to the secrets of college planning on the host anthony and today we're on the campus of villanova university and we're going to get some insight into career services my guest today is kevin grug is the executive director for career center  and we're going to give you a little before we get into our interview to give you a little clip on the university  i know this sounds cliche but i want him to go and change the part of who you are each person brings something great table but together we create a better experience there a great time for years good road with st joe's and great other catholic institutions so my appreciation for catholic institutions was instilled in me going there which is why i like so much working at villanova a after st joe's i went to graduate school at n y u and was there for two years and that's where i started my career in career services actually at n y u as a graduate student there started working in the office there got hired full time work there for a couple years  so great well let's go back into high school when did you start thinking about college was a freshman year was it senior year when did it all begin for you you know it was early it was in freshman sophomore year i started to think about what i was going to do after high school my parents were definitely a part of driving that conversation as well as my high school was helping us all think about it which was great and i really started to make college visits about sophomore or junior year of high school starting to get to know the campuses and understanding who the people were at the december and i had looked at colleges around the country and from pennsylvania originally and my my parents said to me you know you've been getting some some letters in mail from st joe's and you might want to check it out and i said ok you know we can go take a look and they sort of said well swing a visit to one of your friends who is going to another school and in philly at the time and so i did i took the them up on that offer and said let's go visit and it was not again not a beautiful day but st joe's was a very nice campus and the tour guides it took me around credibly kind the admissions officer was also really great and welcoming that day and so it was really that visit that made the difference to me on the spot in the office they were rolling in mission at the time and so luckily enough i had had made some good impressions on some of the people that were there that day and they work some things out for me to get through the application as fast as i could and then i was accepted one so it was a fast process but i'm very grateful because it was a great instituti walks in the college thinking i'm going to work at a college and i'm going to work in a career services so i certainly did not come out of the gate thinking that's what i wanted to do i was very involved as a student when i was at the university in student life activities and it was about junior year that a good mentor of mine i was sitting down with her and i was deciding what i wanted to do i was a psychology major at the time and it was sort of a classic thing a lot of people said are you going to be working in mental health counseling and i said no but i'm not sure what else i want to do and a really good mentor of mine at the time which is something you know we talk a lot about with students is finding mentors people who can provide really good advice to you about the field that they're in she was working at st joe's and she said did you know you could work at a university like me and it sort of i don't know why didn't dawn on me until then but wow you do what i love to do and i really like this thing about helping other people and helping them with their college experience for a living and so it finally all clicked right then and she helped me understand that it would be a good idea to go to graduate school because a lot of the positions i'd be looking for would require graduate degrees and looked at some good programs with me she had gone through a search for graduate programs herself before she started working into other people who did so she got me connected with a lot of people who could help me learn about the pathway in the profession as well as the graduate programs that would probably be best suited for someone like me at the time so it was you know right around the junior year that someone said you might want to check this out you've already been involved in this so i essentially already had it internships you know really in the field  graduate how did you go from there to villanova university and then actually coming on the campus and becoming an executive director yeah so at n y u i was working there as a graduate assistant in the career center  u a great place for me a great place to start my career i knew i wanted to come back to the philadelphia area the pennsylvania area my family and friends are our close by here that was always something i had in my sights and i went to actually a conference that was specifically for people who work in career services in the philadelphia region so something else we talk about with students a lot is go where the people are who are your field go meet those people because you never know what opportunities might present themselves when you're in those those rooms and it's all the time it's the human connections that really make that big difference so i follow my own advice and i went to that conference and it was there that i actually met someone who worked at villanova at the time and they just so happened to have an opening for a position well so it was an assistant director opportunity  which was a step up for me and an institution that i thought was extremely excellent and is a catholic institution i sort of mentioned i really like that feel about st joe's and so it was a great appeal to me to come back and work at a place like that  and so made the connection there had a good conversation with her i applied to the position she referred me to the person who was hiring so i get is that referral network we talk a lot about the students and it really worked and so my application got to the top of the stack and then i didn't have the interview thank goodness so practice practice for that so i started as an assistant director at the career center and i was there in that position for about four years and there was an opportunity that opened up a colleague in the office had retired and i had long interested in