Fully integrating academic advising with career coaching to increase student retention,graduation rates and future job satisfaction

Abstract

Higher education institutions in the United States are under increasing pressure to retain and graduate more students. Traditionally, the academic advisor helps students to meet degree graduation requirements and may also do some minor career advising. A new approach is proposed, in which career coaching with industry help becomes just as important and is formalized into the academic advisor’s role. Under this approach, students are advised in relation not only to their progress towards their degree, but also to their progress towards their career. They undergo a required process to choose a career and must make progress towards it while pursuing their degree. The use of formal career coaching combined with academic advising is based on goal-setting theory and career planning research. This new approach to advising may lead to increased student retention and graduation rates and also to higher job satisfaction after graduation.

Keywords

career coaching career planning industry–academic partnerships student advising student retention

Academic institutions in the United States are under great pressure to improve student retention rates and to reduce the time it takes for students to graduate (Soni et al., 2014; Zalaznick, 2017). Many higher education funding formulas now emphasize these performance issues and include penalties (Bell and Ansari, 2008; Shapiro et al., 2015). The public is becoming more aware of retention and graduation rates, and parents are less inclined for their children to attend lower-performing institutions (Tetens et al., 2016). Parental support is important (Bardick et al., 2005) and parents now often want their college-attending children to be prepared for careers (Carlson, 2017; Peltz, 2017; Tetens et al., 2016). In addition, lower student retention leads to lower university revenue to support faculty and students. Some academic institutions have intensified their marketing efforts to attract new students and have increased financial support for these new students (Crosley and Scannell, 2017). However, recruiting students is more costly than retaining current ones (Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991). Other major interventions have included stronger course advising and tutoring. Results have been mixed (Alarcon and Edwards, 2013; Murtaugh et al., 1999; Tinto, 2007). Academic advising needs improvement to increase students’ success (Carlson, 2017; Maples et al., 2010). The integration of academic and career advising should be considered for better student outcomes (McCalla-Wriggins, 2009).

Students come to academic study with various levels of intelligence and academic motivation (Alarcon and Edwards, 2013; Elliot, 1999; Wessell et al., 1978), and motivation is a strong predictor of retention (Alarcon and Edwards, 2013; Baker and Siryk, 1984; Kember et al., 2010). Educational commitment also affects retention and is a facet of motivation (Allen et al., 2008). In the United States, 30% of higher education students do not return for their second year (Bowler, 2009), and the six-year completion rate for all freshmen students is around 52.9% (Shapiro et al., 2015). Academic institutions could raise admission standards in an attempt to increase retention, but there would be students below the proposed higher standards who would likely graduate if given a chance. In addition, university administrators and faculty might worry that higher standards would lead to smaller enrolment, loss of revenue and layoffs. Some institutions do not have the prominence to increase standards, and reputation perceptions take a long time to change.

Academic institutions must change from short-term to long-term thinking in promoting student success. Student success also needs to be redefined with new accountabilities (Maples et al., 2010). It is easier for academic institutions to help students get into college courses than to help them pick a degree that best fits their personality, interests and strengths (Gordon and Steele, 2003). Degrees are often suggested with little information about the individual’s needs, personality or motivation (Gordon and Steele, 2003). Unfortunately, there are degrees for which students have unrealistic perceptions of finding employment without proper guidance (Lepre, 2007). Students may also not have a realistic idea of what a specific career entails or the amount of rigour involved in related coursework.

This article is divided into two parts. The first part discusses the need for a new approach to academic advising that works in partnership with industry. A recommendation is made to fully integrate academic advising with formal career advising to help improve student retention and graduation success. The second part discusses possible ways to implement this integration effectively. This new advising approach with full industry involvement may also lead to greater future job satisfaction.

