CPD Career Readiness Toolkit
Helping faculty, staff, and student leaders guide students to career success
Career conversations can happen anywhere: the classroom, during a student organization meeting, customized workshops for a specific group of students, and beyond. Career and Professional Development is excited to partner with you as you integrate career activities and resources for your students.
The CPD Career Readiness Toolkit offers comprehensive resources that you can utilize to expand student access to career related content. Recognizing the many places that Hokies are learning about career related topics, we are excited to collaborate with Virginia Tech faculty, staff, and student leaders to provide ready-to-facilitate activities and engaging interactive modules that can be embedded into a Canvas course.
Thank you for investing your time and building career readiness with your students!
About Toolkit resources and how you can use them
Interactive Modules
Our interactive modules deliver career information in small, easily digestible segments, allowing you to select content that is most relevant for your students. To give your students access to the modules, you load a zip file into your existing Canvas course. All modules come with upload instructions and multiple-choice questions (with feedback for the answer choices) or reflective prompts that can be loaded into your Canvas course to reinforce learning.
Career Related Activities for Classes, Workshops, or Group Meetings
Our library of career related activities features activities for a wide range of career needs and topics. Each activity comes with a facilitator guide that walks you through the goal of the activity, talking points for introducing the topic, instructions to facilitate the activity, and a couple of debrief questions. We also provide a digital copy of any handouts that you need for the activity. These activities are ready to implement as is, or you can make strategic adjustments to speak to niche information for your specific student population.
Resources by career topic
Meet Career and Professional Development Module
Career and Professional Development (CPD) at Virginia Tech is dedicated to supporting students and recent alumni in their career journeys.
This module will help undergraduate or graduate students
- Distinguish how Career and Professional Development supports undergraduate and graduate students and recent alumni with their career development.
- Summarize how Career and Professional Development can support students at each stage of their career development: exploring self and careers, gaining career related experience, developing professional skills, and preparing for next steps after graduation.
- Describe the different ways students can engage with Career and Professional Development and our resources.
Career and Professional Development Website Scavenger Hunt
Intended Audience and Goal:
- Introduce first- and second-year students or transfer students to Career and Professional Development
- Introduce juniors or seniors who may be further along in their career development journey to resources that might be helpful when searching for internships or jobs.
Activity Description:
Students will use a handout to explore resources on Career and Professional Development's website that relate to their career development stage. There are two activity handouts: one tailored for students who are first learning about Career and Professional Development and our resources, one tailored for students who are applying for jobs or internships.
Time to Complete Activity: 40 minutes
Coming 2024-2025 academic year: a module that will introduce students to techniques and resources to help them explore careers.
Career Exploration Scavenger Hunt
Intended Audience and Goal:
- Introduce first- and second-year students or transfer students to resources that they can use to explore careers.
Activity Description:
Students will test out different resources that they can use to explore careers. Trying out a resource in a group setting often builds excitement around the resource and increases confidence (and likeliness) to use that resource again.
Time to Complete Activity: 40 minutes
Skills and Values Activity
Intended Audience and Goal:
- Help students beginning to explore careers start to identify what might be important to them in a potential part-time job, internship, or career.
- Help students who are searching for opportunities (job or internships) consider what opportunities might align with their interests and values.
Activity Description:
In this activity, students will explore their skills and values and how that influences what they might be looking for in part-time jobs, different opportunities to gain experience, and ultimately a career.
Time to Complete Activity:
Self-Assessment only: 20 minutes
Self-Assessment and Application Activity: 45 minutes
Preparing for Internships and Other Work Experiences Module
Internships are a great way to get experience, learn about different careers, connect what students are learning in the classroom to a work setting, and so much more.
As students prepare for their internship or other work experience, they will learn how to prepare for their first day, maximize their experience, and reflect after they finish their work experience, connecting it to their academic coursework and future goals.
Coming 2024-2025 academic year: activities that students can use during an internship or other work experience to reflect on their experience and how it impacts their next career decisions.
Are You Career Ready? Developing Your Professional Competencies Module:
Career readiness is the awareness and development of the skills you will need to confidently and successfully meet employer expectations and transition into the workplace. This module will introduce 7 Professional Competencies that all employers seek, regardless of industry and job function.
This module explores:
- Virginia Tech’s 7 professional competencies and why they are important in the workplace and beyond.
- Examples of the professional competencies in real-world situations.
- Strategies to assess and develop your professional competencies at Virginia Tech and in your career.
- Techniques to incorporate professional competencies into your resume and interview preparation.
Coming 2024-2025 academic year: activities to help students develop, reflect on, and learn to articulate their professional competencies to employers.
Resumes and Cover Letters Module
Resumes and cover letters are foundational documents needed for most job or internship searches. It is never too early to start building a strong resume or learning how to write a cover letter.
