Parents & Families

The Career Development Center is a great place to start. Students can schedule an appointment with us at any point. We have many resources to help your student uncover career paths of interest to them. Additionally, academic advisors and faculty can be great resources for exploring career options, and we often coach students on connecting with alumni to learn about particular career options.

View Our Appointment Scheduler

Yes! Students can receive support in person or through Handshake, SUNY Plattsburgh’s career portal. Encourage your students to come to us early for developing a resume, as we will discuss with them the steps they should take in college to have a well developed resume by the time they graduate. This guidebook is a great place to start, as it features examples of SUNY Plattsburgh resumes and suggestions on formatting and how to highlight one’s experience.

View All of Our Career Tools

The Career Services Fee is a mandatory fee for all matriculated students whether physically attending classes or doing so online. The fee allows us to offer students many services. These services include access to career center staff, 24/7 access to all career services technology, including Handshake (job/internship vacancy posting, resume feedback), Candid Careers which features thousands of videos providing helpful tutorials and information about career navigation, searches and strategies, targeted job websites which is a catalogue of job-posting sites specifically selected for relevance to academic majors, and Big Interview, which offers hundreds of video-based mock interviews for preparation for your next job search. 

The fee also allows us to offer lifetime access to the CDC, even as an alumna/us. Most people change careers at least five times and within those careers, they change jobs an average of four times. The CDC staff is available to assist students in getting their careers started and alumni in making career transitions. 

If students or families are experiencing hardship, they can request a waiver of the Career Fee by contacting Tobi Hay, Director of the Career Development Center, at [email protected].

Encourage your student to schedule an appointment with us and we can talk with them about their skills and interests and related career paths. By providing a clearer picture of what they are working towards, students are more likely to be motivated while they are here at SUNY Plattsburgh.

View Our Appointment Scheduler

Yes! All alumni can continue to receive career services after graduation. We are available for phone, virtual, and in-person meetings, and graduates continue to have access to our online career tools like Handshake.

Check Out Other Alumni Events

Each year we have signature events including our annual career fair (spring), part-time job fair (fall), and graduate and professional school fair (fall). Additionally, we offer workshops on job searching, resume and cover letter writing, interviewing, understanding benefits, salary negotiation, networking, and more.

View Our Upcoming Events

We specialize in helping students in their job search. We will meet individually with your student, discuss their goals for their job search, and work with them to develop a plan of action for a successful search. We will make sure they are familiar with our top resources, all of which are available online.

 

View Our Career Toolkit

Our counselors work one-on-one with students to assess their internship interests and help develop a plan of action for a successful internship search. Additionally, each academic department has an internship coordinator whom we may direct your student to for additional internship support. Thanks to financial support from the Plattsburgh College Foundation, we also offer Applied Learning Grants to support students pursuing unpaid or under-paid internships and other career-oriented experiences.

We have many resources to help your student be well prepared for job interviews. We offer mock interviews, where students can meet with us one-on-one in an interview setting and have a debrief afterwards. Additionally, we also offer Big Interview, an online tool for practicing video interviews. 

 

First, congratulations! Encourage them to reach out directly to us at 518-564-2071 or schedule an appointment. We can meet with them to discuss the offer, help them better understand the benefits and provide tips on negotiating salary.

At its core, we believe that career development follows a four-step process that is both simple and complex:

Step 1: Assessment

Includes career inventories and skills evaluation, values clarification and a deeper understanding of work-life interests.

Step 2: Exploration

Includes academic coursework, engaging with mentors and research into various occupations and industries.

Step 3: Preparation

Involves creating career documents, completing pre-professional experiences such as internships or service-learning, and refining skills.

Step 4: Action

Implementing an active and strategic job search, interviewing, networking and making decisions about career opportunities.

Schedule an appointment with a career counselor, use our drop-in resume review service, take assessments, apply for jobs, and so much more.

Check out our career toolkit

As a parent or family member, your support and input is important. Our College-Years-to-Career Guide provides a quick checklist that you can use to encourage your SUNY Plattsburgh student to get and stay on track toward a great career in four years.

First Year:

• Attend the Part-Time Job Fest during the first week of classes.
• Explore career options with print and online resources.
• Take a career assessment.
• Develop time management skills.
• Meet faculty during office hours.
• Use a tutor.
• Create a college-level resume and have it reviewed by the Career Development Center.
• Find student clubs, campus organizations or volunteer opportunities and develop new skills.

Sophomore Year:

• Meet with a career counselor.
• Determine your major. 
• Use Candid Career to learn more about your career field of interest.
• Update resume with college experiences.
• Develop a LinkedIn profile.
• Conduct informational interviews.
• Enhance technical skills and global competencies.
• Volunteer in the community.
• Work part-time and job shadow in chosen career field.
• Become a club officer to enhance your teamwork skills. 

Junior Year:

• Attend Career Fairs and Graduate & Professional School Fair.
• Complete applied learning experiences (internships, field placements, research, service learning)
• Study abroad or consider a student exchange. 
• Develop your professional brand using social media

Senior Year:

• Schedule a meeting with the Career Development Center.
• Research career options and develop a target list of employers
• Become active on LinkedIn
• Attend a conference in your career field of interest
• Refine your resume and create tailored cover letters
• Consider continuing education options. Take an entrance exam and arrange your recommendations
• Know how to judge job offers
• Develop financial literacy
• Complete First Destination Survey

The CDC is here for your student from Day One. We encourage your student to take advantage of our services early and often. Here's a sampling of what we offer:

• Personal career coaching and support
• Career assessments and exploration
• Help clarify choice of major in college
• On-campus jobs 
• Career diversity resources
• Resume and cover letter writing
• Practice interviews
• Career Closet — professional clothing
• Events — networking nights, annual career fair, #adulting and more
• Salary information, negotiation and job offers and declines
• Informational interviews with alumni
• Graduate school exploration and advising

Contact Us for More Information

First Destination Survey reports represent the various outcomes of our undergraduate degree recipients as collected and reported according to the standards and protocols of the National Association for Colleges and Employers (NACE).

First Destination Survey Reports