the stuff that she had worked on and i had just over the years taken a natural interest in it and supported her and that work luckily she was you know right here in the office with me for sort of shadow her so after she left i inherited that position which was the associate director largely focusing on the data that we collect specifically on their career outcomes of villanova students and the technology that we use to help students find opportunities connect with people technology social media these are becoming huge ways that you execute a job thankfully as well and was really a champion for me and learning about the job in the process and here i am so so this is the first don't feel you really and you've just been growing in this job i pretty much i mean i had worked at n y u that was a full time job for about two years there and then i came to villanova and it's been a villanova growth story from that point on which has been really great i would there's no place i'd want to grow more than in villanova so i very excited very grateful to be in this opportunity  a career services what is involved with career services what what do you actually get as a student what career services yeah so a lot of things how i like to simply describe it for people is what we are the business of doing is helping students dream about the opportunities and pathways they might want to pursue design a way into that future and do it actually execute that plan so no matter if it's thinking about a graduate program that might be right for you and structuring a personal statement application if it's thinking about what sorts of jobs or post graduate volunteer opportunities or internships you might be looking for we're here to help you sort through what those are like and start to think about how you'll build your job search in that direction which includes looking for the opportunities connecting with the right people who can help you learn about that industry so they may actually have an opportunity for you later or they may just be able to give you that insider information so when you're applying you make the best application for that job so we're all about finding those opportunities and connection points and being a source of hopefully gathering that wisdom for the student to say here's all the things of potentially interested in good at how can i not certain make a pathway into the future around this so now how does a student when  does a student actually start to talk to career services is a freshman year senior year yeah how does it start here it starts mostly in the freshman year across all of the undergraduate schools and colleges we have touch points with the first year students in their first year so a lot of it is around sort of some of the basics and essential things like let's get a really good foundational resume for you that is still the foundational document in executing job applications no matter what so let's look at that resume and let's start to upgrade that from what you might have written for your college applications to now making it employer ready because whether you're thinking about a graduate program or to get a year of service after graduation or a job you're going to be a resume and you might want practical experience in that field before you look for that job or that graduate program that's going to help you become a stronger applicant so we work on resumes in the first year with a lot of students and then some of it is also just introductory you know here are the things that that we offer here the things that we do in the career center so in addition to giving you those documents that foundational knowledge here's all the other things that we will probably want to help you with over the next few years so you can come in for the services we can offer you that we can help you with that as you're moving through your four years of on so does every year have a specific thing that the students are going through a software engineer typically it depends on the student's field of study and the type of destination they're going to when they're finished so everyone's path is a little different and the other idiosyncrasy there is that the outcome is also different so the employers may be recruiting a different time frames for different people there are some industries that recruit very heavily in the fall semester and they may recruit very heavily in the fall semester for internships and then they like to convert those people those interned from interned to full time so that maybe go away in the dories to get that internship so maybe fall of junior year might be a time you need to be that for other industries or smaller companies even they may be hiring a completely different timelines they may be operating you know will hire when we need someone so that spring of senior year is the time we have the full time job for that opportunity so that's where we come in to help give you that insight into what that industry looks like here and what that type of hiring or acceptance is going to look like to give you the right timeframe for which bills itself as the world's largest professional social network i think that's true they have hundreds of millions of people on the network that are worldwide in all kinds of opportunities and industries so one of the main things that we're talking about was students that we see a lot of success in them doing besides building very strong profiles is accessing what's called the linked in a long night tool that's at least in dot com forward slash alumni if anyone wants to check it out and what it does is it actually shows you all of the alumni from your institution and where they are by where they live the companies they work for and what types of things they do and even what they studied or what they majored in soaking up a student really see well let me click on my major and see what kinds of outcomes people have had from that major villanova has an incredibly passionate and excited alumni base that loves to talk and help students about their careers so we oftentimes are suggesting the students hey let's check out this alumni tool let's see who's only ten you know there are over one hundred thousand of them that are on link from villanova and so they'll actually do a search on this alumni tool reach out to one of those people and i've heard of countless stories where people have gotten in turn chips or informational interviews or sometimes jobs right from some of those