A new approach to student advising

A new approach to retention is to require formalized and proactive career advising at the beginning of a student’s academic career (Carlton, 2015). At minimum, students should be asked ‘what they want to accomplish by the time they graduate, along with their specific career and academic goals’ (Carlton, 2015: 1). Most academic advising is passive and just helps students take the correct courses to complete their chosen degree. Passive advising assumes that students are interested in their degree programme without considering why they chose it or whether they will be successful. If students are interested in receiving career advice, they often have to seek it out instead of being required to obtain it (Gallup-Purdue Index Report, 2016). Academic institutions typically use passive career advising, in which some students hear career speakers, receive brochures, read a career-oriented book or take career assessments. A new approach is to require all students to go through a formal process of career advising in which a specific career is chosen and supported through organized and planned steps until graduation. Industry representatives help in this process. Students can change their career choice, but a change is also a formalized process to maintain career clarity and direction. There must always be a career choice with written goals and a plan of success.

Most students come to college without a strong idea of what they want to do when they graduate or what type of career would best suit them (Gerdes and Mallinckrodt, 1994). Many start higher education because of strong pressure from their family or because everyone told them that higher education is the thing to do (Baker and Siryk, 1984). Some students are driven and have such strong self-motivation that failing to pick a career early in their academic life is unlikely to keep them from graduating; these students simply enjoy the challenge of academia. However, making an early career choice may help all of them to graduate in a timely manner and reach higher or more satisfying career goals (Locke and Latham, 2002). ‘In today’s uncertain job market, university students who show positive attitudes in their career planning have an advantage’ (Stoeber et al., 2016: 256). This new model requires students to plan a successful career from the first day of higher education. Students are not left to figure out their future careers on their own.

Student retention and early career advising

With vague ideas of their potential future careers, many students concentrate on taking courses for their degrees instead of fully exploring where their education may lead them. This is most problematic for academically weaker students who have a problem making their higher education a priority over other needs (Thompson and Prieto, 2013). Gerdes and Mallinckrodt (1994: 287) find that ‘students who are struggling academically may benefit from career planning assistance in determining academic goals’. Early career planning may help these students to balance their priorities. Many have a hard time making their higher education a top priority and they neglect studying and working hard on assignments. Their consequent lower grades and/or their disconnect from campus due to missed classes make these students less likely to finish their higher education. The common element is the lack of a committed long-term career focus that would have helped them to make better decisions on how to use their limited time. Unfortunately, according to a recent survey, only 17% of US students who graduated between 2010 and 2016 found their career advising very helpful and only 1 in 10 industry leaders found the graduates they hired prepared for their careers (Gallup-Purdue Index Report, 2016).

Today, many academic institutions in the United States have a freshman orientation course or student success seminars. These can be non-credit sessions or credit introductory courses. While valuable, these orientations or seminars often focus on study habits, roommate communication, stress management, alcohol use and other college life adjustments. Ideally, and based on the new advising approach outlined above, students would also be introduced to an academic advising culture of career planning and goal setting. This does not mean that students cannot change their minds, but having career direction possibilities helps to keep them fully motivated and focused on academic success.

Student retention and degree selection

An argument might be made that many students will not know what they want in their careers after graduation until they have tried various courses and taken many different curriculum directions. However, most US academic institutions have fairly rigid course requirements, particularly at the upper course levels. Course exploration often leads to taking courses that ultimately do not count towards the eventual degree choice. Unfortunately, this can lead to an extensive amount of lost time, wasted parental money and more student loans (Quadlin and Rudel, 2015). Switching degrees is often costly and can even lead to dropouts because of frustration or increasing student loans. It will certainly lead to a longer period before graduation at the institution, perhaps involving summer courses or additional full-time semesters.

Better early career planning could reduce or eliminate course explorations as a means of finding a career direction (Belser et al., 2017). In addition, courses in a degree programme do not always fully reflect the workplace environment. Some students find their course work was interesting, perhaps even exciting but then are disappointed by the work experience in the related degree. Those who choose degrees that are better career matches make better employees and are less likely to quit their job or put in a poor performance. This better career matching will also increase the reputation of the academic institution to employers who prefer to hire students with thought-out, realistic and passionate career goals (Brito, 2012).

