SRTC Procedure: Career Services

The Career Services Department of Southern Regional Technical College (SRTC) provides programs and services that assist students in achieving career objectives through appropriate placement in the workforce. Although the major focus is on placement of the graduate, services are available to students enrolled in any program offered by SRTC and to all alumni.

Career Services placement opportunities are developed through regular contact with students. The Career Services staff coordinates this through a variety of methods as outlined below:

Providing individual career counseling;
Assisting with resumes;
Providing interview skills and job search strategies training;
Providing assistance in locating job opportunities;
Providing instructions for navigating the services available in Career Services and retrieval of information; and
Determining students' employment status and entering that information into the BANNER system.

Career Services placement opportunities are developed through regular contact with employers. The Career Services staff coordinates this through a variety of methods as outlined below:

Implementing a request system by phone or e-mail;
Contacting/meeting with employers to create awareness of services available;
Hosting and coordinating annual job fairs; and
Cultivating new contacts through local Chambers of Commerce involvement by Career Services staff.

Students are expected to take an active role in the job search including maintaining a current resume, submitting applications to employers, interviewing with employers, and following up on job referrals provided by the Career Services office or instructors.

Job Placement Activities

Student and Alumni

During New Student Orientation or in the COLL 1500 course, students are directed to contact the Career Services office to access the services available. Additionally, flyers describing the services available are distributed in Student Affairs, student break areas, the library, and other areas around all SRTC locations. E-mails to faculty are shared with students by instructors. A file listing some of the job openings currently available is kept in the Career Services office and/or is posted on the College web site via Purple Briefcase. Job requests for those jobs, as well as other open positions, which require prescreening of students by the Career Services office personnel prior to referral, are maintained by the Career Services Office.

The Career Services staff works diligently with students to ensure that they are prepared to secure employment by helping them to develop resumes and educating them on how to search for employment opportunities. Students are informed of additional resources including the Internet, the Georgia Career Information System, and Department of Labor contacts.

The Career Services staff also conducts workshops and serves as a “guest lecturer” in SRTC classes on such topics as resume writing, interviewing skills, job search strategies, and job retention.

Employers
Employers contact the Career Services office by phone, e-mail, or in person when they have positions available. Open positions are posted to the College web site Purple Briefcase. This file is kept up to date by the Career Services staff. The Career Services staff follows up with employers as necessary to determine the status of job openings, to encourage employers to interview qualified students being referred, and to receive feedback regarding referred candidates. Employers may also place job requests directly on Purple on the college website.

Data Entry, Records, and Reports
The Career Services staff is responsible for maintaining records relative to job placement activities. Placement information is collected by the Career Services office from a variety of sources including e-mails and phone calls to and from instructors, students, employers, and data gathered from the Georgia Department of Labor’s Unemployment Information (UI) database. This placement information is recorded, and the documentation maintained, by the Career Services staff is entered into the BANNER database. All placement information for the preceding academic year must be entered by September 15th, per the Technical College System of Georgia’s (TCSG) requirements. Reports reflecting various combinations of student placement data can be run, as needed, from the most current information available in the TCSG’s Knowledge Management System (KMS), which compiles the reports from the information entered into BANNER.

Follow-Up
Follow-up of program graduates is conducted annually to determine the effectiveness of the instructional programs, support services, and student services provided by Southern Regional Technical College (SRTC). The results are compiled, disseminated to appropriate faculty and staff for review, and given to appropriate committees to utilize in the planning/improvement process. Follow-up methods utilized include the following:

Telephone and email follow-up: Conducted periodically for the purpose of updating the placement status of students who are unemployed or employed out of field.
Review of Unemployment Information data: Provided through both KMS and directly from the Georgia Department of Labor’s UI database, which is used to determine if graduates were employed after graduation and if employment was in or related to the graduate’s field of study.
Employer Follow-up Survey: Follow-up of employers of SRTC graduates is conducted to determine the College's effectiveness in referring qualified students and graduates to appropriate employers as well as the quality of the employee hired. Employer Follow-up Surveys are mailed once annually through the Office of Institutional Effectiveness to the employers of SRTC graduates for the academic year.

Responsibility:
The Director of Career Services and Counseling has the overall responsibility for ensuring this procedure is implemented.

References:
SBTCSG Policy 2.1.1: Statement of Equal Opportunity
TCSG Procedure 2.1.1p: Statement of Equal Opportunity
2.1.1sr - SRTC Procedure: Statement of Equal Opportunity

Status:
Adopted: 11-17-2014
Implemented: 07-01-2015
Revised: 01-19-2021