icon of two persons for contact​

 

As a faculty or staff member, you play a critical role in the student development process by supporting educational growth and guiding students to make informed decisions about their futures. Although many students navigate their way to Career Services independently, you may be the first to recognize that a student needs help and turns to you for guidance.

In partnership with faculty and staff, we share a mutual goal in supporting students, and we believe that educating students about careers requires a campus-wide effort. Use this page to review key information and services to prepare students for success inside and outside of the classroom.

word bubble icon for get to know career services  Get to Know Career Services

How We Help Students

 

Many people have a vague idea of what Career Services does for students, but few know the full story. Here are some key points of interest:

  • Check out Our Team for an overview of staff specialty areas.
  • Review Career Paths, curated by our Career Education staff, which focus on popular occupational areas in which our students express interest.
  • Share our upcoming Events with your students, which include career fairs, employer information sessions, recruitment mixers, professional development workshops, and more.
  • See complete details on how we serve Students and learn About our impact.

 

1. Career Navigation

2. Request a Workshop

3. Partner on Programs

4. Explore Handshake and Post Jobs

 

5. Support Your Student Community

6. Attend the Gaucho Career Advising Prog

7. Leverage Our Informational Resources

Career Navigation

 

Career Services empowers faculty and staff to bring career development into the classroom! Creating extra credit opportunities or assignments for students to engage in professional development will promote a culture of seamlessly connecting academics and careers.

Below are some assignments/activities curated using Career Services’ digital resources. We encourage you to copy and paste one or more activities into your syllabus. Please take note of the “Instructor Notes” at the bottom of the assignments. The activities can also be tailored toward your specific course or field of study. When copying over the information, alter the instructions and reflection questions to fit your learning outcomes. 

If you would like to request a Career Services Overview or specific workshop to be held during your class time, please complete our Workshop Request Form. 

We encourage class attendance at any of our pre-scheduled career workshops, events, mixers, and fairs. Please email us for a current list of event details and to discuss how to track attendance. 

To collaborate further, please reach out to Career Help.

Career Readiness Competencies

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) developed a list of eight career readiness competencies that provide a framework for addressing career-related goals and outcomes of curricular and extracurricular activities, regardless of a student’s field of study. Career readiness is a foundation to demonstrate requisite core competencies that broadly prepare college students for success in the workplace and lifelong career management.

The eight career readiness competencies include:

  • Career & Self-Development: Proactively develop oneself and one’s career through continual personal and professional learning, awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses, navigation of career opportunities, and networking to build relationships within and without one’s organization.
  • Communication: Clearly and effectively exchange information, ideas, facts, and perspectives with persons inside and outside an organization.
  • Critical Thinking: Identify and respond to needs based on understanding situational context and logical analysis of relevant information.
  • Equity & Inclusion: Demonstrate the awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills required to engage equitably and include people from different local and global cultures.
  • Engage in anti-racist practices that actively challenge the systems, structures, and policies of racism.
  • Leadership: Recognize and capitalize on personal and team strengths to achieve organizational goals.
  • Professionalism: Knowing work environments differ greatly, understanding and demonstrating effective work habits, and acting in the interest of the larger community and workplace.
  • Teamwork: Build and maintain collaborative relationships to work effectively toward common goals while appreciating diverse viewpoints and shared responsibilities.
  • Technology: Understand and leverage technologies ethically to enhance efficiencies, complete tasks, and accomplish goals.

After reviewing the career readiness competencies, please write a reflection paper answering the following prompts:

  1. Identify 2-3 career readiness competencies you gain from participating in this course.
  2. Provide one example per career readiness competency showcasing how you gained that skill. Utilize the STAR narrative by describing the situation/task, action, and result.
  3. Connect the career readiness competencies and knowledge gained in this course with your future career goals. How will this course help you move toward your career goals?

Focus2 is a career and education planning system available to help you clarify your goals by assessing your interests, personality, skills, values, and leisure. Focus2 enables you to explore your assessment results to learn how they are matched to majors at UCSB and potential career occupations. We recommend Focus2 for 1st and 2nd-year students or those just beginning their career exploration journey.