connections where they start linked in so that's a big way that people really executed this is truly didn't specifically that alone a tool is a big a big help there any other social media is that they think yes facebook although i think people think that is very much a personal social network there are a lot of groups that facebook has that specifically connect a lot of people i'm thinking of a story of a student i know who was in her sorority here and her sorority had a facebook group of the alumni of the program and the current students in this are already had the alumni were sharing job opportunities in the group back to the students and so one actually got connected through that that posting inside a facebook group and it's through that network of people right you're connecting around that network of common interest or shared affiliation somehow that connects you twitter is another really big vehicle that employers use a lot to post opportunities information to people so even for folks who are not very active on twitter i recommend things like just creating a list of people you follow to start learning about the field because since it's so real time and quick there are a lot of things you can pick up just about what people are talking about what's that information it's trending in happening now and happening fast that may harm you in a conversation for networking or an interview is going to be that much more connected to the field of the company so lots of different  ways those are just a few thinking of instagram and snap chat there's lots of ways you can still connect and learn via social media it just gives you that that pathway so now what are some of the majors that villanova has then you see a lot of students going into graduating and going into those fields well across all of our majors everyone is very successful we do a study of a survey really i should say of the graduating class every year so we're currently finishing it for the class of twenty sixty but i can say for twenty fifty we had a ninety six point eight successful placement rate across all of that when i was undergrad major so all of them are very successful but we do have a great program in nursing our college of nursing is incredibly successful and our nurses go on to great  opportunities across the country and some of the finest hospitals in the country are financed program is one of the larger programs that villanova better student do very well in connect to a lot of great opportunities at some of the large investment banks some of the fortune five hundred companies are communication major is a pretty large program as well they do exceptionally well in connecting to opportunities in all kinds of things t v film communication p r and public relations and advertising those types of opportunities they go into so a lot of really successful programs and all of them have really great outcomes that really are indicative of i think what the students interest is beyond the major that's something we often talk a lot about with them is thinking about beyond this major what's really interesting  to think about is employers are not only looking at major actually they're really looking at what are the skills that you have so are whether you're an engineer who i didn't mention them but they go on to great success as well as many of the top engineering firms and even some other businesses where the engineering mindset is quite needed but really what employers are looking for are the skills and not necessarily just to me so how do you find the corporations to come to school  and how do you get those kids to to apply for those jobs yeah so a lot of the companies find us just really nice so a lot of that is really through our alumni base who are very passionate about recruiting at villanova and bringing more villanova's into their institution so we're forever grateful and thankful for them who really push recruiting and villanova as as a big thing so that's the way to get a lot of connections in addition what we'll do is regularly poll our students and find out what sorts of companies are opportunities are you most interested in and then what we do is go out to find out who are some of those companies that are doing that or who did that he specifically and we can start to bring into the mix our students have the opportunity to connect with them and then as far as letting the students know we have a specific system where the opportunities are posted it's called handshake and what the employers can do is post opportunities specifically for villanova students to see in that system and then apply to those opportunities and then we'll market it through our partners and colleagues and those who are the faculty the department who are professional development staff and schools and colleges that help us spread the word last year there are over ten thousand opportunities posted in hand shake system for students jobs and internships so so really there tony something then at the high school level if i'm a student at the high school and looking into a particular career is career services something that i should be looking at when i look at colleges well this is probably a bystander but yes i think you should i think it's a great idea to check out what are some of the outcomes and pathways from the specific majors or the specific programs at the institutions you're thinking of attending most of the career centers or institutional research colleagues that are at at universities around the country  a survey like i mentioned on the graduating classes and then publish some level of information about that so people have an understanding of what the outcomes are and it's also a tool that we use a lot in advising with current students when they're thinking you know i'm thinking between these two major s i have a couple ideas of majors and i'm wondering what what might what that might lead to you know we can say well here are some real outcomes and destinations of where our students go here are some great graduate programs some great medical school programs and great law programs some great employers where these majors go  so i think it certainly is something that might be worth a look for a high school student thinking about a university you know what are some of the places that those students go and i know it when the student comes to campus for a tour is it is it something that the tour guides usually take them to the cursor is the department they tours