On the other hand, some students find the course work for their degree tedious and boring, while they will find the careers related to it enjoyable and fulfilling. Without proper career planning to motivate them, such students might mistakenly give up on their education or change degree. Some may take longer to graduate because of a change of degree without realizing that their original degree career prospects were more interesting than the classwork preparation. Even worse, some may drop out to save money until their career direction is clearer. Students who drop out do not always return or go elsewhere, which negatively impacts student retention and job placement rates.

Student retention and goal-setting theory

This new approach to student advising, which involves a focus on career advising, is based on Locke and Latham’s (2002) goal-setting theory and related career planning research. The creation of career goals has been shown to have a positive impact on career planning productivity (Tammemagi et al., 2013). There is also strong support in career research for using goal setting for better career outcomes (Betz and Hackett, 2006; Creed et al., 2009, 2013). Students need help in long-term planning for what they will do after graduation (Andriessen et al., 2006; Baker and Siryk, 1984; Kronholz, 2015; Wessell et al., 1978). According to Coon and Walker (2013: 83), they often ‘need help articulating their goals or making realistic connections between course work and life goals’. The proposed new-style academic advisors, along with industry representatives, will help students discover and define their long-term career goals and will discuss with them any barriers they may confront (Baker and Siryk, 1984; Perrone et al., 2001; Wessell et al., 1978). Advisors can help students to address conflicts and potential overload that may threaten their goals (Brown et al., 2005).

After the career goals have been established, scheduled advisor feedback on progress will help each student to identify the effort needed to reach them (Covington, 2000; Eisele, 2012). Goal-setting theory emphasizes the importance of specific goals and performance feedback in relation to them (Locke and Latham, 2002). With goal setting, feedback tracks progress along with goal commitment (Locke and Latham, 2006), and scheduled feedback helps students advance towards specific career efforts or stimulates thinking about a different career direction (VandeWalle et al., 1999). These career progress requirements take time and effort but are not burdensome because they are broken into small steps over multiple years and monitored by the advisor and managed. The process creates a greater chance of success (Davis et al., 2005).

Required career planning course

In the career approach to student advising, students start their academic career with a 1-credit course that deals with career exploration, life planning and the importance of goal setting. This could be paired with study skills advice and help with transitioning to college, but that would require a 3-credit course. A course such as this could help to increase student success outcomes (Almaraz et al., 2010).

Career planning should consist of at least 15 h of course time to make it thorough and worthwhile. An advantage of a separate 1-credit course at the beginning is that it makes the academic purpose clearer: The importance of the course is not buried in other topics that reduce the career planning coverage. The course should start with students completing online personality and career assessments so that they understand the types of careers that will most likely suit them – the process of doing this should encourage students to think about their career futures and what degrees would lead them there. They should then be required to do further research on various possible career fits, including work lifestyle, expected career paths and employer expectations, to ensure that the career possibilities match well with their interests. Industry mentor contacts should also be made available. Stimulating early interest in a career discipline is an important aspect of helping students to graduate and to succeed after graduation (Gallup-Purdue Index Report, 2016).

Career interest groups

Once the career interests have established through online assessments and further research, students can be matched immediately with those who have similar interests – these career interest groups are set up electronically in a web-based student advising centre so that the students can see pictures of others in their group, contact one another and plan meetings to support each other. Alumni and other industry volunteers with appropriate careers who have agreed to be mentors are also included in a related career interest group. The mentors share video clips of their working life and give feedback on the pros and cons of the career.

Students can contact an industry mentor only after watching his or her video clip, so that the mentor does not have to repeat information given in the video. Each career interest group will have access to links to related articles, current job openings and salaries in the field, internships, job shadowing opportunities and relevant professional organizations. Students are encouraged to add information that might help others in their group and can also add advice based on their experiences. They may look at career information posted in other career interest groups but will not have access to the students and mentors in those groups unless they change their career choice. One study has found that students who have had an internship experience along with involvement in a student professional organization are more likely to work after graduation in their chosen academic majors (Blau et al., 2016). In addition, ‘Gallup has shown that mentorship and applied mentorship experiences are strongly linked to increased employee engagement, higher well-being later in life and graduates’ feeling that their degree was worth the cost’ (Gallup-Purdue Index Report, 2016: 12).