Use the following steps to begin your journey of self-discovery with Focus2:

  1. Register for a new account using your UCSB email address and access code gaucho. If you already have an account, log in with your username and password
  2. Complete assessments through the Self Assessment section, which includes work and leisure interests, values, personality, and skills.
  3. Click to Combine Assessments and review your results. Note: If you combine all four assessments, the results may be limited to match all four. This is normal. Most individuals find more value in the majors or occupations matching two to three assessments.
  4. After reviewing your results, write a reflection paper answering the following questions:
    • What are your top 3 work interest areas? Was this expected or surprising? Why?
    • What are your top 3 values? Was this expected or surprising? Why?
    • What are your top 3 skills? Was this expected or surprising? Why?
    • What are some descriptions of your personality that you feel are true to you?
    • What three career occupations are you interested in learning more about or considering pursuing? What are the themes connecting you across your career occupations?
    • How do these options connect to your interests, values, skills, and/or personality?
    • How can you move forward to learn more or gain experience in one of your occupational areas?

NOTE FOR INSTRUCTOR: Above are suggested reflection questions; we highly encourage you to alter the reflection questions to align with the goals of your course.

What Can I Do With This Major? features 100 major profiles with information on typical career paths, types of employers that hire in the field, and strategies to maximize opportunities. Unlike many platforms that can be difficult to navigate, this resource provides quick information for the most common questions in your undergraduate studies.

Use the following steps to discover major-related career paths: What Can I Do With This Major?

  1. Log in to Handshake to access What Can I Do With This Major?
  2. Once logged in, select either a Major Category to review various majors within a field or scroll down to the All Majors section to find a specific major.
  3. After selecting a specific major, review the overview and common industry areas, career paths, employers, and strategies.
  4. After reviewing a few majors, write a reflection paper answering the following questions:
    • Which majors interest you the most and why?
    • What are the most interesting industries and/or career paths within those majors, and why are they interesting?
    • How do these industries/career paths connect to your interests, values, skills, and/or personality?
    • What professional associations related to your area of interest would you like to join? Is there a UCSB chapter of that association or a similar campus organization at UCSB?
    • What additional strategies would be helpful for you to move forward in your career path of interest? How do you plan to implement those within this next year?

NOTE FOR INSTRUCTOR: Above are suggested reflection questions; we highly encourage you to alter the reflection questions to align with the goals of your course.

The Strong Interest Inventory (SII) assesses your interests within several broad work themes. By comparing your interests with those of professionals who have similar interests and enjoy their work, the SII can provide helpful information about what you “like” and “dislike.” We recommend the Strong Interest Inventory for juniors, seniors, or those who would like a deeper dive into career exploration.

  1. Follow the steps to discover careers related to your interests with the Strong Interest Inventory (SII): Follow the instructions in the email that you received from VitaNavis to take the SII (please allocate 45-60 minutes to complete the assessment)
  2. Register for an interpretation session in Handshake (filter by event type for “Group Appointment” on the Events tab to view all sessions)
  3. Attend the interpretation session and receive your results
  4. After reviewing your results in detail, write a reflection paper answering the following questions:
    • What are your top general occupational themes? Were these expected or surprising? Why?
    • What are some of your basic interest areas? Was this expected or surprising? Why?
    • Describe 3 of your personal style scales. What aspects do you feel are true to you? How does this affect your work style?
    • What three career occupations are you interested in learning more about or considering pursuing? Please provide a description, level of education, and salary range for each.
    • How do these options connect to your interests, values, skills, and/or personality?
    • How can you move forward to learn more or gain experience in one of your occupational areas?

NOTE FOR INSTRUCTOR: Before assigning students to the Strong Interest Inventory, please contact Career Help at careerhelp@sa.ucsb.edu to coordinate this assessment. Because the SII is a psychological assessment, Career Services must provide an hour-long interpretation session for students to receive results. We should check in with you to ensure we have enough space in our interpretation sessions to accommodate your class size. If so, LaTia Willis will coordinate for your students to receive instructions without coming to Career Services.

Resume AI is a Smart Resume platform available 24/7 via Big Interview to revolutionize the job and internship application process for UCSB students. Resume AI applies data analytics, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence to simulate and empower recruiting tactics customized to your individualized needs for creating or updating your resume.

