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University of Wyoming

College, career center, personnel officers collaborate on recruitment

   Providing multiple opportunities to expose anticipated graduates to in-border employment opportunities is the goal of a collaborative effort between the Wyoming Teacher Education Program (WTEP), the UW Center for Advising and Career Services (CACS), and the Wyoming Association of School Personnel Administrators (WASPA).

    Two new initiatives are yielding positive early feedback: an online CACS database linking job seekers to district employers and a Wyoming-only “mini-job fair” in the fall. Each is intended to respond to WASPA’s desire to initiate discussions with preservice students earlier in their programs.

   “They were concerned about the fact that Wyoming districts were not getting a first shot at hiring our graduates,” Kay Persichitte, UW director of teacher education, explains. “This was, and is, a continuing concern in particular content areas-as one would expect, the same content areas that are in such high demand nationwide.” Perennial high need areas-in Wyoming and nationally-include mathematics, the sciences, special education, and foreign languages.

   Mutual interest in addressing these concerns, and in helping new graduates identify the best opportunities to launch their teaching careers, led to a series of discussions between Persichitte and Albany County School District 1 Assistant Superintendent for Personnel Mike Bowman, who represents WASPA.

   Expanded, early communication about career opportunities has been a focal point of the collaboration. Office of Teacher Education (OTE) staff are using a variety electronic and print media as well as face-to-face interactions to share information with preservice teachers about career options within the state and services linking them to potential Wyoming employers.

   One of those services is the online CACS database that has replaced the paper-based placement system familiar to many alumni. The new system, which coincides with WASPA recommendations, allows students to post electronic résumés as early as their sophomore or junior year. Wyoming school districts have access to that information, allowing them to establish early contact with promising teachers-in-training.

    “School districts will soon have online access to teacher candidate résumés,” CACS Director Jo Chytka says. “This is a new feature being offered by CACS. The College of Education is strongly encouraging students to post their résumé to the discipline specific resume book. Districts can then access these résumés after obtaining an access username and password from CACS.”

    Bowman says district personnel administrators are looking forward to having access to this new tool. In an environment where larger, out-of-state districts can arrive at teacher fairs and sign prospects to pool contracts (for positions assigned later) on the spot, the new database will allow Wyoming employers to take a proactive approach to establishing relationships with candidates and promote the advantages of living and working in-state.

   Another new initiative was launched in early December when a Wyoming-only recruitment fair introduced students to Wyoming district employers. “The purpose of this mini-fair was to allow our students to provide résumés of their accomplishments so far, and for Wyoming districts to begin to gather contact information for students that they think they will be interested in – particularly in the high need areas – in advance,” Persichitte says.

   Approximately 110 preservice teachers and 15 Wyoming school districts participated in the event. Feedback from employers in attendance suggests that the fair met its goals.

    “Everyone I spoke to was very pleased to have the opportunity,” Persichitte says. “Everyone was highly complimentary of the quality of the candidates that they were visiting with and the résumés that they were seeing.”

   WASPA surveyed participating employers following the event. They were unanimous in their approval of the event, the quality of the participating students, and the need to continue offering the mini-fair.

    Chytka is similarly pleased with the results of the event. “CACS was very pleased with the success of this event,” she says. “It provided a wonderful venue for Wyoming school districts and UW teacher candidates to network and share employment information prior to the spring UW Teacher Fair. We hope to make this an annual event in the fall semester.”