Michael Estepp

Transcript

Derek Smith:
Hello and welcome to Baylor Connections, a conversation series with the people shaping our future. Each week we go in depth with Baylor leaders, professors, and more, discussing important topics in higher education, research in student life. I'm Derek Smith, and today we're discussing the Baylor University Career Center as it points at students towards opportunities beyond Baylor. The Baylor University Career Center is a proven resource for students to find success after their time at Baylor is through. The career center provides professional assistance to all Baylor undergraduate and graduate students through specialized career coaching, premium resources, connections with employers, graduate school planning, and much more, and all of that to ensure that students make the most of their career potential.
Baylor has most recently celebrated a 91% placement rate for graduates with students earning an average salary in the first year of $62,000. We're visiting today with Michael Estepp, a two-time Baylor graduate who has served as senior director of the Baylor University Career Center. He'll be assuming leadership of the division this summer as assistant vice provost at the career center following the retirement of Ken Buckley. So it's a great and exciting time to visit with you. Michael, thanks so much for taking the time to join us and congratulations on this new opportunity for you personally.

Michael Estepp:
Absolutely, man. I'm so excited to be here and really talk about the career center in Baylor University. As a two-time graduate, there's nothing more exciting to talk about than bleeding green and gold and being Baylor, right? So thank you for having me.

Derek Smith:
Absolutely. It's great to have you here. It's exciting the work you do. We talk about flinging your green and gold afar. You help students do just that, help them navigate all the complexities of that career search and finding the opportunities out there. And I want to start off with that. You said there's nothing better than helping serve Baylor students, but what are the opportunities when you think of you and your colleagues in the career center, what's really the motivation behind what you do and what does it mean to see students find that success?

Michael Estepp:
And probably speaking personally, but really I think every person on the staff really exudes this, but just that extreme heart for service. We talk a lot about passion and purpose and calling and really it's a passion and purpose and calling. For me, I've been in different industries in the corporate setting and now in academia. And going through all those and having a big sale or doing a big consulting project, those types of things. But there's no more euphoric feeling than having a student come in and saying that they landed a job or an internship or gotten into grad school, and you're either involved in that significantly or just a little bit or some of your staff were involved in that.
And that's just such a rewarding piece for you, right? Just to be able to do that. And as someone that's had multiple careers, talking about career chaos or just careers in general, I found my purpose in calling and my purpose in calling has always been coaching. So anything I do, I want to help young people attain their goals. And so I think all the staff, not only just me, but all the staff really want to help the students find what I've found is that purpose and that calling and that vocational excellence, right? What they want to do with God's giftings and talents and where they take that.

Derek Smith:
So it's almost kind of a two-pronged thing. In some cases, students need help in figuring out, okay, I've got these interests. How do I bring these all together to figure out what that calling is? In some cases it's like, all right, I know my calling, where do I go employ it? Where do I go put it into practice when I'm done?

Michael Estepp:
Yeah, for sure. There's definitely two-folds. We have a lot of support. We've got some students that are really locked in even from a young age, really know what they want to do, where they want to go, where they want to be. And then we've got probably a little more students on the other side on career discovery and assessment, like I really have no clue where I want to go, right? And so really put some frameworks around that to help them start the research process, really trying to develop where they want to be at in the future and then a plan to get there.
I think we're really big fans of the student defining success. As a career center, we don't get bonuses or commissions based off the salaries and these numbers that we talk about. Really, the student defines the success and then we help the students with their individual journey get to success. I mean, we've got students in the corporate setting in music. We've got them in Fortune 500 companies. We've got them in all different vocations and ministry and teaching. And so really it's unique to every student. We just love to help them get there.

Derek Smith:
You mentioned some of these categories, Michael, where are some of the places our students are going? Where are some of the common places? I know there's a lot of places out there that love to hire or recruit Baylor students.

Michael Estepp:
Oh, yeah, absolutely. The employers really love our students and because just the diversity of students and because they define success. I mean, it's really a bunch of different places really. We've got students at Fortune 5, Fortune 500 companies, the big four accounting firms, some of the strongest consulting firms in the country. Also, strong ISDs, hospital structures, science research labs. I mean, when you look at all the different colleges and all the different backgrounds and experiences, we really have a lot of great employers and students going to a lot of great employers and opportunities. So to pinpoint it on the top 10 or 15 probably wouldn't be fair just because we do have some employers that hire 20, 25 students a year. But as we go down that list, it goes back to how that student defines success. So once we get to 25 or 30, we've got a lot of employers that take one and two students a year based on where they want to go. So it's kind of varied, but all over the place really. It's really fun to work with.

Derek Smith:
Across the spectrum of types of companies and how long they've been around and what they do. It's very cool.

Michael Estepp:
Yeah. For sure.

