Career Development That Empowers Future Leaders

Custom Career Services for Students and Alumni

Thanks to last year's generous gift from Ellie Block and Family and leadership from the Career Services Center's Director Melissa Palmer, Friedman students now have a place to call their career development home.

With programming on career development, an increased focus on strengthening employer relations, and a state-of-the-art 24/7 digital career hub, the students at the Friedman School are using every new resource that’s been offered and are reaping the rewards of a fully funded and extremely active career center.

Visit the Career Services Website
two students pose alongside the director of the career services center at a headshot event

Students in the Nutrition Interventions, Communication, and Behavior Change degree program (Zihan Yu and Ingrid Zhou) stand next to an event table with the Director of Career Services, Melissa Palmer for a recent professional headshot session that was open to all students, faculty, and staff at the Friedman School.

Even though the Ellie Block and Family Career Services Center has an incredible self-service resource center, nothing beats one-on-one conversations and the Friedman School career team is here to deliver services tailored for each student’s needs. In fact, in the past year, the career services team led 198 virtual coaching appointments which accounts for 73% of the 249-person student body, both master’s and doctoral students. In the next academic year, they will continue to assess the utility of virtual vs. face-to-face sessions and will continue working to develop new ways of expanding the ability to provide one-on-one counseling for all who need that service.

In addition to the one-on-one counseling, special events like professional headshot photography sessions and individual online career meetups with Friedman School alumni were extremely popular this year. We can always count on our incredible alumni community to step up and offer their time and expertise to the next class of future leaders.

More Connections, More Career Opportunities

a screenshot of the new career services center website

The new Ellie Block and Family Career Services Center website at the Friedman School creates a 24/7 on-demand resource center for all of our current students and alumni.

The career center team surpassed their initial goal of identifying 10 new employers, and added over 425 job postings this year.  On the new Handshake job platform, a searchable database of both employers and opportunities. In the coming year, the career services center will craft an annual skills assessment and will also strategize on how to assess employer satisfaction with our alumni.

The incredible skills that our students gain from their time at Friedman both academically and through their internships should always be in alignment with the excellence that employers expect from graduates of the Friedman School. As time goes on, it’s imperative that program directors examine new courses and make evidence-based curriculum adjustments as more career data is collected and analyzed.

Getting Smart About Getting Ahead

a graphic featuring the roadmap to designing a successful career activities

Friedman students are smart, very smart, but people aren’t born with the knowledge of how to create a resume that speaks to their values. How can we best serve our incredible student and alumni population? The career services team created in-house programming that surpassed its original goal of 18+ career education sessions by running 13 workshops and 25 additional events, including panels, group sessions, career fairs, and employer presentations.  

A new initiative founded by Melissa Palmer gamified event attendance, where students could choose activities from across a range of learning paths in career services to compete for prizes including branded beanies, mugs, and lots of other food-related (and non-food related) items. In addition to the custom event programming and games, a brand new online labor market insights tool was recently added to the career website that allows students to look at market insights across an array of professional directions from around the globe.

As we enter 2022, finding meaningful positions that align with core values is more important than ever. This new suite of custom services, resource libraries, and one-on-one support will get everyone where they need to go.

Visit the Career Services Website