Distance learning presents new challenges when it comes to making sure your students feel supported. Suddenly an in-person meeting is switched to a virtual setting. Quick conversations about career resources become long email chains. And getting everyone on the same page seems almost impossible. 

Braving new technologies and synchronizing schedules is enough to make anyone’s head spin. Add the idea of differentiated learning, and it starts to feel like climbing Mt. Everest! Some students prefer virtual office hours. Others prefer asynchronous learning. And each one of their styles is valid and needs to be honored. 

In reality, though, there is a lot you can do as a career counselor to stay connected with your students and ensure they get the information they need. 

Here are some quick but powerful career resources you can easily create to ensure students are still getting a valuable learning experience in a virtual setting: 

For soon-to-be college graduates, the job search is a daunting task with many uncontrollable variables. No matter the amount of careful preparation, great students can still be overlooked for reasons unknown. One way to ensure students set off on the right foot in their job search is through an expertly crafted resume. 

Creating a captivating resume means honing in on specific achievements, which can be a tricky task for some. But the careful guidance of career services can take resume writing from unnerving to enlightening. 

Congratulations! Summer is here, the hectic days leading up to graduation are over, and now you and the students you’ve helped mold can relax. For a minute.

OK, that minute is up! As your newly-graduated students move into active job seeker status, there are several tasks you can encourage those brand new alumni (or even current students) to do throughout the summer to gain valuable experience, learn new skills, and get ready for the workforce.

Here’s a summer to-do list you can download and share with recent grads and students:

When companies like Uber and Postmates started, they expanded the number of gig economy jobs available. In fact, a 2018 report from Upwork revealed, in the past five years, the number of American freelancers increased from 3.7 to 56.7 million. While many anticipated the increased amount of gig and freelancing jobs would change how we thought about career paths, few realized how popular the option would be among young people.

The Upwork report found 45 percent of college-aged young adults (18 to 21-year-olds) are already freelancers. Remarkably, 42 percent of survey respondents between the ages of 22 and 34 continue in the gig economy.

To offer students the best advice to help them navigate this new approach to their career, you need to understand the difference between a traditional career path and one in the gig economy. Here are four steps to take so you can prepare your students for a gig economy jobs:

We’re getting to that time of year when cabin fever strikes — and it strikes hard. Winter has yet to let up and being stuck inside is frustrating your job seekers. When this happens, one of two things often occurs. Young job seekers either bury themselves in their search, sending out application after application. Or they get distracted spending most of their free time on their couch binge watching reruns. Neither is a great long-term job search strategy.

As a career services professional, you need to step in and guide them. Balance is hard for students, especially when they can’t go outside to get a break from their studies and job search.

While we wait for spring to come, here are some things career services professionals can do to keep their job seekers on track without overwhelming them:

It’s another reimagined word that’s worked its way into our vernacular: ghosting. In most cases, ghosting means someone slowly disappears in order to end a relationship. But it seems ghosting is also becoming a habit of job seekers. They’re backing out of the hiring process without giving much reason.

In fact, a recent CareerBuilder survey found 55 percent of job seekers will drop out of the hiring process if they haven’t heard anything from the employer in two weeks. Another 51 percent of job seekers say they keep looking for a job even after receiving an offer. In many cases, they never respond to the offer.

Of course, your job seekers have the right to leave the hiring process whenever they want. This ensures employers are treating them with respect and meeting their expectations. But when ghosting becomes a job search habit, there’s a good chance your job seeker will miss out on a great opportunity.

As a career services professional, you need to find out what’s going on with your job seekers so you can help them land — rather than ghosting — their dream job. Start with these three tips: