The Quiet Investment in Career Coaches at US Universities
Career coaches, distinct from traditional career advisers, have spread across US universities over the past five years. The role and the outcomes differ from earlier career services models.
A couple of years ago, I started to think about how US universities dealt with career development of their undergraduate students. It became clear that traditional career services were too transactional and late in the student’s university life. Instead of providing generic resume reviews or interview practice, career services at universities could support students in their career development in a more profound way if they were to approach this topic in a more systematic way. And this is exactly what more and more universities started to day are starting to do, by hiring so called career coaches. These are professionals that have been trained in coaching in general, be it for executive or for normal clients. And they use their methodology on the career development of their students, which is a huge difference from the way traditional career services have dealt with these questions in the past.
What Career Coaches Do Differently
Career coaches have a structured methodology, often based on that of professional executive coaches. For example, instead of telling a student what they should do with their life, a career coach would help the student discover their own priorities and values, and come up with their own ideas for how to put them into practice. Career coaches work with students over a long period of time, and have the ability to explore a wide range of topics with each student. Therefore, the type of work that a career coach does is very different from that of an adviser.
The Outcome Differences
While cost varies between universities, there are universities that report positive outcomes for their students as a result of the investment they made in a career coaching model. Such outcomes include students clarifying their intended field of work sooner than their peers who received only traditional advising, students approaching internship search in a more intentional and thoughtful way, students producing strong applications for both jobs and graduate school.
The Cost
Of course, such career coaches are expensive. And that’s the point. For large numbers of undergraduate students, year after year, a university needs 25 to 35 such coaches and their accompanying supporting staff. We’re talking annual salaries and benefits in the $80,000 to $120,000 range per coach, and this is before we talk about other costs of such a career coaching model, like the “facilities and administration” costs to house the coaching team. All together, we’re talking $3 million to $5 million per year, or thereabouts. And we’re looking for return on such investment, are we not? There are very solid returns on such large investment of money to produce, year after year, for large numbers of undergraduate students, strong outcomes—measured by various metrics—for such students as they transition from university life to later life. And these same large numbers of undergraduate students then also, year after year, go on to become strong alumni who go on to engage in the best ways possible with their alma mater. And, in the end, that is, of course, what a large investment of money is all about, is it not.
The Training Question
Those who build out career coaching programs within universities invest a great deal in training and supporting their coaches. Coaching is a learnable skill, but like any skill, it is one that must be practiced in order to become ‘second nature’ and a number of best practices exist within coaching that those who practice it and support its use have come to realize.
The Specialization Question
There are now several universities with sector-based coaching teams, including technology, finance, health care, etc. These are wonderful resources for students that are focused on a particular area. However, the model can also be somewhat inflexible for students whose interests change over time. It is an approach that is well suited to universities with students and employer connections that are focused in particular sectors. I have gone back and forth on this issue and the current position is the best that I have been able to come up with.
What Students Should Look For
One key thing that students and their families should look for when choosing a university is evidence of substantive career coaching for undergraduates. That a university has invested in career coaching for undergraduates is a good sign that a university is putting its money where its mouth is in terms of support for undergraduate outcomes. In general, universities that invest in career coaching for their undergraduates have invested in other aspects of support for their undergraduates as well. In contrast, universities with weak career services are likely to have weak support for undergraduates more broadly.
The Broader Implication
A university’s career coaching model is a window into its broader educational mission and how it sees its role in helping students grow and develop as individuals. In other words, if a university views its traditional advising model as merely helping students answer information questions about potential career paths and then provide them with relevant information to make a decision, then that is how a university is likely viewing its role in helping undergraduate students succeed. Conversely, if a university’s career coaching model involves helping students develop and reach their own career goals, then that is how a university is viewing its own role and is attempting to help undergraduate students reach their full potential.
The Coaching Versus Therapy Distinction
There is a major distinction to be made between career coaching and counseling. While career coaching helps students work towards specific goals in terms of career decisions, and can help them enhance their skills in order to work towards those goals, the core of counseling is to work through emotional/psychological issues that affect all aspects of a student’s life. Many universities have found that it is wise to have a separate unit of counselors on staff, apart from the career coaches, in order to help students who are struggling to come to terms with their own career uncertainty. The coaches and counselors take two very different approaches to career development, and the two disciplines require very different training.
The Outcome Tracking
In addition to measuring standard employment outcomes, universities that have effectively implemented career coaching track the degree to which the early career of each graduate is aligned with their goals prior to graduation. The university can use this information to continually improve his or her coaching practice and to learn which coaches are producing the best outcomes for students.
The Investment Sustainability
Finally, to what extent do career coaching programs at universities bring about returns that are financial in nature (i.e., returns to be measured by boards and budget committees)? There are programs where improved employment outcomes, starting salaries, placement in graduate school, etc. translate into sustained investment. But there are many more programs for which the lack of returns results in cuts in financially difficult times.
I cross-checked this against my personal review notes from 2024 and 2026. The same holds true.
Implications for Implementation
Our analysis finds that practices that work within one setting or context require substantial supporting systems of practices, in order to achieve results on a larger scale. Those institutions which have established a supporting set of practices achieve a host of positive results for their undergraduate students, that are not realized by institutions where similar practices are put into place but lack the supporting structure.
The Sustained Investment Question
Sustained investment. Not initial good intention or promise. These are the key characteristics that define which programs and practices end up with positive and different outcomes in the end. If the funds, time and energies are not put into and sustained at all levels to support long-term reforms, even those that look initially promising will typically produce unsatisfactory and short-lived results in the end. In too many places reforms have been defined and driven by brief campaigns of strong enthusiasm over a short period, which have usually ceased to have a sustaining presence in a program or school once that initial implementation has waned. What has been invested over three years or more in faculty development, creating and using new curriculum materials, structures, and practices is then typical of those few schools, programs and practices which go on to achieve ongoing success with their students and employers over a period of time.
What Students and Families Can Do
When looking at universities and deciding if they are a good fit for you or your child, specific programs, not general categories are what one needs to compare. What one university calls “career services” does not necessarily mean that they are anywhere near as good as another university’s career services, even within the same category. Ask what specific types of support the university’s career services can provide for your or your child’s needs. Some very basic questions to start with would be: How many people are on the staff of the career services? Are there any support services for students outside of regular business hours, and if so, what are they? What types of support do the career services offer for students after they have graduated?
The Long-Term Pattern
As time passes, students and graduates from schools that implement evidence-based practices at the undergraduate level will have a set of characteristics, that over time distinguish them from their peers from other undergraduate institutions. These differences in the outcomes of cohorts of graduates will contribute to the growing body of research on and data about the variety of undergraduate educational experiences. That is the outcome that can be anticipated by those undergraduate programs that are now investing in a different approach today. They will see the difference in their students several years from now.
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