Best of CASE District II Award
 

Institution: University of Maryland College Park

Title of entry: Terp Career Guides

About this entry: While the world is inundated with professional development workshops, lectures and recorded webinars, The University of Maryland Alumni Association wanted to provide Terps with accessible resources to support them at any stage of their career lifecycle, while helping them build or relearn today's necessary professional development and job-seeking skills. In creating the Terp Career Guides, Terps can download and access our official virtual guides--ft. resume, interview and cover letter-- created by alums, Association staff, and Terp industry professionals and experts through our website. These guides contain sample language and formatting to use in the job search process, highlight additional notable Alumni Association resources and tools, example scenarios and wording for high-stress, high-reward professional scenarios, and direct quotes from Terp industry experts and career coaches. The Terp Career Guides offer alumni an opportunity to passively engage as a resource seeker, or actively give back as the industry expert. Whether alum are first-time job seekers or starting a job search for the first time in a long time, these career guides provide support for alum at any career stage.
In our initial launch, the goal was to hit 250 downloads within the first year, which we can track through our webpage analytics. Within the first 6 months, we saw over 1100 downloads, 684 of those being unique. These guides serve as a template for future guides and expansion to provide tangible resources to alum to succeed in their industry.