Andy Chan’s famous argument was never that career development didn’t matter. It was that it mattered far too much to stay trapped in the old reactive, transactional, help-a-senior-get-a-job model. Thirteen years after “career services must die,” his answer is a function that’s developmental and woven across the whole university, one that helps students navigate not a single job but a lifetime of work and life transitions. The quietly radical part is that most of what actually makes students employable, the communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and real work ethic employers want, isn’t in the curriculum, so we ask students to figure it out in their spare time. The schools that made it feel expected, part of the culture, are the ones seeing real career and life readiness.
(Watch the full-length version on YouTube - 54 mins)
What stuck with me is how much of this is a leadership and partnership problem, not a career-office problem. Andy credits a Wake Forest president who told every new faculty member to go meet the head of the career center, because their English and history majors needed to see their own way to the job market. And the model only works when career and advancement stop guarding turf and start multiplying each other, with advancement opening doors to alumni and parents as employers and the career team making those connections land. For a field that still parks career in a department off to the side, that’s the whole lesson. Career is everyone’s job, or it’s nobody’s.
Big Themes This Week
Career services had to die to become a university-wide priority
What makes students employable mostly lives outside the curriculum
It’s a leadership and partnership problem, not a career-office problem
Team Discussion Questions
Is career development layered across our student experience, or parked in one office?
Where could career and advancement multiply each other instead of guarding turf?
What would it take for our leaders to say out loud that this matters?
Keynote summary written primarily by AI