Career assessments

If a student disagrees with the career assessments or if they are unclear, further exploration is needed. Students must have confidence in their goals to increase their chances of success in graduating and beginning a fulfilling career. There might, for example, be a course that would add some clarification; in that case, the student could audit that course without credit to see if the experience helped with their career interests. All attempts should be made to help with clarification, through immediate industry mentors, further discussions, immediate job visits or even more assessments. There might be parental pressure for a certain career or the student might be struggling with the self-reflection needed during the career discovery process. There might be a denial of strengths and weaknesses when it comes to certain careers. As a freshman, this is often the time of most flexibility before taking specific courses for a certain degree.

A student may insist on a career that involves extensive use of mathematics, but at the same time the student may have performed poorly in mathematics in high school and/or did not enjoy it. It might be that the high school the student attended did not have a strong mathematics programme for higher education preparation, and he or she may learn to enjoy the subject in college and even excel at it. However, if the student continues to do poorly, and the mathematics will only become harder, he or she will need to rethink the chosen degree, find extra tutoring or add significant study time. In this approach, the student is not just focusing on passing mathematics courses but on a chosen career that needs strong skills in mathematics. This difference can move the student from simply trying to get grades or finish the curriculum to fully considering career plans after graduation. This student should be able to visualize the chosen career in great detail and grasp the grades needed for employment in the best firms. Without an early career focus, he or she might have given up in frustration and abandoned the career desired. This is another example of the importance of having a career focus from the start of higher education.

Some students might complete the career assessments while not being committed to the specific careers the assessments recommend: The additional career research is still required, but these students may not take the process seriously. If students reveal an attitude of just checking off the career progress requirements to sign up for courses, this may be indicative of a lack of maturity and an inability to appreciate the loss of time and money that may be incurred if they do not start their career explorations early. There are, of course, students who ignore early career planning but graduate and have successful careers. However, those with specific career goals and who do plan early have a greater chance of graduating, graduating on time and being competitive in their career choices.

For a student who enrols in higher education because of parental pressure or the social attractions of college life, there is a high risk of spending extra years trying to get a degree or of dropping out completely. Less serious students of this type may benefit the most from early career advising, as the advisors will continue to motivate and work with them. Students can change their proposed career direction and further exploration is encouraged if there are any current or future doubts. In fact, students pursuing an initial career plan are in a better position to discover the careers that are best for them than students with no active planning. Career planning is about self-discovery: With no movement or action, self-discovery is limited with no movement or action. Students must grasp this concept.

Those who state that they want to go to law school, medical school or other higher education after their undergraduate education must also undertake early career planning. Many students who say they plan to pursue graduate degrees never actually do it. Sometimes interests change, but this stated desire can also be an excuse for not developing a full career plan. When these students complete their required career assessments, some will realize that their career interests are different from what they had previously thought. Others might retain the same career interests but learn more about a specific career.

Academic advisors can help students with early plans to go directly to graduate school to increase their likelihood of success (Williams, 2015). For example, students interested in medical school after their undergraduate degree are placed in a medical school interest group with other interested students. Having goals compatible with those of the group increases the chance of goal attainment (Seijts and Latham, 2000). The students in such an interest group will provide further peer support and continued motivation for the career goal. The assigned academic advisor also recommends career-oriented activities or campus clubs, internships, industry mentors and related professional organizations. For instance, students might be encouraged to volunteer for the local or university rescue squad to acquire further training and practice in handling patients. Opportunities to shadow doctors and nurses are also made available. Employment opportunities in medical labs or research with faculty on medical issues are shared. Such activities help interested students to get into medical school and give them a better chance of success in pursuing the advanced degree.

