University Career Services Market Research Project

University Career Services: Career Peers

MKT 3312: Wed 6:00PM – 8:50PM

Mitchell Darden, Rahel Atalay, Edwin Negron Arguelles, and Zeyu Wang

Fall 2015

Page University Career Services: Career Peers

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Table of Contents

Page

Executive Summary 2

Organization Description 3

Research Problem Description 4

Data Collection and Results 5

Methodology & Procedure 5

Results 6

Limitations 12

Conclusion 13

Recommendations 14

Appendix


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Executive Summary

St. John’s University Career Services is a team of dedicated career educators that serve as a

resource to students and alumni offering career advising, job-readiness skill training, internships, and employment services. Career Peers are current students that assist this team with the various services they provide such as resume and cover letter building. The problem

that the Career Peers have is often finding ways to connect with the students and make them aware of the various services that they offer. University Career Services reached out to us to

see what the overall awareness of the Career Peer program is and what the best way to connect to students is.

To help the Career Peers with their problem, we analyzed secondary data and conducted exploratory research through a survey of St. John’s University undergraduate students at

various dining halls and food courts around campus. The data we collected gave us a lot of important information on the overall awareness of the Career Peer program and how they, and University Career Services, should reach out to students and improve their overall

student engagement. While 58% of students that we surveyed are aware of the Career Peers, only 32% of students use the services that Career Peers provide. In order to get more student

engagement with the Career Peers, we recommend: 1. Promote services heavily through popular social media sites, specifically through

frequently checked sites like Twitter

2. Establishing relationships with other organizations on campus and promoting career services at their campus events

3. Creating a demand for Career Peer services by making students aware of how Career Peers can improve their resume and chances of getting an internship

4. Promoting at sports events

These solutions provide Career Peers the opportunity to increase the engagement between themselves and students.


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Organization Description

University Career Services: Career Peers

The Career Peers at St. John’s University strive to assist students and the staff at University Career Services in order to help guide, educate, and promote career readiness and

development to St. John’s students. Career Peers often act as the bridge between University Career Services and students who may be looking for advice from other students, or who may be hesitant to meet with a Career Advisor.

University Career Services describes the Career Peers on St. John’s University’s website as

the following:

“The Career Peer program offers students the unique opportunity to become an integral part of a team that helps guide, educate, and promote career readiness and development to St.

John’s students. Working to support the university and department missions, Career Peers are paraprofessionals who model professionalism and share expertise gained through their own experiential education opportunities. They serve as a resource to internal and external

constituents including students, faculty, administration and employers and are trained to assist students with: resume and cover letter development; job and internship searches;

interview techniques; using our online resources; and navigating and utilizing department programs and events.

Career Peers commit to carry out their duties both on site in our office and on location at events. Peers benefit from a mentored, skill building experience with the staff as well as gain

exposure to hundreds of internship and full-time job postings and the opportunity to network with employers.”1

Thus, Career Peers are an important part of University Career Services and how they connect with students.

1 St. John’s University. University Career Services. Web. 28 Nov 2015.

<http://www.stjohns.edu/sites/default/files/documents/career/application_-_spring_2015.pdf>


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Research Problem Description

The underlying question that the Career Peers are facing is how they should promote their services to the students at St. John’s University; therefore our Decision Problems are “1.

What is the best way the Career Peers can connect with the students? 2. What major problems do students have that can the Career Peers help solve or assist?”

Our research will focus on what events and social media outlets are best to connect with students and what services provided by the Career Peers do students want to use. Research

problems include:

1. Investigate student awareness of the Career Peers and their services. We have been

made aware that student engagement levels are not where University Career Services want them to be. (They want more student engagement)

2. What are the best ways to reach out to students via Social Media. Figuring out what social media sites students use the most and connecting with them on those sites. (Social

Media Marketing is the latest and greatest way to reach a select audience)

3. Determining what events on campus are most popular and should be used to

promote Career Peers. Finding where the students are and directly reaching out to them is a great way to increase student engagement with Career Peers and University Career

Services

These research problems should provide us with the proper information on how to increase engagement between the students and Career Peers.


