Career navigation services are essential for building IET student success.
For New Mexico IETs, career navigation is a set of services provided by the IET program, either independently or in collaboration with outside supports, that aids IET students in successfully obtaining and maintaining gainful employment within the designated IET industry field.
These resources expand on the definition of career navigation.
Spotlight: The Role of Career Navigators in IELCE/IET Career Pathways
Forbes: Career Navigation Maps Pathways to Economic Opportunity
There are a collection of different activities and support services that make up career navigation. IET programs need to focus on those activities which are most useful to the learners in the specific IET. A few of these activities are required in all IET programs, as noted in the descriptions.
A note about language: We usually refer to our learners as students. When speaking with employers, it is helpful to describe them as candidates for future jobs.
Each student meets to discuss career goals with the staff member who will serve as the designated IET professional guide while the student is enrolled in the IET.
Describe the industry, the structure, details, and time commitment for the IET, and the specific job where students will work once they have completed the IET.
Assess and evaluate the student’s readiness to complete this IET and enter this career. This can include an interview process or formal assessments such as the TABE, ACT WorkKeys, or O*NET tools.
This required IET component requires educating students in a combination of essential skills for today’s workforce, tailored toward the specific IET industry. The adult education or the content-area co-instructor may provide this instruction.
This required IET component is essential in providing students with a highly job-specific set of skills meant to improve their employability and efficacy within the specific IET industry. This instruction is generally provided by the content-area co-instructor.
This wrap-around support includes addressing any current life challenge which reduces a student’s success in employment, such as mental health, food and housing insecurity, etc.
Empower students to navigate related systems and services, such as public assistance applications, job applications, higher education enrollment, and financial aid. This often involves digital literacy.
Develop relationships with industry partners such as college administration and program instructors, workforce trainers, employers, internships, and apprenticeships, to advocate for hiring your participants.
Teach your candidates how to approach employers and refer them to industry events such as job fairs where they may meet and introduce themselves to hiring employers in their IET field.
Help candidates develop a hiring packet, including essentials such as a cover letter and resume, along with providing instruction in professional cell phone use, email set up and use, etiquette, personal appearance, interviewing, etc.
This powerful tool helps students take control of their professional journey. IET students may plan out their steps, set clear goals, and follow a path that leads to personal growth and success.
This support service helps the student learn exactly where and how to apply for IET-industry specific positions, along with how to follow up and see the application through.
This is the singular goal and high point of Career Navigation, in which the candidate is supported in obtaining a job within their IET industry. Capturing employment outcomes is a key component of IET success. This requires follow up.
Once hired, candidates will need support navigating their new position, overcoming personal and professional challenges, managing conflict, and more, in order to be successful within their role.
In order to make a family-sustaining wage, candidates will generally need to move up within their IET field. Candidates need to be equipped mentally and professionally to continue to set goals and move forward in their careers. This requires ongoing support.
There are fifteen tasks associated with career navigation, as described above. Programs can choose different models to carry out these tasks and provide effective, accessible career navigation services for their IET students. Some programs use one of these models exclusively, while others combine the models and assign the different career navigation tasks to more than one navigation partner. Both of these options work, but it is crucial to document your career navigation plan so students and staff can clearly see how the IET’s career navigation services function.
Click each option below to learn more about how the model is implemented.
The IET program may employ someone in the position of Career Navigator. In these programs, this person carries out all, or nearly all, of the services.
Many career navigation tasks can be accomplished as part of the Workforce Preparation component of IET instruction. Examples include: Industry Awareness, Candidate Networking, Increased Employability, and Career Mapping. If the IET program chooses to have the instructor provide additional career navigation services outside of class time, it is important to consider how that time will be compensated.
The industry partner is commonly the employer who serves as the clinical or practicum site or facilitates another type of pre-employment training. Industry partners are particularly good at supporting Industry Awareness, Workforce Training, Job Search, and Placement.
An institutional navigator is someone from the host institution who has specialized skills to support IET students. Typically, these people work in a college’s career services or student advising offices. Institutional navigators can often help with Career Counseling, Barrier Reduction, Systems Navigation, and Increased Employability. If the IET program chooses to use institutional navigators, it is very important to formalize this agreement and create clear structures which will allow each IET student to access services which specifically support employment in the IET industry. It is not sufficient to simply make students aware that the college has a career services office.
Workforce Connections staff in local offices are our WIOA Title I partners. These staff can support many of the career navigation tasks. Similar to the institutional navigators, it is crucial that the IET program develop formal agreements and clear structures which will allow each IET student to access services which specifically support employment in the IET industry. It is not sufficient to simply refer students to the local Workforce Connections office or America’s Job Center.