Budget cuts: career centers doing more with less
Tighten the belt. Trim the fat. Sharpen the pencil.
Regardless of what cliche you attach to it, the recent economic downturn has resulted in widespread budget cuts for colleges and universities. Consequently, many career centers have been forced to evaluate their current expenditures to ensure they are maximizing the return on every penny that is spent.
Career center budgets was the topic of a recent study by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE). According to responses from 750 universities who participated in the fall 2010 Career Services Benchmark Survey, the median non-personnel operating budget was approximately $33,000 per year.
The survey also indicated that there may be some good news in terms of budgets. While nearly 60 percent reported a budget cut in 2009-10 academic year, only 37.9 percent reported cuts for the 2010-11 period. Hopefully this trend continues into 2012 and beyond.
In the meantime, Optimal Resume is helping our clients do more with less. Here are five ways we’re helping our clients save time and resources.
1. Two hours of support per student per year —We recently analyzed usage patterns of 188,000 users. We found that that the average user spent 2 hours per year with Optimal. That’s 376,000 hours of counseling time saved or maximized. What would that mean for your office?
2. Built-in webcasting — Our clients use our free webcasting tool to create and record virtual presentations for students and alums. Some clients are even using the tool to create e-resource libraries of presentations and seminars.
3. Built-in e-newsletter — Is your office futzing with old-school e-mail programs or paying for a bulk e-mail solution? Optimal subscriptions come with a free HTML newsletter creator. Send an unlimited number of messages to students and alums. It even comes with free templates to get you started.
4. Customized user webinars —We encourage all clients to integrate Optimal into their curriculum or workshops, but we go one step further. We’ll do the teaching for you. One of our support specialists will host a live webinar for your campus and send you a recorded version for future use.
5. Unlimited trainings — How much time do you spend getting new hires up to speed on your processes and programs? When it comes to Optimal, we’ll provide trainings to your new hires, interns and graduate assistants so you can focus on the bigger issues.
Here’s how one Optimal Resume administrator described how the software helps them:
“The advising staff used to spend an incredible amount of time counseling
students regarding the first steps in creating an effective resume – now Optimal
Resume does that work for us! And, the feedback from students and employers
alike has all been very positive. We simply could not be any happier with this product.”
- Caitlin Blasco, Bentley College
Contact us today to learn more about how we can help your career center.
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