We appreciate your willingness to help cadets achieve their career goals, and welcome opportunities to work with you in this effort. This page has been organized to provide information regarding the Office of Career Services and ways we can support you.
Did you know that:
- Recruiters are willing to talk to specific classes, at the request of the professor. Recruiters like to meet with faculty when they are recruiting on Post. Lunch is often the best time and Career Services will cover those expenses.
- Many organizations welcome on-site visits from teaching faculty to discuss careers. Many cadets seek career advice from professors before they utilize Career Services. The majority of our referrals are from faculty.
- Many organizations now are using their internships as vehicles from which to hire most of their entry-level employees.
- Corporations establish ties with academic departments at selected colleges and universities for the purpose of identifying prospective interns and employees.
- Alumni in your field are excellent resources for internships and full-time positions for current cadets.
Faculty Career Services Guide
The mission of the Office of Career Services is to provide comprehensive, state-of-the-art resources and services for cadets to assist them in their needs relative to career planning, career experiences, and employment or graduate education opportunities.
How You Can Help Cadets
- Encourage cadet appointments with career services and include information about us in your mailings.
- Recommend that they apply to summer internships, jobs, and study abroad.
- Join the VMI Office of Career Services group on LinkedIn.
- Remind them to have their resume and cover letter reviewed before applying to jobs or internships.
- Join Handshake to see what the cadets see; this is where jobs and internships will be posted.
- Promote upcoming career fairs, networking, and other OCS events.
- Don’t reschedule class; invite us to facilitate a career services program that we can tailor to your cohort.
- Share with them the VMI Career Development Plan.
- Review resources such as Vault, Focus2, and CareerShift, where cadets can search for jobs/internships, review resume guides, access what they can do with their major feature, and complete career assessments.
- Review the NACE Faculty Guide to Ethical and Legal Standards in Student Employment.
- Contact career services if you are interested in having an employer speak to your class.
- Collect information about internships related to your major and forward it to careerservices@vmi.edu.
- Review NACE Competencies for Career Readiness, the skills cadets will need to be successful professionals.
- Invite us to your departmental meeting to share information about occupational trends in your discipline.
Sample Class Assignment for Cadets
- Brainstorm:
- Career readiness skills you have gained or refined from your efforts in conducting your research and writing your research paper.
- General knowledge you have gained or developed (i.e., course content).
- Specialized knowledge you have gained or developed (e.g., knowledge of software or methodologies).
- Ways of thinking you have refined.
- Reflect as a group:
- Are there any gaps or missing skills?
- How might you share what you have generated through this conversation in documents and interviews as you apply for jobs, internships, grants, graduate work?
Ethical and Legal Information
VMI faculty members play an important role in the employment process for new graduates. Usually, your role and that of the Office of Career Services are complementary. To protect you from liability and reduce risk assessment for VMI, you should review existing guidelines for employment practices.
A good guide to understanding legal and ethical issues for faculty can be found in the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Faculty Guide to Ethical and Legal Standards in Student Hiring. Here you can find issues representative of most colleges across the nation, including VMI. A few key examples of legal and ethical concerns for VMI faculty are:
- Not publicizing employment and internship opportunities to all qualified cadets
- Working with employers and their diversity objectives in the hiring process
- Confidentiality when serving as a reference for cadets
If you have questions about Ethical / Legal implications of career services, please don’t hesitate to contact us at email: careerservices@vmi.edu, or phone: 540-464-7560.
Questions? We’re Here to Help
Connect with Career Services
Email: careerservices@vmi.edu
Phone: (540) 464-7560
Career Services
311 Carroll Hall