Using Jobscan to bridge the gap between the career and curriculum
- 81% employed or grad school 90 days after graduation at the undergraduate level
- 95% employed 90 days after graduation at the graduate level
- 100% usage by their students in career focused classes
- 30% or more recruiter calls after using Jobscan
“Jobscan is one of the highest rated career resources used by our students. Students easily grasp the capabilities and are quick to utilize it in every job and internship application they submit. Students see quick improvement in their application success and the process improves the students’ understanding of properly and professionally fitting their resumes to each opportunity.” – Assistant Dean, Baylor University Career Center, Ken Buckley
About Baylor
The Baylor University Career Center takes a no-nonsense approach to career development. Each coming to Baylor from the private sector, Kenneth Buckley, Assistant Dean; Michael Estepp, Director; and Jeffrey Stubbs, Director, seek out innovative solutions to complex career challenges that face college students today. Jobscan was immediately recognized as a “game-changer” for enhancing students’ career development and overall placement success.
In 2016, Baylor University became Jobscan’s first university customer. Through Jobscan’s resume optimization tool, students learn about practical job search strategies like how to navigate applicant tracking systems and tailor their resume to each job.
Taking Career Development Into the Classroom
In order to get the most out of Jobscan (and the other tools at their disposal), the career team at Baylor developed two degree-required courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels that introduced business students to the concepts of overall career development.
Sophomore and Junior business students enroll each semester in BUS 2101 – Career Assessment and Discovery and BUS 3101 – Strategy and Success courses. In these courses, students cover career discovery, resume development and personal branding, effective internship and job search, interviewing, negotiations, and understanding how to make a positive impact on the job.
In the resume development process the students are given an assignment requiring them to tailor their newly developed resume to three different jobs utilizing Jobscan. The students must get a 60% or higher resume match rate from Jobscan in order to pass the assignment. To make grading simple, students upload screenshots of their before and after match reports to Canvas, Baylor’s LMS.
Most students have an initial match rate of 20%. The resume development process is significantly enhanced by the students’ efforts to rethink their accomplishments and experiences to show a stronger fit to the opportunity.
In the graduate level courses, MBAs utilize Jobscan a little differently. Estepp has a group of 3-4 students look at a job description and decide who would be the best fit for the role. Then, the students scan the top candidate’s resume against the job description. Typically, they won’t score more than a 30% match on their first scan.
“It’s eye-opening to the students and surprising, but it only makes them realize there is much more to be done when it comes to tailoring their resumes,” said Estepp.
The Results
“We’re seeing easily 30% or more increase in calls from recruiters when our students use Jobscan to tailor their resumes,” reported Stubbs.
Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business has a 100% knowledge rate for their First Destination survey. In 2018, Hankamer reported 81% of their undergraduates were employed or going to grad school within 90 days of graduation. In 2018, they also saw a 95% employment rate for their MBA program within 90 days of graduation.
“We’re very proud of our success,” said Estepp. “We know that career tools like Jobscan can provide significant influence on a student’s career success. In addition, this specialized career resource provides a force multiplier for our professional career staff.”
More Resources
To learn more about Baylor’s career success strategies and integrating on campus, we highly recommend checking out their book College to the Career You Love, 4th edition from Kendall Hunt Publishing, a textbook featuring their best practices.
