Social Sciences Launches the Alumni Career Profile Initiative

The Faculty of Social Sciences at McMaster has launched  a major Career Education initiative and is seeking insights from alumni who have established their careers after graduating from Social Sciences undergraduate programs.

If you are a McMaster alumni from a Social Sciences program and are interested in sharing your story, please visit the Alumni Career Profiles webpage and navigate to the ‘Submit Your Testimonial’ link.

The Alumni Career Profiles initiative is aimed at soliciting and creating online features of alumni career experiences. Willing contributors will have their name and headshot image featured in a digital testimonial card that lists their undergraduate degree information and a career descriptor. Users will also be able to read a question-and-answer style profile that dives into that person’s career path and experience.

Alumni can complete and create this profile using an online submission tool hosted on McMaster’s secure LimeSurvey tool, and can select which questions they find relevant to answer.

Based on student feedback, there is particular interest in hearing from:

• Graduates who followed paths outside of academia;
• Alumni who have established a stable career path but are in early-to-mid-career;
• People who apply the skills and insights from their degree in interesting ways they did not foresee or anticipate during their studies;
• Workers in underappreciated or misunderstood roles or sectors that are surprisingly well-suited to social sciences graduates.

Examples of existing profiles can be found on the Faculty’s Alumni Career Profiles web page.

Feedback from current and prospective students regularly overwhelmingly attests that learning about the complex employment paths of actual graduates is the most helpful and most wanted element of career education and guidance. The Social Sciences Careers & Experiential Education team have been working with past graduates to build Alumni Career Profiles as a part of its suite of career development and career exploration resources for current and potential Social Sciences students.

The Alumni Career Profile initiative is just one part of a wider effort by the Faculty of Social Sciences to support current and prospective students to confidently develop an academic and career plan. The upcoming academic year will see a renewed focus on career options in first-year courses, the renewal of the faculty’s career development course, and the expansion of co-op program options into several new programs.

Drawing connections between Social Sciences programs and the workplace is especially helpful for the faculty’s co-op students. Each year, co-op students apply to paid employment roles as a part of their required four-month work term. Experience shows that collaborative work that emphasizes the career success of social sciences graduates boosts confidence and interest among employers considering hiring co-op students, resulting in benefits to students and employers alike.

Throughout the duration of the Alumni Career Profile initiative, the Careers & Experiential Education team will also be making more specific calls for contributions by alumni working in specific sectors, fields, or types of roles. Upcoming priorities include, for example:

• Careers in labour unions or organized labour;
• Careers in the provincial or federal public service;
• Careers in local government and within municipalities;
• Careers in the helping professions;
• Careers in corporations and businesses;
• Careers in the not-for-profit sector; and more.

To participate, please visit the Alumni Career Profiles web page and navigate to the ‘Submit Your Testimonial’ link.