UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State career development staff will collaborate at the 2017 University-wide Career Development Professionals Conference on May 7-8 at the University Park campus.
At this conference, Career Services continues to unite the career centers at the Commonwealth Campuses, academic colleges, World Campus and University Park. 2017 is the first year that the conference has expanded fully to all career-development colleagues.
Laurie Verost, associate director of Career Services and conference chair, says that the collaboration from all of her colleagues is exciting.
“I think the best part of organizing this conference is hearing different perspectives from different people,” Verost said. “We do our best to integrate all of that together in ways that help to meet the professional development needs that we’re hearing about across the whole of the University.”
About 100 colleagues are registered to attend the conference. These staff members represent the various academic colleges, Commonwealth Colleges, World Campus and University Park career services centers. At the two-day event, attendees will have the opportunity to network with colleagues as well as attend sessions and panel discussions on topics ranging from internship trends, to effective marketing strategies, to building resiliency in both students and staff.
All of these sessions emphasize the importance of cohesion among the career development centers.
“We’re helping to share a lot of the expertise and best practices that all of our staff bring,” Verost said. “People leave this conference feeling refreshed. They have a new set of ideas to plan and implement.”
Since the 1980s, Penn State Career Services has held conferences at which representatives from different campuses would meet. The University- wide Career Development Professionals Conference began in 2009. This conference has helped to provide more unified career development across the University.
The campus career-services centers also meet monthly via video conference to discuss practices or timely issues and to make sure everyone is up to date. There also is a Fall Regional Professional Development Meeting hosted on an eastern and western campus every year. These methods of collaboration further integrate University-wide career services.
The Career Development Professionals Conference is organized by Career Services, a unit of Penn State Student Affairs. For students looking to identify and achieve their career goals, career counselors and Career Services programs are helpful resources. More information about upcoming programs and events can be found online at studentaffairs.psu.edu/career.