Higher Education Career Services Consulting

What might this mean for your institution?

• Greater student and alumni success and fulfillment, evidenced by
• Stronger recruitment, enrollment and retention rates
• Higher graduation rates
• Higher employment rates in their field of study
• Higher earnings and desired benefits/quality of life ratings among employers of choice
• Increased engagement among a diversity of employers
• Stronger fundraising
• Higher annual giving participation rates
• Greater alumni participation across all years and affinity groups
• Increased opportunities for grant writing and funding
• Higher student NPS or equivalent at your institution
• Higher alumni NPS or equivalent at your institution
• Higher ratings in external and internal metrics/national polls that matter to you
• What other outcomes might you want to jointly work towards?

What We Do – Higher Education Career Services Consulting

Transforming Solutions is dedicated to helping higher education career services departments fulfill their missions to meet institutional objectives and priorities. Deeply grounded in understanding the needs for effectively operating these departments, we focus on aligning each institution’s definition of success with actionable recommendations to achieve desired end results. Focusing on defining and improving organizational and operational effectiveness, enhancing the student and constituent experience, and supporting and managing change initiatives, Transforming Solutions’ customized approach will help your career services department optimize its people, processes, and technologies.

Constituent Experience: To best understand and ensure high-quality services and experiences are provided, TSI supports institutions in defining the student and constituent experience. We lead efforts to assess and define the student and constituent experience to illuminate needs, expectations, experiences, and desired experiences. Once needs are identified, we design a plan to align desired experiences with organizational and operational goals and objectives. To achieve this alignment, TSI provides detailed, actionable recommendations that are interwoven with the desired end results and definition of success of the institution, well-grounded in current research and the community of best practices. What we’re suggesting is that a rethinking and innovatively designed career services department co-created with all shareholders (students, faculty, staff, alumni and employers) could be better than anything previously imagined – more extensive and higher quality, not just or even mostly cheaper or more efficient.

Career Services Development and Employer Relationship Generation: TSI supports institutions and their career services by providing comprehensive services focused on enhancing all components of the employer relations and engagement functions. We lead efforts to gain a deep understanding of the organization’s inward and outward facing constituents and stakeholders which will lead to the identification of new employer, stakeholder and constituent opportunities. Once growth opportunities are identified, we design a plan to align the employer and organizational experience aligned with organizational and operational goals and objectives. To achieve this alignment, TSI provides detailed, actionable recommendations that are interwoven with the desired end results and definition of success of the institution.

Organizational Assessment: TSI has a deep understanding of the approach to improving organizational effectiveness as well as the nature of work that typically occurs in Career Services Departments. TSI spearheads the assessment of the organizational structure, staff roles and competencies, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and training needs to determine alignment with the institution’s vision, mission, and values. We often conduct benchmarking to determine appropriate staffing levels, best practices, programming,  and structures and support organizational change through recommended action steps to increase effective management and adoption.

Operational Assessment, Process Improvement and Technology Strategy: TSI works closely with institutional leadership and or designated project teams to evaluate existing model(s) of operations to determine potential opportunities for growth and improvement related to people, processes, and technology. TSI helps institutions define the current state of identified business processes, conduct an analysis of those processes, and lead the design of desired future state processes to assess process operations and efficiency. Through this analysis, TSI will identify pain points and waste within processes, opportunities for improvement, potential tangible and intangible benefits of improvements, metrics to assess operations and improvements, and actionable steps towards improvement strategies. The use of process improvement strategies will increase operational effectiveness by improving transparency, increasing responsiveness, and enhancing the quality of service to deliver on strategic plans and an institution’s mission, vision and culture.

Change Management: In our work, we hold people in very high regard and focus on the people side of change. Therefore, TSI weaves change management methodologies into all the work conducted with clients. We will drive organizational change management and communication efforts to articulate the vision and manage transformation. These practices help foster a culture of transparency, clarity, and effective communication while maintaining a pulse on challenges, bottlenecks, or disruption for those who are most critical to the success of change initiatives. Working closely with clients for a customized and personalized experience, TSI pulls from expansive experience to enrich the experiences of clients with pragmatic, cost-effective solutions for change.