The document discusses a survey conducted by a marketing class to help University Career Services and the Career Peers program understand student awareness of their services and how to better promote them. The survey found that over half of students were aware of Career Peers but only a third had used their services. It was recommended that Career Peers promote through social media like Twitter, partner with other campus groups, promote at sporting events, and emphasize how their services can help students get internships to increase student engagement.
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University Career Services: Career Peers
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Table of Contents
Page
Executive Summary 2
Organization Description 3
Research Problem Description 4
Data Collection and Results 5
Methodology & Procedure 5
Results 6
Limitations 12
Conclusion 13
Recommendations 14
Appendix
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University Career Services: Career Peers
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Executive Summary
St. John’s University Career Services is a team of dedicated career educators that serve as a
resource to students and alumni offering career advising, job-readiness skill training,
internships, and employment services. Career Peers are current students that assist this team
with the various services they provide such as resume and cover letter building. The problem
that the Career Peers have is often finding ways to connect with the students and make them
aware of the various services that they offer. University Career Services reached out to us to
see what the overall awareness of the Career Peer program is and what the best way to
connect to students is.
To help the Career Peers with their problem, we analyzed secondary data and conducted
exploratory research through a survey of St. John’s University undergraduate students at
various dining halls and food courts around campus. The data we collected gave us a lot of
important information on the overall awareness of the Career Peer program and how they,
and University Career Services, should reach out to students and improve their overall
student engagement. While 58% of students that we surveyed are aware of the Career Peers,
only 32% of students use the services that Career Peers provide. In order to get more student
engagement with the Career Peers, we recommend:
1. Promote services heavily through popular social media sites, specifically through
frequently checked sites like Twitter
2. Establishing relationships with other organizations on campus and promoting career
services at their campus events
3. Creating a demand for Career Peer services by making students aware of how Career
Peers can improve their resume and chances of getting an internship
4. Promoting at sports events
These solutions provide Career Peers the opportunity to increase the engagement between
themselves and students.
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University Career Services: Career Peers
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Organization Description
University Career Services: Career Peers
The Career Peers at St. John’s University strive to assist students and the staff at University
Career Services in order to help guide, educate, and promote career readiness and
development to St. John’s students. Career Peers often act as the bridge between University
Career Services and students who may be looking for advice from other students, or who
may be hesitant to meet with a Career Advisor.
University Career Services describes the Career Peers on St. John’s University’s website as
the following:
“The Career Peer program offers students the unique opportunity to become an integral part
of a team that helps guide, educate, and promote career readiness and development to St.
John’s students. Working to support the university and department missions, Career Peers
are paraprofessionals who model professionalism and share expertise gained through their
own experiential education opportunities. They serve as a resource to internal and external
constituents including students, faculty, administration and employers and are trained to
assist students with: resume and cover letter development; job and internship searches;
interview techniques; using our online resources; and navigating and utilizing department
programs and events.
Career Peers commit to carry out their duties both on site in our office and on location at
events. Peers benefit from a mentored, skill building experience with the staff as well as gain
exposure to hundreds of internship and full-time job postings and the opportunity to network
with employers.”1
Thus, Career Peers are an important part of University Career Services and how they connect
with students.
1 St. John’s University. University Career Services. Web. 28 Nov 2015.
<http://www.stjohns.edu/sites/default/files/documents/career/application_-_spring_2015.pdf>
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University Career Services: Career Peers
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Research Problem Description
The underlying question that the Career Peers are facing is how they should promote their
services to the students at St. John’s University; therefore our Decision Problems are “1.
What is the best way the Career Peers can connect with the students? 2. What major
problems do students have that can the Career Peers help solve or assist?”
Our research will focus on what events and social media outlets are best to connect with
students and what services provided by the Career Peers do students want to use. Research
problems include:
1. Investigate student awareness of the Career Peers and their services. We have been
made aware that student engagement levels are not where University Career Services
want them to be. (They want more student engagement)
2. What are the best ways to reach out to students via Social Media. Figuring out what
social media sites students use the most and connecting with them on those sites. (Social
Media Marketing is the latest and greatest way to reach a select audience)
3. Determining what events on campus are most popular and should be used to
promote Career Peers. Finding where the students are and directly reaching out to them
is a great way to increase student engagement with Career Peers and University Career
Services
These research problems should provide us with the proper information on how to increase
engagement between the students and Career Peers.
