Higher ed, government and workforce leaders are discussing employability skills and work-based learning more than they ever have (at least, in my lifetime). So are students. Recent research shines a light on where and how students contemplate the connection between college and careers (particularly the increasingly influential role of social media) and what they expect. Marketers can leverage these consumer insights to influence both product and positioning to develop, implement and communicate work-integrated learning experience to meet student and workforce needs.
Students Get Career, College and Life Advice From Social Media
Seventy percent of young adults use social media to learn about careers, and it’s the top tool young adults use for self-discovery, despite a lack of encouragement from most adults and career navigators/counselors. Students talk about workforce skills when they talk to each other online about going to college—about 20 percent of these posts are about skills needed for jobs. They believe transferable skills are valuable to keep their career options open, particularly for those who don’t know what they want to do in their future careers. Specifically, they talk about:
- Relationship-building skills like networking, persuasive speaking and small group leadership
- Basic math and writing skills
- Study skills
- Interview skills
Forums are advice-seeking and experience-sharing platforms, and when students talk about needing workforce skills, they receive encouraging advice. Suggestions include using extra courses, academic services and resources to gain employability skills to help them find a job after graduation. Students are also encouraged to develop practical critical thinking and social skills because, in the words of those giving advice, “a degree doesn’t guarantee success.”
When students think about preparing for a job, they prioritize internships. In an analysis of over 600,000 forum conversations about college admissions Campus Sonar conducted to inform Jeff Selingo’s book Dream School: Finding The College That’s Right for You, internships were the most common form of workforce training discussed. When students make their college decision, they consider whether a campus provides them greater access to internship opportunities. Sometimes students interpret a rural campus as one without internship opportunities (which isn’t exactly true), and students consider if the campus gives them access to a connected network to find future internships and jobs. Another consideration is the value of an institution’s reputation with employers or intern hiring managers.
However, these conversations revealed that students don’t really know what happens in an internship or how to get one. So they use online forums to seek advice on obtaining an internship, leveraging it, securing a job after graduation and exploring alternative careers outside their major.
This is a storytelling opportunity for campuses. Specifically, to bridge the gap between current or recent interns and prospective and first-year students. Students who completed internships don’t have the chance to tell the students coming behind them what it’s like or how it helped them. This transition point is an excellent chance to engage recent interns to share their experiences directly with students or prospects to provide motivation and guidance in the peer-to-peer form students want. Using social media—the place where young people are seeking this advice—is crucial.
Students Need to Understand the Connection Between Curriculum, Skill Building and Careers
When considering college, students are already thinking about what comes next. Over 10 years of social listening research examining how students talk about college admissions, 62 percent of conversations focused on the postgraduation path. But when the connections between a college’s curriculum, employability skills and careers aren’t clear, students think the burden is on them to build the skills and chart their path.
This was particularly clear in Campus Sonar’s 2024 Rebuilding Public Trust in Higher Education social intelligence study, which found that 45 percent of peer-to-peer conversations about the value of college included cautionary advice that students may be on their own to make crucial connections between curriculum, skill building and careers.
Many colleges struggle to communicate these connections effectively. Here are two doing an excellent job.
- Kettering University in Flint, Mich. For 100 years, Kettering has focused on work-integrated learning with a curriculum that rotates students between the classroom and co-op work placements in 12-week intervals. Ninety-eight percent of their students are employed after graduation, and the ongoing integration of students in the workforce produces valuable student feedback, enabling curriculum shifts to keep up with ever-changing employer needs.
Kettering is historically focused on STEM, but the university recently launched the School of Foundational Studies, traditionally known as liberal arts. The core curriculum emphasizes a connected, human-centered approach and integrates a STEM focus with early professional development and ethical decision-making, preparing students to navigate complexity with intellectual agility. We know the liberal arts prepares students for the workforce, but Kettering is shifting the narrative and dropping the misunderstood phrase to put relevance and impact like ethical decision-making and intellectual agility front and center.
- Moravian University is another example. The medium-size, private, religiously affiliated institution created Elevate as part of its undergraduate experience. It’s a career readiness digital badging system to help students clearly see the pathways for developing and demonstrating skills in communication, critical thinking leadership and more. Elevate is part of Moravian’s distinctive and branded undergraduate student experience, which is a four-year pathway to a “successful future and a career you love.” The Elevate experience goes year by year and explains how students scaffold their experiences, learnings and badges and the support they get along the way.
Career navigation is a prevailing concept in this space right now and is critical in empowering students to truly navigate their own careers rather than expect the university to take them from A to B. Students need to become their own career navigator and be confident upon graduation that they have the navigation skills. Integrated curricula like those I’ve highlighted here achieve that outcome.
Not all campuses are equipped to develop a work-integrated curriculum independently, meaning the product offered to students may not yet be at the place where it can be positioned in a way that meets the current needs. An ecosystem of partners has developed over the last decade to help and is highlighted at workforce-focused higher ed events such as the Horizons Summit, SXSW EDU and ASU+GSV Summit.
For example, Riipen connects educators, learners and employers (particularly small businesses) to integrate short-term, paid projects into coursework—including remote work opportunities. Education at Work connects students to résumé-building, paying jobs at top national employers like Intuit and Discover to build durable skills and unlock career pathways within the organization. A strong relationship with your provost or career services office will ensure the marketing team is aware of the “product features” that are evolving on your campus to connect classroom to career.
Take Action
- Tell as many individual stories as you can to help students see themselves in your graduates, develop a sense of belonging and trust outcomes achieved by a peer. Tell the types of stories (or empower students/alumni to tell their own) that would be offered as positive anecdotes in social media (e.g., TikTok, Reddit). Recognizing that resources are finite and stories from “someone like me” are nearly always more influential than polished marketing content, social listening bridges the gap to identify and amplify stories students and alumni already share.
- Include program-level excellence in your brand narrative to more specifically connect curriculum and programming to careers. Support your claims with data (e.g., job placement, salaries, top employers), but don’t rely solely on statistics—always connect the data to stories.
- Emphasize support structures and peer-to-peer connections such as experiential learning programs, career services opportunities, paid internship support, peer internship mentoring, etc., so students don’t feel like they’re on their own to navigate their career path.
