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The Collective is the place to connect and collaborate with peers who are all working toward a singular goal – to reimagine the working learner experience. You can leverage expert guidance and ready-to-use tools while engaging with a variety of individuals and groups. Search and explore topics that will guide you to helpful themes and related materials. You will find valuable presentations and resources that can be customized for your use. Then you can share your version to the Collective library. Start your transformation today!

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This resource can be used as a guide for organization of an empathy interview with information on what an empathy interview is, why to conduct one, how to conduct one, sample questions, and next steps after the interviews.

This resource outlines what design thinking is, how it works, a step by step guide to what it looks like in action, and how it can benefit reimagining of student employment with helpful links to additional resources.

Northern Arizona University (NAU) is focused on their 100% career ready initiative. A large part of this effort focuses around the NACE Career Competencies and how the university engages students in the development of these skills through a variety of experiences across the institution.  Since this framework serves as the foundation for this career readiness work, NAU has developed this informative presentation that they regularly facilitate to staff across the institution.  The intended outcomes of this presentation are to educate the campus community about the NACE career competencies and support them in identifying how their experiences are already facilitating students' professional growth. 

Discussing the NACE (National Association of Colleges and Employers) career competencies is crucial for students' career readiness and success. These competencies provide a framework for students to develop and demonstrate essential skills that employers value. By discussing these competencies, students can gain a better understanding of the skills and attributes they need to succeed in the workplace. This discussion can also help students identify areas where they may need to improve and take proactive steps to develop these skills. Northern Arizona University has created the following tool to help their student employees to think more deeply and reflect on their current experience with each of the competencies.  Their supervisor then uses this as a discussion tool and an opportunity to identify action items, opportunities for growth and experiences that can support the student within their student employment role.

Performance appraisals for student employees working on a college campus are crucial for a number of reasons. They provide a structured way to provide feedback, helping students understand their strengths and areas for improvement. This feedback is essential for their personal and professional growth. Secondly, performance appraisals allow supervisors to set clear expectations and goals, which can improve the student's focus and motivation. Northern Arizona University (NAU) has implemented a structured performance appraisal process, centered around the evaluation of the NACE Career Competencies to ensure that students receive the necessary feedback and support to enhance their skills. NAU understands performance appraisals play a vital role in managing student employee performance, promoting their development, and ensuring their engagement and success on campus.

We all know student employees play a crucial role in the functioning of a college campus, often serving in various capacities such as library assistants, research aides, or student ambassadors. Their contributions often go beyond their job descriptions; they enhance the campus experience for all students, faculty, and visitors. Recognizing their efforts and the efforts of those staff that supervise them, is vital to the ongoing success of student employment. Northern Arizona University has leveraged their yearly student employee and supervisor of the year awards to ensure acknowledgement of this hard work and dedication to their campus. Their campus has seen many benefits from this campus-wide recognition effort -  it fosters a sense of belonging and loyalty among student employees and their supervisors, encouraging them to remain engaged with their work and the campus community. NAU understands recognizing student employees sets a positive example for others, highlighting the value of their contributions and encouraging a culture of appreciation and respect.  NAU has shared a variety of resources that can inform the build out of your own campus awards, help you think through structure and how to successfully facilitate this effort.

Virginia Commonwealth University is committed to incorporating reflection into all experiential learning including student employment.  Supervisors regularly discuss REAL opportunities (relevant, experiential and applied learning).  This resource was adapted to specifically support supervisors to facilitate reflection throughout the student employment experience.  This example resource serves as a guide that can be adapted and leveraged at any institution. 

For many college campuses, incorporating the student employment posting and application process into their current career management system allows for a more accessible and streamlined process for their students. Additionally, it comes with the added benefit of engaging students into this vital career platform much earlier in their college journey. The following presentation was created by the University of Illinois Chicago and was facilitated as an information session for their students. It serves as a great example of the kind of information, process and details you may want to share with your students in order to get prepared to find and apply for on-campus student employment roles.

Reflection can be a valuable exercise to engage working learners and support them in making the connection between their student employment role and their career interests post-completion.  This presentation, shared by Virginia Commonwealth University, provides an example of how you might engage working learners in more deeply understanding the value of reflection and how that connects to them learning from their experiences.  The deck provides a variety of activities and content, based in the practice of reflection, that can serve as a starting point or example for other institutions wanting to engage their working learners in this opportunity for professional and personal growth. 

This resource gives working learners an overview on what professional development is and ideas on what to do during their professional development time. This is not an extensive list, but a good place for working learners to start with.

This resource is a curated list of LinkedIn Learnings for supervisors. These suggested trainings have been curated to encourage and create continuous professional development.ASU currently provides LinkedIn Learning access for all working learners and professional staff.

The document offers a checklist of items that can be included in your working learners first couple of days to ensure a smooth transition to their new position.

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