What to do when employers reach out to faculty and staff

Are you a DU faculty or staff that:

  • Has received some form of inquiry from a company or organization in our community about hiring your students?
  • Wishes they had time to do more with your industry connections but just don’t know how?
  • Wonders what support DU provides around student jobs/internships and how you can help?

If any of these statements apply to you, then keep reading!

There are several staff across campus whose main responsibility is to build relationships with employers that want to come back and recruit our students. The central Employer Connections team manages hundreds of relationships with employers across many industries with the ultimate goal of increasing the number of internships and jobs that are available to all students and alumni. These companies participate in programs like career fairs, information sessions, lunch & learns and site tours to local organizations, just to name a few.

Faculty and staff can play a vital role in the success of the Employer Connections team and therefore greatly influence the success of our students as they enter the post-graduation world. The Employer Connections team is well aware that the more they can tap into the DU global network and maximize the connections of the faculty and staff at DU, the better relationships they will establish and the stronger ties to companies they will have in our community and across the globe. Check out this NACE article for more details and industry guidelines for faculty involvement in student career success.

It is for this reason that a collaboration between yourself and the Employer Connections team could be monumental! We know that your connections in an industry can be strengthened from relationships developed over years. We also know that “one-off” job and internship opportunities frequently come across your desk. What we would love to do is to create mechanisms that allow you to maximize your relationships while not taking more of your precious time.

It is our job to ask the questions and dig deeper into “one-off” opportunities to see if there is more to capitalize on with that organization. We will make sure to leverage your relationships to grow the number of opportunities for our students because that is what we do! We have the program deliverables that can get them what they need while allowing you to be as involved as you’d like to be.

A partnership between yourself and the Employer Connections team can manifest in a variety of ways and we have listed a few below.

  • If you feel you have the time, you can help us vet new organizations. By asking yourself a few of the below questions, you will know whether the organization has more to offer or if there is potential for the Employer Connections team to build out that relationship.
    • Have your students expressed interests in this company?
    • Are there more internships and jobs listed on the organizations website that could apply to more of our students?
    • Does this company have at least 5-10 alumni already working there?
    • Are they poised to grow in the near future?
    • Has this company been engaged on campus in other ways that you are aware of?
    • Does this company have a popular reputation for being a great place to work?
  • You can encourage those that reach out with jobs and internships to create a profile in Pioneer Careers Online and post the opportunity directly into the system. This will hit a larger audience and give the company more exposure to our students and alumni.
  • You can introduce your current industry connections, or those that cross your desk in the future, to members of the Employer Connections team by emailing hire@du.edu. We are happy to build relationships that you think are worth building!
  • You can give extra credit in your courses for a student’s participation in a recruitment event if it pertains to the skill or academic content of your course (ie. A technology company is coming to talk about their company and internships and you teach a CS course). If you let us know you are interested in doing this, then we can put you on our list of faculty/staff to reach out to when these events happen.
  • You can allow companies into your classroom to be guest speakers and talk about their companies, their culture, and their opportunities.

If you are interested in learning more about the work of our Employer Connections team, or you’d like more detail about one of the above ways to collaborate, please feel free to email our team directly at hire@du.edu.  We hope this was helpful in your future endeavors and look forward to connecting with some of you soon!

By Richard Rathburn