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University Career Services: Career Peers
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Data Collection and Results
Methodology & Procedure
The research design used was exploratory research and our primary data method was
a proprietary survey administered through Qualtrics
Sampling & Sampling Process
Our Target Population is St. John’s undergraduate students on the Queens Campus
Our Sampling Frame is from all the students at the Montgoris Dining Hall, Marillac
Food Court, and D’Angelo Center Food Court
Our Sampling Procedure is the probability sample method through random sampling
of 100 students
Required Sample Size for Averages:
Margin of Error: 0.5
Confidence Level: 90%
Population Size: 15,720 St. John's Student Body
Population Variance: 6
Recommended Sample Size = 65
Required Size for Proportions:
n=Z^2/H^2*pie (1-pie)
Z=1.645
H=.03
pie= 0.5
n = 751.6736
Sample Size Reduction:
n' = n(N/(N + n-1))
n= 751.6736
N= 100
n' = 88.3621
Due to sampling limitations we have only used 100 students
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Results
Insight 1: Over 50% of students are aware of Career Peers
Compared to a previous survey by University Career Services, the amount of students aware
of Career Peers has greatly increased.
1. Did you know who the Career Peers were before? Or have
you ever heard of the Career Peers before?
# Answer Response %
1 Yes 58 59%
2 No 41 41%
Total 99 100%
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Insight 2: The majority of those students hear about Career Peers through emails and
the St. John’s website, and about only half of them have had engagement with the
Career Peers.
Getting people aware is nice and we do see improvement from previous surveys, however it
would be nice to see a greater percent of students that are aware of Career Peers actually take
advantage of using the survice.
2. If yes, how did you hear about the Career Peers?
# Answer Response %
1
Campus
Email/St. John's
Central/Web
Announcement
26 45%
2 Facebook 2 3%
3 Twitter 4 7%
4 Tumblr 2 3%
5 Word of Mouth 22 38%
6 Posters/Flyers 1 2%
7
Classroom
Presentations
1 2%
Total 58 100%
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3. Have you ever received help from a Career Peer?
# Answer Response %
1 Yes 32 55%
2 No 26 45%
Total 58 100%
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Insight 3: Students who see the Career Peers mainly focus on resume building, and
most students say that is the #1 thing they would see the Career Peers for.
Career Peers should meet these demands and still make resume building services the number
one priority. They could use the “foot-in-the-door” method and promote their other services
and experiences after they help a student with their resume.
4. What did the Career Peer assist you with?
# Answer Response %
1
Resume
Building
27 84%
2
Cover Letter
Building
1 3%
3
Advice
Through First
Hand
Experience
(internship or
academic)
3 9%
4
Internship
Interview
Advice
1 3%
5
Other (Please
Specify)
0 0%
Total 32 100%
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8. What is the most relevant issue to you that the Career
Peers can assist with?
# Answer Response %
1
Resume
Building
66 67%
2
Cover Letter
Building
12 12%
3
First Hand
Experience
Tips
(internship or
academic)
10 10%
4
Internship
Interview
Advice
11 11%
5
Other (Please
Specify)
0 0%
Total 99 100%
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Insight 4: Students seemto want Career Peers to promote their services at on-campus
events, through social media and around campus where there is high traffic.
Students seem pretty evenly interested in seeing how they want the Career Peers promoted,
but the Career Peers might even want to consider promoting at sporting events as well. Over
71% of students polled said they attend sporting events on campus. Events with high student
involvement would be great places for Career Peers to promote their services.
7. If the Career Peers would want to promote their services,
what would be the best way to do it?
# Answer Response %
1
Social Media
(Twitter,
Facebook,
Instagram, etc.)
31 31%
2 Campus Events 43 43%
3 Greek Life Events 1 1%
4 Sport Events 5 5%
5
Outside of Main
Campus Buildings
(DAC/Marillac/etc.)
20 20%
Total 100 100%
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9. What on-campus events do you attend? (Check all that
apply)
# Answer Response %
1 Career Fairs 56 58%
2 Performances 36 37%
3 Sport Events 69 71%
4
Club/Academic
Events
55 57%
5
Greek Life
Events
43 44%
6
Other (Please
Specify)
0 0%
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Insight 5: According to the students we polled, Twitter is the social media site that they
check the most frequently.