For the best experience, review success tips on Resumes and then follow the below steps for Document Review with UCSB Career Services:

  1. Login via UCSB: Log in to Big Interview to access the Resume AI tool and “Continue with University ID.”
  2. Upload your resume in PDF or Docx. format
  3. Click Scan Resume, then select the best scoring guide for your goals
  4. View detailed feedback to review specific areas to improve within the Readability, Credibility, and Format sections.
  5. Because you cannot make changes within the system, we recommend having your resume ready in another tab to toggle to and make the suggested edits or changes.
  6. After revising with Resume AI, if you would like further feedback from a staff member at Career Services, you can submit your resume through UCSB Career Services’ Document Review Google Form.

NOTE FOR INSTRUCTOR: We highly recommend that students be paired together or for instructors to review resumes to provide an additional source of feedback. For an in-class activity, we highly recommend that students be paired to review each others’ documents with our digestible resume checklist. If you would like Career Services to review your student’s documents, please contact Career Help at careerhelp@sa.ucsb.edu to ensure we can support your request.

UCSB Career Services offers an online review of cover letters and additional application documents. Cover letters support your resume by providing deeper context about a few of your most relevant attributes. Rather than simply summarizing your resume, cover letters are effective at connecting your experiences in meaningful ways and illustrating why you are interested in a specific position through a narrative format.

For the best experience, review success tips on Cover Letters and then follow the below steps for Document Review with UCSB Career Services:

  1. Create a draft cover letter for a position that you would like to obtain
  2. Submit your cover letter through UCSB Career Services’ Document Review Google Form
  3. Within a few days, you will receive feedback on the design, mechanics, and content of your cover letter
  4. Update your cover letter with the provided feedback and turn in your original cover letter, the feedback email, and your updated cover letter.

NOTE FOR INSTRUCTOR: A Career Services representative reviews cover letters, CVs, and application essays; for this assignment, please contact Career Help at careerhelp@sa.ucsb.edu to ensure we have adequate support to review your students’ documents promptly. For an in-class activity, we highly recommend that students be paired to review each others’ documents with our digestible cover letter checklist.

UCSB Career Services offers an online service called Document Review for application essays, including personal statements/statements of purpose and diversity statements. Application essays are often required for research, scholarships, and graduate school programs.

For the best experience, review success tips on Application Essays and then follow the below steps for Document Review with UCSB Career Services:

  1. Create a draft application essay for a graduate program, research program, or scholarship you would like to obtain.
  2. Submit your essay through UCSB Career Services’ Document Review Google Form.
  3. Within a few days, you will receive feedback on 20 checkpoints for your application essay's design, mechanics, and content.
  4. Update your application essay with the provided feedback and turn in your original essay, the feedback email, and your updated essay.

NOTE FOR INSTRUCTOR: A Career Services representative reviews cover letters, CVs, and application essays; for this assignment, please contact Career Help at careerhelp@sa.ucsb.edu to ensure we have adequate support to review your students’ documents promptly. For an in-class activity, we highly recommend that students be paired to review each others’ documents with our digestible application essay checklist.

Big Interview is an interview skills service available 24/7 to provide students with a self-guided journey through must-know interview questions and 1,000+ industry-specific questions. Big Interview is designed to help you practice out loud with expert advice, prepare for common interview questions, and become comfortable with any interview format.

For the best experience, review success tips on Interviews and then follow the below steps to practice with Big Interview:

  1. Login via UCSB: Register for a Big Interview account using your UCSB email address.
  2. Open your confirmation email and click “Verify” to begin using your account
  3. Interact with the video curriculum at your own pace through the Learn menu. Choose your preference between the Fast Track or Mastery Track
  4. Go to the Assignments menu and enter one of the following codes based on your interests:
    • Industry Questions: Code = 571152
    • Graduate School Questions: Code = 607a1a
  5. Using your microphone and webcam in a well-lit room, go to Eye Tracking Calibration to ensure your videos will be processed correctly.
  6. Respond to each question for 1-2 minutes
  7. Click “Submit” when finished
  8. Within a few days, you will receive detailed feedback on the content of your responses.

NOTE FOR INSTRUCTOR: A Career Services representative reviews interview videos; for this assignment, please contact Career Help to ensure we have adequate support to review your students’ interview answers promptly. For a personalized activity, we can create a specialized assignment with specific questions you want your students to answer. The videos would then be assigned to you for review. Please reach out to LaTia Willis for the creation of a personalized assignment for your course.

Career Services offers various YouTube videos, including foundational career workshops, Career Q&A Live interviews, panels for specific career paths, recruiter industry chats, and more. Select a video from the list below to watch and answer the following reflection questions: “What are your top 3 takeaways from watching this video?” and “How will you apply this to your career moving forward?”.

