Digital Career Counselor is built for students at every stage, from first-year exploration to final-semester job searching.
First-Year Students
The first year is the right time to start connecting academic choices to career goals. Here are two ways first-year students can use the platform:
Personality Assessment: Students take the 20-question assessment to understand their qualities, tendencies, and preferences, then explore the majors and job titles that align with their personality type.
Search 360 (Search by Major or Job Title): Students can identify the top skills for their major or target job title and start building a plan to develop those skills through coursework, internships, or co-ops.
Undecided Students and Students Considering a Major Change
The sooner a student decides on a major, the sooner they can graduate and the less debt they accumulate. Here are three ways Digital Career Counselor supports that decision:
Personality Assessment: Students take the 20-question assessment to surface majors and job titles that fit their personality, giving them a concrete starting point rather than a blank page.
Outcomes (Filter by Degree): A student considering psychology can filter alumni data by that degree to see which employers hire psychology graduates, what job functions they hold, and what industries they work in. This applies equally to students weighing a major change.
Search 360 (Search by Major or Job Title): Students can view career paths from real professionals and compare them against their own interests to identify which direction fits best.
Students Who Have Chosen a Major or Career Path
For students who are confident in their direction, the focus shifts to deepening their knowledge and preparing to compete. Here are three ways to use the platform at this stage:
Career Feed (Home Page): Students update their career interests and their feed surfaces content specific to those fields, including industry trends and career guidance they can act on now.
Search 360 (Search by Major or Job Title): Students can explore the career paths of real professionals in their target field, identify the top skills required, and build a plan to develop those skills before graduation.
Students Looking for Internships
Internships give students hands-on experience and a clearer picture of where they want to land after graduation. Here are three ways to use the platform for internship preparation:
Career Feed: Updating career interests surfaces content relevant to the student's target field, which helps them prepare for the internship search and build industry knowledge ahead of interviews.
Outcomes (Top Employers): Students can see which employers hire the most alumni from their institution and consider those companies as internship targets.
Search 360 (Career Paths): Students can trace the career paths of professionals in their target role, including the internship positions they held along the way, to identify which types of experiences are most likely to lead to the role they want.
Students Preparing to Graduate and Apply for Full-Time Roles
As students approach graduation, they need to know what employers are hiring, what skills are expected, and what salaries to expect. Here are four ways to use the platform at this stage:
Outcomes (Top Employers and Skills): Students can filter alumni data by degree to see which employers hire graduates from their institution and what skills those graduates have, helping them identify companies likely to be interested in hiring again.
Search 360 (Salaries, Employers, Job Titles, Skills): Students can search by job title or major to find average salaries, top employers, and the skills most relevant to roles they are pursuing.
Tuition Analyzer: Students can calculate their expected monthly loan payment and estimate how long it will take to break even based on their anticipated starting salary.
Job Board: Students can browse real job postings, read descriptions, and follow links to apply directly to roles that interest them.
For resources on supporting transfer students at any stage of their career journey, listen to this DataU podcast episode.
Check out our additional resources for maximizing Digital Career Counselor with students:
Once they’ve started using and exploring the Digital Career Counselor, students can check out our Next Steps Resource!