they mention the career center quite a bit and talk a lot about the outcomes i don't know that they get to our side of campus which is a completely fine we know that we're going to beat those students you know right from the get go as i mentioned we have touch points with all the first year students in their first year as early as the fall semester quite quite early they are they do speak a lot about their career center and that outcomes information i shared  they have all the information to talk about their career center and the outcomes to students as well and they will definitely say you know it's on west campus and many of them will have already visited us so they can speak firsthand to what it's like to visit the great so once they once they get here is there a particular process that the student has to do to find you guys and i think you do some kind of direction of what they're looking for is usually wait until sophomore year the start coming in a freshman year that will start interacting with them the classes often in the first year and so that's where they'll get to know a little bit about us and then many of them will meet one on one that year as well we will start to get to know them a little better so that's a definite tip for any student attending any school is you know get to know someone in your career center and have them get to know you because that really can build a solid relationship so that crew center can start to really offer up opportunities that are going to be most interesting to you for again any type of outcome you're thinking or destination you're but through the handshake system we have a method where students can indicate their career interest to us so that we can start to send them targeted information about those opportunities when those employers are visiting campus when those types of jobs are posted in the system that we can start sending them to so they'll understand what the timing is like and when the there so you can i think the text message how are you connecting with the students email social media not text message not not right now maybe not ever but definitely not yet i will let the students tell us what sort of preferences they have in terms of communication that way but e mail social media and all the physical places that we meet with them and talk with them so we're very integrated again as i mentioned into the classroom into some curriculum points and we're also just connected to a lot of student organizations and society so we talk with sororities we talk with attorneys we talk with student professional societies at their meetings on a regular basis now how can students network is that something that the school provides absolutely lots of opportunities to do that summer at the in person events that we host where we bring employers to campus to meet with students  so we have several career fairs throughout the academic year and there's a series of them that are some focus is typically by industry some general come one come all events where they can all meet and we also program specific events for our alumni even if they're not affiliated with their employer necessarily for recruiting event where they can just meet with the students to talk about their career path and how they got to be where they are especially in industries where there are not people hired to do college recruiting that's a big way in the door so they may not that organization or that industry may not have a lot of college recruiters but they have a lot of people who work there they can actually speak to suit one on one about what it's like to be a producer or an editor or a museum curator right so those sorts of things those pathways we can get we can get students connected to a lot and i will be here so so one of the one of the questions that i have is executive director what is your job and tell yeah well i very fortunate that i get to lead a team of excellent people who executes the work of their career center so we have a team in our office that works specifically with the employers on their visits to campus and advertising those students and their own securing their job postings and recruiting and then we have a team of people that specifically do their career counseling and education with students on resume writing linked in profiles using social media to build your brand running cover letters practice interviews all those things they'll do and then there is a person or office who was my previous position that manages the data the technology for everybody in the support  cross there so my role is connecting a lot with our colleagues across campus the deans the alumni association advancement to sort of open up opportunities for that person or connect with students as well as to get to employers to work with students and connect with them and then help this group of individuals just execute their jobs that they already do so finally do it well to make sure so that you get involved in the student body as well the walk around the campus and talk to the students absolutely that's something i knew i didn't want to leave at all students that way and then they're still events that the students will some who know me from other events that they'll say hey can you can talk about linked in or can you come talk about something and i'll still be the one to do those things because it's just it's something i don't ever want to lose touch with and a part of the job that  always exciting every day so you're a professor at the school as well yeah one one class so i certainly would want to take anything away from our tenured professors who are excellent and do deep deep research and amazing things but i do teach one credit class that's on career university as a destination yeah well it's an amazing place to be i think i'd probably say that plenty of times but i just want to make sure i solidify that it's a great place to be and i really think about you know if you're applying all of a thing about coming to villanova what makes you unique and what makes you connected to the villanova experience what are things about villanova you see that you've gone with all of this virtual tour you've come to campus and you understand you know what  makes a villanova special how are you connected to what makes villanova special what can you tell us about you that's going to help you make your your application or can the unique and special so that something big and then i you know certainly check out the c