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Data Collection and Results

Methodology & Procedure

The research design used was exploratory research and our primary data method was a proprietary survey administered through Qualtrics

Sampling & Sampling Process

Our Target Population is St. John’s undergraduate students on the Queens Campus

Our Sampling Frame is from all the students at the Montgoris Dining Hall, Marillac Food Court, and D’Angelo Center Food Court

Our Sampling Procedure is the probability sample method through random sampling

of 100 students

Required Sample Size for Averages:

Margin of Error: 0.5

Confidence Level: 90% Population Size: 15,720 St. John's Student Body Population Variance: 6

Recommended Sample Size = 65

Required Size for Proportions:

n=Z^2/H^2*pie (1-pie)

Z=1.645 H=.03

pie= 0.5 n = 751.6736

Sample Size Reduction:

n' = n(N/(N + n-1)) n= 751.6736 N= 100

n' = 88.3621 Due to sampling limitations we have only used 100 students


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Results

Insight 1: Over 50% of students are aware of Career Peers

Compared to a previous survey by University Career Services, the amount of students aware of Career Peers has greatly increased.

1. Did you know who the Career Peers were before? Or have

you ever heard of the Career Peers before?

# Answer

Response % 1 Yes

58 59%

2 No

41 41% Total 99 100%


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Insight 2: The majority of those students hear about Career Peers through emails and

the St. John’s website, and about only half of them have had engagement with the

Career Peers.

Getting people aware is nice and we do see improvement from previous surveys, however it would be nice to see a greater percent of students that are aware of Career Peers actually take

advantage of using the survice.

2. If yes, how did you hear about the Career Peers?

# Answer

Response %

1

Campus Email/St. John's Central/Web Announcement

26 45%

2 Facebook

2 3% 3 Twitter

4 7% 4 Tumblr

2 3% 5 Word of Mouth

22 38% 6 Posters/Flyers

1 2%

7 Classroom Presentations

1 2%

Total 58 100%


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3. Have you ever received help from a Career Peer?

# Answer

Response % 1 Yes

32 55%

2 No

26 45% Total 58 100%


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Insight 3: Students who see the Career Peers mainly focus on resume building, and

most students say that is the #1 thing they would see the Career Peers for.

Career Peers should meet these demands and still make resume building services the number

one priority. They could use the “foot-in-the-door” method and promote their other services and experiences after they help a student with their resume.

4. What did the Career Peer assist you with?

# Answer

Response %

1 Resume Building

27 84%

2 Cover Letter Building

1 3%

3

Advice Through First Hand Experience (internship or academic)

3 9%

4 Internship Interview Advice

1 3%

5 Other (Please Specify)

0 0%

Total 32 100%


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8. What is the most relevant issue to you that the Career

Peers can assist with?

# Answer

Response %

1 Resume Building

66 67%

2 Cover Letter Building

12 12%

3

First Hand Experience Tips (internship or academic)

10 10%

4 Internship Interview Advice

11 11%


0 0%

Total 99 100%


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Insight 4: Students seem to want Career Peers to promote their services at on-campus

events, through social media and around campus where there is high traffic.

Students seem pretty evenly interested in seeing how they want the Career Peers promoted,

but the Career Peers might even want to consider promoting at sporting events as well. Over 71% of students polled said they attend sporting events on campus. Events with high student

involvement would be great places for Career Peers to promote their services.

7. If the Career Peers would want to promote their services,

what would be the best way to do it?

# Answer

Response %

1

Social Media (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.)

31 31%

2 Campus Events

43 43% 3 Greek Life Events

1 1%

4 Sport Events

5 5%

5 Outside of Main Campus Buildings (DAC/Marillac/etc.)

20 20%

Total 100 100%


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9. What on-campus events do you attend? (Check all that

apply)

# Answer

Response % 1 Career Fairs

56 58%

2 Performances

36 37% 3 Sport Events

69 71%

4 Club/Academic Events

55 57%

5 Greek Life Events

43 44%


0 0%


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Insight 5: According to the students we polled, Twitter is the social media site that they

check the most frequently. Focusing on promoting on Twitter and putting more content on twitter might be the best way

to increase student engagement through social media and online outside of emailing and posting on the website.

