Using Technology to Deliver Career Development Services: Supporting Today's Students in Higher Education

Career services professionals are increasingly involved in decisions regarding the use of technology. This article presents a number of considerations to be explored, including the characteristics and needs of today's students, available technologies, funding requirements, and confidentiality issues. The author recommends an approach that includes strategic planning, needs analyses, training, and ongoing support. Current asynchronous and synchronous technologies are described, and examples of the use of each in the context of career services are provided. The specific technologies presented are e-mail, discussion boards, video, podcasts, websites, Internet-based guidance and information systems, telephone, instant messages, and virtual rooms. The continuous advancement of technology makes the delivery of a wide variety of online student services more possible than ever. The existence of effective online career services may help students with the difficult task of balancing life and work by offering these services in alternative time frames and delivery modes. Balancing high tech and high touch is a desired outcome of technology integration (Giordani, 2006; Shea, 2005). Choosing to add technology to an existing program is choosing to add a new tool. Canili and Martland (1995) noted that "each technology has strengths and weaknesses and the choice depends on the task, the availability of equipment, and the cost" (p. 3). There is a widespread call for a strategic approach that can address the choices involved in detail. This approach should allow for consideration of a dynamic rate of change in the technologies available as well as the changes that take place in student demographics (Howell, Williams, & Lindsay, 2003). Today's Students Distance enrollment is on the rise, and the line between on-campus students and distance students is quickly fading. Even students thought of as traditional are likely to take an online course at some point in their undergraduate programs, and it is more likely that lst-year college students will have completed online courses before they even begin college (Howell et al., 2003). In 2006, the Michigan Department of Education announced a requirement for all high school students to complete an "online course or learning experience" (Nancy, 2006, para. 1) before graduation. This shift in enrollment is advanced by the desire of administrators at all levels to get students through academic programs in faster, more efficient time frames (Howell et al., 2003). The biggest high school class in U.S. history graduated in 2009. Many institutions began advance preparations for this population in anticipation of a rise in higher education enrollment. These preparations included the development of more distance options for students as an alternative to building larger physical facilities (Howell et al., 2003). Characteristics of a typical student are becoming harder to define as the student population becomes increasingly diverse in all aspects. Today's students can be characterized as multitaskers with "zero tolerance for delays" (Howell et al., 2003, p. 3). They also possess a level of familiarity with technology that breeds a level of expectation for availability of services and information at any time and in any place (Shier, 2005). Online Career Services One of the primary missions of the university career center is to help students make decisions and choices about their own careers (Hammond, 2001). Career centers established at higher education institutions are beginning to respond to the needs of various student populations that are working through the career decision- making process. Developing online versions of career centers to provide traditional career services to a wider range of students is part of this response (Davidson, 2001). Employers that hire college students are experiencing a similar shift in the use of technology. …