Career Services Virtual Workshop Series

Career Path Information Videos

Recruiter Industry Chats

icon of speaker at podium for request a workshop  Request a Workshop

Lectures for Your Class

 

We love to present to your students, either at your location or in our location (virtual available), depending on availability. Topics range from writing resumes and cover letters, to finding jobs and internships, to applying to graduate school, to interpreting career assessments, and more. 

We encourage all requests to be submitted as early as possible, with two weeks' notice and multiple date options provided. While we do our best to coordinate around your needs, we cannot guarantee all requests. Click the button below to submit a form via your UCSB Google account.

 

Submit Workshop Request

 

 Lightbulb icon Looking to host a viewing of an on-demand virtual workshop for your course or group? Check out our Virtual Workshop Series on Youtube!

 icon of two hands shaking for partner with us  Partner on Programs

Career Services has partnered with many staff and faculty in recent years to create innovative solutions that blend students' academics and careers. Past examples include the Liberal Arts Career Retreat with the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts, Pizza and Knowledge with College of Letters & Science, Finance Night with Finance Connection and the Department of Economics, and Tacos and Success with College of Engineering.

To partner with us on your students' custom needs, please contact our Associate Director of Career Education.

Contact Associate Director

Subscribe to Career Path Emails

We send regular emails to students based on several areas of career interest. If you would like to join the recipient list for one or more of these areas, please email your request to the Career Counselor who oversees your Career Path(s) of interest.
 

icon of all career paths icons​

 

Explore Career Paths

Explore Handshake and Post Jobs

The Premium Platform for Gauchos to Find Work

 

We encourage UCSB faculty and staff who assist students with job searches to request a student Handshake account to see what positions are available to their students and review employer recruiting events, or to create an employer account to post a part-time job or internship. 

How to Gain "Student" Access to Handshake: Submit a Request for a Student Account >>

How to Create an Employer Account and Post Position(s) for Your Department:

You will need a User Account in order to login and use Handshake. https://app.joinhandshake.com/employer_registrations/new

Fill out the Handshake Registration form using your UCSB email address and click Sign Up. Do not use a public email address such as Gmail.

You will be asked to enter your recruiting interests and alma mater, agree to the Employer Guidelines, Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy. Handshake will send you a verification email which you must confirm to activate your user account before continuing.

After you create your User Account, Handshake will ask you to connect to your Employer (i.e., department). If an Employer already exists in Handshake for your department, type your department's name OR at least "UCSB" and one word in your department's name, and review the generated search list of existing UCSB departments associated with Handshake. You will need to select YOUR department's name, NOT UCSB or UCSB Career Services.

If you see your department, select it and continue. Once you select your department, your User Account must be approved by an existing department staff member on Handshake.
If you do NOT see your department in the extended list, select Create New Company and enter your department name using one of the following formats:

  • UCSB Department of ______
  • UCSB Office of _____
  • UCSB _____

You will be asked to enter information to create your department's profile page. This can be updated at a later time, but it should eventually be filled out.

If you are joining an existing Employer account for your department, it should already be connected to UCSB. If you created your Employer account for your department, your last step should be to connect your Employer account to UCSB. Use the search bar to find Santa Barbara, and click the + button to connect with us.

You can take this opportunity to connect with other campuses as well. Once we review your connection request, you will receive a confirmation email notifying you that your account is active at UCSB. The same process will occur at the other universities you connect with.

Should you have questions throughout this transition, training documents and videos can be found on Handshake's Employer Support page. Before school starts each fall, we host weekly trainings on how to use Handshake for faculty and staff.

  • LOGIN: You can now login to Handshake using your UCSB email address and the password you set.
  • POST A JOB: Click on Jobs in the left column under Postings. On the Handshake Jobs page, click the Create Job button. Once you have filled in the required fields in each of the tabbed sections (Basics, Details, Preferences, Schools; at minimum choose UCSB), click Create. Learn more about jobs, student applications, and closing your job posting.
  • REVIEW: Your job posting will then be reviewed and approved/declined by Career Services.
  • RECEIVE APPLICATIONS: Review the student applications as they come in and close the posting when you are satisfied with the applicant pool.
  • SHARE: It is now time to spread the word! Every posting in Handshake has a unique URL that takes viewers who are logged into Handshake directly to your job description. If you would like to make the URL publicly viewable to share via email and social media, you can add the text /share_preview to the end of your job posting URL.