10. What social media platform do you use/check the most?

# Answer

Response % 1 Twitter

53 54%

2 Instagram

22 22% 3 Facebook

15 15% 4 Tumblr

6 6% 5 LinkedIn

3 3%

Total 99 100%


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Insight 6: Students who reach out to Career Peers and University Career Services and

use their services have a higher rate of getting an internship compared to students who

don’t reach out.

Over 76% of people who use Career Peers and University Career Services obtained internships. Only 30 % of students who didn’t use any of the University Career Services had

internships. In other words, University Career Services = Greater chance of obtaining an internship.


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Limitations

1. Due to sample restrictions, we only surveyed 100 students on the St. John’s Queens

Campus

2. Our survey only took place in dining halls which could have an effect on data results.

We could be only focusing on one sub-population at St. John’s University (only

people getting food on campus)

3. The sample doesn’t have an even number of Freshman (27%), Sophomores (32%), Juniors (28%), and Seniors (13%). Also, a majority of people surveyed were either in the Tobin School of Business (37%) or College of Professional Studies (36%)


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Conclusions

Through our research we have found that a majority of the general St. John’s

undergraduate body has a general awareness for Career Peers, but almost 2/3 of students

don’t utilize the services provided by the Career Peers. Our survey shows that students who

utilize the resources provided by University Career Services and Career Peers have a higher

chance of obtaining an internship.

Career Peers need to focus on promoting their services in high traffic (high student

involvement) areas both on campus and through social media. When looking at our research

data, we see that over 70% of students attend sporting events on-campus. A majority of

student believe promoting Career Peers at on-campus events will be a great way for them to

gain exposure and promote their services. Over half of the students we surveyed said that

Twitter is the social media site that they most frequently check.

Even with all this information, Career Peers and University Career Services need to be able

to be able to market themselves using this information in the right way. Many students, just

like any consumer, will ask the question “how does this benefit me?” This might be where

Career Peers and University Career Services are struggling. Creating a demand for Career

Peer services is very important in order to get student engagement.


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Recommendations

Our survey results show that we could improve awareness, but more importantly, we need to

create demand for Career Peer services and explain to students how engaging with Career Peers benefits them. We recommend the following to improve both of these problems:

Recommendation One: Promote Services Heavily Through Twitter

Twitter is by far the most frequently checked social media site by St. John’s students. Our survey showed that over 53% of students say Twitter is the social media site they most frequently check

and almost a third of students we surveyed believe that social media is the best way to reach out to students and promote Career Peer services. If they can focus their social media content on

Twitter, plus promote how students can benefit from their services on Twitter, they can increase student engagement.

Recommendation Two: Connect and Build Relationships with Other Organizations on

Campus

Our survey results showed that students want more interaction with Career Peers at campus events. Establishing a relationship with other campus organization can provide Career Peers an

opportunity to cross promote with the organizations. Both organizations can benefit and help promote each-others services and drive traffic to each-other. Being active on campus by

attending campus events and making students aware of all the services they offer will help increase student engagement.

Recommendation Three: Promote at Campus Sport Events

We noticed 70% of students we surveyed said that they attend sporting events on campus. These are the most popular events that students attend. If Career Peers can work with the organizations that run the sporting events and promote their services on site at these events will greatly

increase student awareness of Career Peers. Going after a large number of St. John’s students in a concentrated area will be an efficient way for Career Peers to promote their services.

Recommendation Four: Create Demand for Career Peer Services through Statistics

Our survey results show a staggering number of students that have acquired an internship after working with Career Peers (76%) compared to those who don’t (25%). Students, just like any

other consumer, want to know what the benefit is for them with using a certain service. If students see this survey and realize that going to see a Career Peer will boost their chances of getting an internship, they will most likely go to see one. Creating a demand for their service is

extremely important for the Career Peers. If they can show these statistics and explain the various ways they can help students obtain internships, then students will be more encouraged to

go see a Career Peer. With this, Career Peers will see student engagement increase.


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University Career Services Market Research Project

Documents

Transcript of University Career Services Market Research Project