Focusing on promoting on Twitter and putting more content on twitter might be the best way
to increase student engagement through social media and online outside of emailing and
posting on the website.
10. What social media platform do you use/check the most?
# Answer Response %
1 Twitter 53 54%
2 Instagram 22 22%
3 Facebook 15 15%
4 Tumblr 6 6%
5 LinkedIn 3 3%
Total 99 100%
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Insight 6: Students who reach out to Career Peers and University Career Services and
use their services have a higher rate of getting an internship compared to students who
don’t reach out.
Over 76% of people who use Career Peers and University Career Services obtained
internships. Only 30 % of students who didn’t use any of the University Career Services had
internships. In other words, University Career Services = Greater chance of obtaining an
internship.
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Limitations
1. Due to sample restrictions, we only surveyed 100 students on the St. John’s Queens
Campus
2. Our survey only took place in dining halls which could have an effect on data results.
We could be only focusing on one sub-population at St. John’s University (only
people getting food on campus)
3. The sample doesn’t have an even number of Freshman (27%), Sophomores (32%),
Juniors (28%), and Seniors (13%). Also, a majority of people surveyed were either in
the Tobin School of Business (37%) or College of Professional Studies (36%)
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Conclusions
Through our research we have found that a majority of the general St. John’s
undergraduate body has a general awareness for Career Peers, but almost 2/3 of students
don’t utilize the services provided by the Career Peers. Our survey shows that students who
utilize the resources provided by University Career Services and Career Peers have a higher
chance of obtaining an internship.
Career Peers need to focus on promoting their services in high traffic (high student
involvement) areas both on campus and through social media. When looking at our research
data, we see that over 70% of students attend sporting events on-campus. A majority of
student believe promoting Career Peers at on-campus events will be a great way for them to
gain exposure and promote their services. Over half of the students we surveyed said that
Twitter is the social media site that they most frequently check.
Even with all this information, Career Peers and University Career Services need to be able
to be able to market themselves using this information in the right way. Many students, just
like any consumer, will ask the question “how does this benefit me?” This might be where
Career Peers and University Career Services are struggling. Creating a demand for Career
Peer services is very important in order to get student engagement.
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Recommendations
Our survey results show that we could improve awareness, but more importantly, we need to
create demand for Career Peer services and explain to students how engaging with Career Peers
benefits them. We recommend the following to improve both of these problems:
Recommendation One: Promote Services Heavily Through Twitter
Twitter is by far the most frequently checked social media site by St. John’s students. Our survey
showed that over 53% of students say Twitter is the social media site they most frequently check
and almost a third of students we surveyed believe that social media is the best way to reach out
to students and promote Career Peer services. If they can focus their social media content on
Twitter, plus promote how students can benefit from their services on Twitter, they can increase
student engagement.
Recommendation Two: Connect and Build Relationships with Other Organizations on
Campus
Our survey results showed that students want more interaction with Career Peers at campus
events. Establishing a relationship with other campus organization can provide Career Peers an
opportunity to cross promote with the organizations. Both organizations can benefit and help
promote each-others services and drive traffic to each-other. Being active on campus by
attending campus events and making students aware of all the services they offer will help
increase student engagement.
Recommendation Three: Promote at Campus Sport Events
We noticed 70% of students we surveyed said that they attend sporting events on campus. These
are the most popular events that students attend. If Career Peers can work with the organizations
that run the sporting events and promote their services on site at these events will greatly
increase student awareness of Career Peers. Going after a large number of St. John’s students in
a concentrated area will be an efficient way for Career Peers to promote their services.
Recommendation Four: Create Demand for Career Peer Services through Statistics
Our survey results show a staggering number of students that have acquired an internship after
working with Career Peers (76%) compared to those who don’t (25%). Students, just like any
other consumer, want to know what the benefit is for them with using a certain service. If
students see this survey and realize that going to see a Career Peer will boost their chances of
getting an internship, they will most likely go to see one. Creating a demand for their service is
extremely important for the Career Peers. If they can show these statistics and explain the
various ways they can help students obtain internships, then students will be more encouraged to
go see a Career Peer. With this, Career Peers will see student engagement increase.