For additional details about posting jobs to Handshake, visit our Post a Position information for recruiters. Additionally, please review our Recruiting Policies on posting jobs, paid internships, and unpaid internships.

communities icon of five persons  Support Your Student Community

Community Liaisons at Career Services

 

Do you work closely with a specific student community at UCSB? Reach out to one of our Community Liaisons to collaborate on initiatives that support the career development of your students. Let's join together to foster a future workforce grounded in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
 

community liaison icon First-Generation Students
Christina Nguyen

community liaison icon International Students
*Vacant*

community liaison icon LGBTQ Students
Maya Hargens

community liaison icon Military-Related Students
Marina Chavez

community liaison icon Students of Color
Serineh Manokian

community liaison icon Students With Disabilities
Jake Castellanos

community liaison icon Transfer Students
Marina Chavez

community liaison icon Undocumented Students
Julius Palaroan

community liaison icon Womxn
Serineh Manokian

 

Contact a Community Liaison

icon of gaucho career advising program logo  Attend the Gaucho Career Advising Program

How to Become a Career Advocate 

 

We are proud to partner with advisors from across campus to offer the Gaucho Career Advising Program (GCAP). This program is designed as a professional development opportunity for advisors and other campus advocates to gain knowledge regarding the vocational development of students and the best ways to help them tackle career-related issues and decisions.

GCAP provides an opportunity for advisors to advance their knowledge base, gain information on pertinent resources, and develop best practices in relation to general advising regarding careers.

Join us to further explore advising competencies on career-related topics and help students gain earlier access to career development and planning!

"As an academic advisor, I see a lot of anxiety from students about how their academic choices will impact their future. Will a humanities major lead to job? Should those who want to go into a certain field take on a minor? GCAP not only gave me better tools with which to tackle these questions, but prepared me to make informed referrals and lead conversations about career and grad school preparation even when students don’t know what to ask." -B

"GCAP was an extremely useful program. I gained valuable insight on how to work with students who come in asking about life after graduation. I feel more comfortable asking them questions and exploring their interests before sending them to Career Services. Another enjoyable part of the program was the collaboration among staff from various departments. It was a great opportunity to learn advising techniques from my fellow colleagues. I encourage all advisors to take time out of their busy schedules to attend GCAP. You will not regret it!" -C

The program is divided into three sessions:

Session 1: Career Services Overview, Exploring Majors and Careers, Understanding and Practicing Helping Skills
Session 2: Exploring Graduate School, Gaining Experience, and Getting Hired

Registration opens at the beginning of Summer via email.

Leverage Our Informational Resources

Pointing Students in the Right Direction

 

Knowledge
=
Power

lightbulb icon for knowledge = power​

 

We empower students to prepare for their future by consulting powerful sources of knowledge. With access to reliable resources and self-paced, on-demand digital content, Gauchos make informed decisions and move forward with confidence.

 

Go to Home Page

  • Explore our website for your students' career development needs
  • Browse by Starter Topics and Specialized Topics
  • Access our Digital Resources Toolkit for resume reviewing, interviewing guidance, and career exploration resources

Contact Us

 

Building Access (M-F)

Building Access: 8:30 am- 4:00 pm
CRR Access: 10:00 am - 4:00 pm
Closed during official university holidays
See advising section for service-specific hours

Appointment Hours (M-F)

Peer Drop-In Hours: 10 am to 4 pm
Peer Appt Hours: 10 am to 4 pm
Counselor Appt Hours: 8:30 am to 4:30 pm
See the Advising section for service-specific hours

Phone and Email

(805) 893-4412
Students: careerhelp@sa.ucsb.edu
Recruiters: employer.services@sa.ucsb.edu
Events: careerevents@sa.ucsb.edu

 

Location, Directions & Parking

Career Services is located in Building 599, the pink building next to Storke Tower
See Visit UCSB for campus info and directions. Parking in Lot 22 (permit required)

Mailing Address

Career Services, Bldg. 599
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, California 93106-7140

Meet the Team

Get to know Our Team of staff members at Career Services


 

Services for:

Students

 Alumni 

Campus
Organizations

Faculty
& Staff

Recruiters