Career Readiness Toolkit
Getting Started and the "Why"
First off, we want to thank you for investing your time in embedding career readiness into your course curriculum. By integrating important career readiness core competencies (in alignment with National Association of Colleges and Employers, NACE), students will be able to take what they have learned through your course and map it onto resumes, cover letters, and personal statements in order to pursue a career that aligns with their interests and values.
Furthermore, we would like to thank the tireless efforts of the Career Readiness Committee and Drs. Colleen Sonnentag, Chris Marston, and Jessica Salo for their work on this project.
This toolkit is designed to make the process of integrating career readiness into your curriculum as seamless as possible. If at any point you would like to meet with the staff in the Center for Career Readiness to workshop topics or troubleshoot anything, please do not hesitate to contact us at career.readiness@unco.edu.
The toolkit is comprised of several templates, which you can use as a starting point to tailor to your specific course content. Click on each of the nine templates below:
- CCR NACE Competencies and Sample Behaviors
- Skills Inventory Worksheet
- Career Exploration Worksheet
- Exploration Gap Analysis
- Introductory Career Review
- Transferrable Skills Checklist
- Resume Template
- Peer Review Cover Letter Assignment
- Informational Interviews
Where should I start?
While the toolkit can be utilized in any given order, it is our recommendation that you start by reviewing the CCR NACE Competencies and Sample Behaviors. This will give you a framework with which to help build the curriculum, going off of nationally-recognized competencies that can be woven into specific learning outcomes for the course. Determine which NACE competencies you wish to integrate into student learning. That will give you a roadmap from which to work from for the rest of the toolkit. While the toolkit has several resources you can utilize, we do not anticipate every faculty member will have the space in their courses to integrate every item. For example, you may just be focusing on career exploration and developing a skills inventory with your students. Other courses may focus more on developing resumes, cover letters, or securing informational interviews relevant to your field.