In this module, students will learn the building blocks of a compelling resume and cover letter, how resumes and cover letters have changed over time, and how resumes and cover letters impact a job or internship search.
Interview Prep Module
Throughout your career, interviewing is an important skill to have. Whether students are preparing for their first professional interview or polishing their interviewing skills, this module will help students:
- Develop strategies to prepare for interviews.
- Explore what you can do during an interview to stand out in a positive way.
- Identify things that you can do after your interview to leave a positive impression.
Cover Letter Peer Review Exercise
Intended Audience and Goal:
- Students provide a peer with guided feedback on their cover letter using a rubric developed by Career and Professional Development.
- This activity is best utilized with undergraduate students second year and above and master's level graduate students.
Activity Description:
Using a checklist developed by Career and Professional Development, students provide guided feedback to peer about their cover letter.
Time to Complete Activity: 35 minutes
Resume Peer Review Exercise
Intended Audience and Goal:
- Students provide a peer with guided feedback on their resume using a rubric developed by Career and Professional Development.
- This activity could be utilized with both undergraduate and master's level graduate students. Ph.D. resumes tend to have more unique components not covered in this checklist.
Activity Description:
Using a checklist developed by Career and Professional Development, students provide guided feedback to peer about their resume.
Time to Complete Activity: 35 minutes
Job Search Game Plan
Intended Audience and Goal:
- Help second-year undergraduate students and above understand the different components of a job or internship search and the resources available through Career and Professional Development to help with their search.
Activity Description:
Students think through different components of a job or internship search and explore several resources that Career and Professional Development offers. Students will do some self-reflection and small group discussion to build their toolbox as they gear up for a job or internship search.
Time to Complete Activity: 48 minutes
Career Fair Prep Activity
Intended Audience and Goal:
- Second-year undergraduate students and above (including master's level graduate students) explore the many things that they can do to prepare for a career fair beyond updating their resume.
Activity Description:
Updating your resume and getting it reviewed by someone trained in resume writing, like Career and Professional Development, is an important part of preparing for a career fair. However, there are several other things that students can do prior to a career fair to help them prepare to demonstrate the best version of themselves possible.
This activity will walk students through creating their elevator pitch, researching employers of interest, considering how they articulate their skills and experiences, and brainstorming compelling questions they could ask the employers at the career fair.
Time to Complete Activity: 48 minutes
Brainstorming Interview Stories
Intended Audience and Goal:
- Introduce first- or second-year students to a technique to brainstorm stories about their experiences and transferable skills they can highlight in interviews.
- Expand the stories that upper-class students or graduate students feel confident telling in interviews.
Activity Description:
In this activity, students will brainstorm a collection of stories that they could tell in an interview related to both field-specific skills as well as commonly asked questions about “transferable” skills.
Time to Complete Activity: 40 minutes
Telling Interview Stories with STAR
Intended Audience and Goal:
- Introduce first- or second-year students to the STAR technique for telling stories in an interview.
- Help upper-class students or graduate students enhance their interview stories using the STAR technique.
Activity Description:
STAR is a technique that helps students tell interview stories in a compelling way. It can help students who share too many details strategically refine their story. Stories that do not have enough information can feel short and generic. STAR helps students build out their stories strategically, adding additional relevant details.
In this activity, students will have the opportunity to practice telling interview stories using the STAR technique.
Time to Complete Activity: 30 minutes
Coming spring 2025: An interactive module that helps students explore techniques for networking for career exploration and job search.
Creating a Strong LinkedIn Profile
Intended Audience and Goal:
- Help students just getting started with LinkedIn understand how to create an impactful LinkedIn profile.
Description:
In this activity, students who are new to LinkedIn can build out their profile. As students move through their time at Virginia Tech, they may use LinkedIn to connect with alumni, apply to jobs, or as a place to stay connected to professional contacts. Before using the many features of LinkedIn, it is important to have a complete, updated LinkedIn profile.
Time to Complete Activity: 45 minutes
LinkedIn Profile Peer Review Exercise
Intended Audience and Goal:
- Provide students with guided feedback about their LinkedIn Profile.
- This activity is be recommended for upper-class students or graduate students. Often, first and second-year students are still developing other foundational career related skills.
Description:
Students will use handouts created by Career and Professional Development to provide feedback on a peer’s LinkedIn profile. The checklist helps students understand foundational elements of a LinkedIn profile and highlights common mistakes that many students make.
Time to Complete Activity: 35 minutes
Contact for additional questions about the CPD Career Readiness Toolkit:
Heidi Gilbert, Career Education Specialist / Career Advisor
Career and Professional Development
hlgilbert@vt.edu