Frequency of advising and student accountability

Students are formally advised at the student advising centre at least once a semester although they can visit academic advisors at any time. These advisors are trained in specific career areas related to the academic curriculum. Students must make progress not only in their academic course work but also in their career planning work. In academia, students may not allowed to take advanced courses without first completing the prerequisite courses, but with this new career advising approach, students cannot take career-specific courses unless certain requirements have been met. These career planning progress requirements are not difficult but must be taken seriously by the student – the career assessments and research are not optional, and the same applies to maintaining at least some contact with one’s student career group. Eventually, students must also be involved in a career-related local professional organization, if available, must have a specific mentor, and must participate in career shadowing (in which the student spends time at a workplace to observe working practices in the chosen career). Internships are also encouraged.

The academic advisors have flexibility with each student as far as requirements are concerned, but the overall purpose is for students to maintain goal-oriented career motivation and to stay on track to complete academic coursework. Advisors start meetings with students by asking how their career progress is going, referring to both their current courses and their career plans. Further motivation may be needed in one or both areas, but both are given strong attention for retention and career success purposes. A review of all goals is completed at each advising session. Did the student take and complete all the planned courses? Did the student meet with the assigned career group or go to a local professional organization meeting? Has the student examined any professional internships? Does the student have any doubts about the career choice? Does the student have an industry mentor? Is there a need for a tutor for a specific course? Is there a need for extra help with time management? Is there a life issue occupying the student’s time that needs to be addressed? Whatever is happening in a student’s life, the academic advisor is there to help make sure the student is making academic progress and is retained.

Job-seeking skills

The final step in career advising is to help students achieve employment in a specific job related to their career goals. Students work hard to become well prepared for their careers, and it is important that they also work hard on their job-seeking skills. This last step happens during the last year of their education (although some start earlier). Students must take into account all their academic and career preparation and learn how to articulate it professionally in writing and orally. They attend professional résumé workshops and produce a résumé that will impress recruiters. They attend ‘dress for success’ workshops and practise mock interviews to prepare for real job interviews. They also learn how to find jobs in the modern world of placement databases and online résumé submissions.

Having gone through this process, the students will have an immediate advantage in the interview process. Their academic advisors have already helped them to ascertain what they want from a career and to focus their career aspirations through the proper course work, mentoring and professional activities. No student using this type of advising finishes a degree and then wonders what to do with it. Employers can worry less about spending their time and money hiring and training employees who subsequently quit because of job dissatisfaction. Some students garner job offers through their internships and mentors. Some will use their preparation to enter graduate school. Each will graduate with a plan for his or her future.

Conclusion

Early career planning with industry help is linked to better student retention, higher graduation rates and faster completion rates. Based on goal-setting theory and career planning research, students who have reflectively developed specific early career plans have a substantially greater likelihood of graduation success. These students are more likely to prioritize course completion to complete their degrees and less likely to go off-track or drop out. To enhance this type of early career planning, a new career student advising approach is recommended. In this approach, academic and career advising are combined and treated equally important. Students work formally with their advisor to pick a degree programme and a specific career and make progress towards both. Required assessments and research help with these choices. A 1-credit or more career course is part of each student’s curriculum. Further steps are scheduled and required by the advisor each term to maintain motivation, commitment and progress towards the chosen career. Students also have requirements that support job-seeking skills development when graduation is near.

This career approach to student advising with industry support should be discussed at higher education institutions and further evaluated. Some academic institutions undertake career advising better than others. The type of student recruited is also a factor. There is a strong governmental push for a more educated workforce along with tougher accountability for student success: Expectations have shifted from holding students fully responsible for their education to holding academic institutions accountable for students’ success.

Students should not graduate and then look through job advertisements to try to figure out what career they want or what they are qualified to do. When they graduate they should be very competitive in their career choice and should have a strong idea of what they want from a satisfying career. In addition, parents do not want their children struggling to find gratifying employment, burdened with unmanageable student loans and possibly moving home because they cannot find a well-paid job. Higher education is now too expensive to neglect early career planning, but many students will continue to do this unless career planning becomes a requirement.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Dr Susie Cox and Dr Karen Leonard for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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