Department chairs and deans use Steppingblocks to see where graduates land, what skills they use, and what they earn, then apply that information to strengthen programs and support formal review cycles.
Here are seven ways to get started.
1. Identify the skills that matter for your graduates.
A growing gap between what students learn and what employers need is putting higher education under greater scrutiny. Steppingblocks helps faculty and staff pinpoint which skills correlate with specific careers, industries, and salary outcomes. Two resources to start:
2. See who is hiring your graduates and what they are looking for.
Steppingblocks lets you filter employer data by all alumni, recent graduates, or specific majors and degrees to see hiring trends in real time. By comparing the skills your graduates leave with against what top employers are actively seeking, you can make more informed decisions about course offerings and program priorities. Learn how to interact with top employer data and apply it to your academic programs.
3. Connect salary outcomes to skills to show students their return on investment.
Graduate outcomes data answers the questions students and families are already asking: what will this degree pay, and which skills make the difference? Universities using this data are improving time to degree, increasing retention, strengthening alumni giving, and deepening employer relationships.
4. Map which industries employ your alumni.
Knowing where your graduates work and which companies hire them helps you build programs aligned to real career paths. West Virginia University used Graduate Insights to connect with alumni and their employers directly to support student job searches. See an example workforce analysis.
5. Measure the impact of your research initiatives.
Research universities generate long-term economic and public value that traditional metrics rarely capture. Jason Owen-Smith, executive director of the Institute for Research on Innovation and Science (IRIS), makes the case for why that investment matters. Listen to the conversation with Owen-Smith and the Steppingblocks team on data, research universities, and their long-term impact.
Using Steppingblocks for Academic Program Review
Program reviews require evidence. Whether your cycle runs every five or seven years, reviewers and accreditors expect data on where graduates work, what they earn, and whether your curriculum is keeping pace with employer demand. Here is how Steppingblocks supports that process specifically.
6. Document graduate employment and salary outcomes for your review submission.
Steppingblocks lets you pull employment rates, average salaries, top employers, and industry placement for graduates of a specific major or degree, segmented by graduation year. That data can go directly into your program review report without waiting on alumni survey responses. Read how North Carolina A&T used Steppingblocks data for their academic program review cycle.
7. Build the case for continuing, expanding, or sunsetting a program.
Outcome data is one of the clearest inputs for decisions about program investment. Steppingblocks can show whether employer demand for a program's graduates is growing or contracting, whether salaries are trending up or down, and whether graduates are finding work aligned with the degree. That evidence supports more confident recommendations to provosts, boards, and accreditors. Some examples of partners who have done this work:
University of North Georgia added a Logistics major to their College of Business based on assessment of outcomes data for alumni working in the Transportation and Logistics Industry, and for alumni working in Logistics job categories to highlight the need for the major. They used skills data to inform the program development.
Ready to see how Steppingblocks data maps to your institution's program review template? Contact your Partner Success Associate to set up a working session.