Every fall, the Career Design Lab (CDL) is abuzz with activity. Whether students are beginning their journey at the Columbia University School of Professional Studies (SPS) or returning to class after summer break, any SPS student can benefit from the resources offered through the CDL.
“We're providing tailored career services and career resources to meet students where they are,” said David Slotnick, a director of CDL, which serves the 18, soon to be 19 master’s programs at SPS.
“You can fill any role in an organization with an SPS graduate,” Slotnick said, adding, “We train people for roles, not just industries.”
In today’s challenging job market, it takes an army—or rather, a lab—of experienced career coaches to maintain the success rate CDL has had in helping SPS students meet their career goals. Here are some of the components of the lab’s winning formula.
Fall at the Career Design Lab
The Career Design Lab’s work to support students begins even before they matriculate. It starts with a survey. Students receive a pre-orientation assessment in July asking about their work experience to date and career interests. Students are then set up with an advisor who will help them achieve their aims.
At the start of the school year, CDL acquaints new students with its resources. From a resume open house and career coach meetings to career bootcamp and an international student-focused event series, the opportunities to learn about available tools and connect with fellow job-seekers are abundant.
Once the fall semester is underway, CDL hosts its annual Career and Networking Expo, a major event for students to meet with prospective employers in person. This marks the first year that the Expo is being held off-campus. It will take place at the Westin in Times Square, bringing students to the center of the city and New York’s largest business district. This year’s Expo will also be a first for networking opportunities that were previously specific to students from the M.S. in Actuarial Science program to become available at the wider event.
For those who can’t make it to the Expo, or who are completing their programs online, additional networking opportunities are available throughout the school year, both in-person and virtually. Corporate, student, and SPS-sponsored events are hosted just about every day, with some days boasting multiple chances for connection. A full calendar of events can be accessed on CDL website’s Events page.
Not Your Average Career Services Center
The Career Design Lab was established in 2018, growing out of SPS career services. Along with the rebrand, the team moved its office down from Columbia’s main campus to Midtown Manhattan to be at the heart of industry. This very intentional decision has shaped CDL’s work ever since, and the lab is constantly testing new tools to optimize student experience.
“We are steeped in that idea of design thinking, and it starts with that user-centered experience,” explained Dianne Spizzirro, executive director of CDL. “We make sure that we're meeting people where they are, helping, and empathizing.”
From the time they create their accounts, SPS students and alumni have access to SPS Talent, a searchable database for events, job postings, and employers connected through the SPS system and customized according to student needs.
“The tool itself is amazingly functional in that students can come in, they can update their profile to indicate their industry, job function, location, organization size—all their preferences about the kind of place they want to work or the types of jobs they want to search for—and then the system will feed them dynamically information that's relevant to them,” Slotnick said about SPS Talent. “It's kind of like Netflix,” he joked, referencing the curated feed of recommended job content.
There are also ample opportunities for members of the SPS community with entrepreneurial ambitions to showcase their talents to a wider audience. The annual Greater Good Challenge and recently revived Ace the Case competition (information on the competition to come soon) offer chances to win both exposure and a cash prize for team-driven innovation.
Constant Innovation, Continuous Redesign
The Lab continues to expand its repertoire of resources, including (in recent years) adding the AI-powered interview preparation tool Big Interview and the custom resume review tool Jobscan, which helps students cater their resumes to each application. By maintaining institutional partnerships with the companies providing these services, students and alumni receive complimentary access to accounts that would normally charge them a fee to use. Jobscan has been widely adopted, with Columbia becoming the second biggest user of the service.
Operating in close collaboration with the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), CDL’s curriculum committee is dedicated to ensuring that opportunities remain fresh. In alignment with NACE’s career readiness guidelines, CDL recently rolled out a badging system to give SPS job seekers an upper hand by highlighting, via a LinkedIn badge, their accomplishments across eight core competencies.
Staff at CDL are also constantly seeking ways to improve the job-hunting experience and help Columbia students gain a competitive edge, whether that be by reaching out to new potential corporate contacts or identifying unique networking opportunities—from Goldman Sachs to SXSW. They also leverage the connections of the School’s world-class scholar-practitioner faculty, who are often active employees or leaders within companies seeking Columbia graduates for hire.
“The majority of our staff are trained career coaches,” Slotnick said, noting that CDL staff divide their advising work across the School’s programs and have expertise in coaching, psychology, and occupational therapy, among other qualifications. “Their roles are not just to provide one-on-one coaching services to the program—the students and alumni in the programs that they serve—but to partner with these programs, securing alumni or employer relationships.”
As SPS itself continues to innovate and evolve—adding new programs where market demand appears, and incorporating AI and other tech tools into the curriculum and workflows—the Career Design Lab is adapting and testing new combinations in step. From tweaking assessment questions and data collection methods to investing in new job preparation resources, the staff at CDL work tirelessly to offer the best for students and alumni.
To support their efforts, they only ask that you don’t forget to fill out your job survey after graduating, as this data helps them learn and improve their lab experiments!
