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This article was first printed in this year's Campus Magazine. Click here to view the full magazine.

The two-person Office of Career Services team has been especially busy over the past few months. Rachel Redmond, Director, Center for Academic & Professional Excellence (CAPE) and the Office of Career Services, and Melanie Moon, Career Services and Community Engagement Coordinator, have introduced several initiatives that increase access to career success for all Elmira College students and alumni.

What have Redmond and Moon accomplished so far?

Moon and Redmond recently opened a Career Closet* on campus. Students in need of professional clothing ahead of a job fair, interview, or internship can contact Career Services and browse for the right clothing, shoes, and accessories. While students make selections, Moon and Redmond coach them on how to build an affordable, professional wardrobe.

“We’ll talk to students about how to find items they can mix and match,” said Moon. “The goal is for students to express their own personalities and sense of style while aligning to the norms and professional standards of the fields they are entering.”

Because the students keep the clothes they select, Moon will track the Closet’s inventory to make sure she always has popular items in stock and that she has the right range of sizes available. Moon hopes to have money set aside to use in case a student needs an item that isn’t already in the Career Closet.

Another initiative for Moon and Redmond is leveraging grant money to conduct personality and career assessments like Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®, Strong Interest Inventory®, and CliftonStrengths.

“We’ve seen a lot of success with the assessments,” said Redmond. “They help students figure out aspects of their personalities and align those with their career pursuits. They help students see personality traits in a different light, changing their views on aspects of themselves they may have viewed negatively before. They also give students vocabulary to use in cover letters and in interviews.”

The assessments present another opportunity for Redmond and Moon to guide students and give them career education.

The duo also recently launched Handshake. According to the Handshake website, the application is used by more than 1,400 higher-ed institutions and is the leading way for students to find jobs. In the app, users can find a curated list of job and internship opportunities based on their interests and attend virtual information sessions and job fairs.

The Handshake app will help Career Services streamline communications to and from students and alumni. It will also become a central repository for educational materials, like resume and cover letter templates, interview tips, and more.

Handshake complements another recent initiative for Career Services, Alumnifire. Redmond worked with the Office of Alumni Engagement to launch the web-based platform for current students and alumni. Think LinkedIn but only for Elmira College. Members can message each other, join groups, and use the job board and map features.

“The map feature is helpful to both students and alumni who are moving to somewhere new,” said Redmond. “They can send a message to connect with someone who lives in that location and possibly connect about potential jobs.”

Handshake and AlumniFire align and work together, with the key distinction between them being that Alumnifire connects students directly with EC alumni and Handshake connects students directly to companies.

In all of the services, the team said they rely on a core advantage of Elmira College, “our ability to form close relationships.”

“We play a supportive role in our students’ college experience,” said Moon. “For me, guiding students is about making ourselves approachable and providing a comfortable space where everyone feels welcome.”

“It’s about equity,” said Redmond. “We want to provide as many opportunities as we can for students to succeed. We have students and alumni living all over the world and many of our current students want to try living in new places in the U.S. and abroad. We want to help them rise to that goal by using our successful alumni network to pull up the next generation.”

*To donate clothing items, contact the Office of Career Services at eccareers@elmira.edu or (607) 735-1830. To give money, go to www.elmira.edu/give. When indicating what you want to support, select "Other - See Designation Below" and write in "Career Closet."

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