related trends, resources, and language to have more confident and meaningful career conversations with students.

In our last episode with Nancy Bilmes in January 2023, Nancy shared how her team built their Career Champion program. In this follow-up episode, Nancy shares:

• How her team has scaled the program to over 800 participants through various strategies, including academic liaisons, faculty fellows, presentation and meeting follow-up, first destination referral outreach, and more
• What outcomes they’ve seen, including survey results that indicate Career Champions refer students to the career center about 25% more often than non-Career Champions
• How they’re continuing to engage Champions and what new channels they’re leveraging
• And more

Resources from the episode:

• Nancy’s LinkedIn profile
• Nancy’s email: [e-mail]
• Example of a Career Champion newsletter (October 2023)
• UConn's virtual career center website (powered by uConnect)
• Career Champions resources page (which includes their champion intake forms)

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