Derek Smith:
Visiting with Michael Estepp from the Baylor University Career Center on the program. And Michael, I want to ask you, when you think of Baylor students... It's such a broad question, but when you think of Baylor students, what are you most proud of? What makes you most proud to say these are our people, our young people, our graduates who are out there in some of these places you just mentioned?

Michael Estepp:
As a Baylor grad myself and a former recruiter, I just see that as someone that works there, just really appreciating Baylor students just in general, just rolling up their sleeves and working hard. But it really comes back to the purpose-driven leadership and the Christian values and the ethics. A lot of even our employers say that they love coming back to hire Baylor students because they do the right thing. They work hard, they're really good communicators, they have future leadership potential. And so I see the same things that recruiters see in our students. And so I get so much joy just working with them and helping develop them, right?
I mean, they get here as freshmen. And then just the journey from the freshmen to the senior year just to see so much growth within students is really rewarding and amazing. But just having that pride that we have this ethical height that we have, these Christian values and morals and that we're going to go out into the world and our Baylor folks are going to make an impact is what I see all day every day. It's really amazing to be a part of.

Derek Smith:
To state the obvious, Michael, that speaks certainly to the great work y'all are doing in the career center, but when you look across the university, our faculty, the resource available to students, that I think sounds like to me, it really kind of speaks to the way they're all working in tandem and working... Really delivering on the things they're trying to do to sow into students.

Michael Estepp:
Yeah, absolutely. I think all recruiters and employers are looking for really a holistic student. And so really to have that strong academic background that has that such a matter of expertise, but then can creatively solve problems, deal with ambiguity, and roll your sleeves and work hard, but then also on the fact of just being a good person, an ethical leader, and then us. We obviously help sometimes on emotional intelligence, situational decision-making, leadership skills, and then the career process, everything from resumes to interviewing, to job offer, negotiation, to how successful you can be your first 3, 6, 9 months. So once you're on the job, how do I need to act and how can I do a good job and how can I impress my boss? So all those different things come together in tandem to make a really strong process and really output, great, great, amazing students.

Derek Smith:
Michael, what are you most proud of when you think about... When you look around at your colleagues within the career center? I mean, there's a lot of great career centers at universities across the country, but what are you proud of that makes Baylor's Career Center, Baylor's Career Center?

Michael Estepp:
I think the normal answer would just be going back to some of our industry-leading numbers. I mean, you had mentioned them earlier in the recording here, but looking at 91% success and 92% success... Sorry, 92% success and 91% placement. Those are some of the best numbers in the country. And so then on top of that, you look at what we call knowledge rate. Which knowledge rate is the number of surveys that go out that we get back. And so to have a 99% knowledge rate, meaning we have almost every survey of the graduating students, but two or three, and anywhere from 90 to 91 or 92% of those got jobs or got the success by definition, that's just amazing to be a part of. The industry standard is around 60% knowledge rate. So those schools that sometimes say that they have 90% placement or in same placement numbers that we have, but they only have 60% knowledge rate, there's a bunch of surveys that are missing.
So we assume that either the career center didn't have a good enough relationship with that student to fill out the survey, or most likely the student is underemployed or not employed at all. And so really, when you say you're at 92% with 60% knowledge rate, it's strong, but it's not as strong as say, Baylor at that 91, 92 rate with 99% of the survey. So that's what I'm most proud of, but it's really not about the numbers, it's just really about our strategy. We don't do... That process is called first destination survey. So we get all that data through the survey, but those numbers aren't anything related to what we do.
Those are an outcome. So the way we collect that is we proactively reach out at the beginning of the semester and see who needs help. And then once we find out who needs help, then we assign career coaches and then that's a part of the process, but it's not about getting the end number and the salary and the location and where they're going. Yes, that's great output, but really the amazing part is reaching out early, seeing who needs help, assigning them a career coach and helping them achieve that goal, right? So it's a means to an end, but the purpose is to see who needs help and how to help them.

Derek Smith:
Michael, your motto speaks to that in a lot of ways, career success starts now. Let me ask you maybe a goofy question. When is now and what do the nows look like? Because students come in at different points in the journey, right? Some are probably on top of it from day one and others, oh shoot, I graduate next week. Is it a little bit of everything?

Michael Estepp:
Yeah, it's a timely question just because we're going into orientation starting in the first or second week of June. And so you're really looking at as soon as they come on campus, we have a presentation in orientation where we're trying to get them to do four things. Get into Handshake, do a resume, get into the career center, and potentially have a conversation with a career coach and then do Stepping Blocks, which is a career assessment discovery tool. So really the first day on campus, and we know from our data that if you get involved earlier, you have a $9,000 chance... 9,000 more money or earning potential by engaging your freshman year.
Which is a pretty good chunk of change, right? 9,000. And not every student cares about money, right? They care about their passion and calling and those kinds of things, but sometimes parents want that return on education. So we know that the earlier they come in, the higher salaries they get. We also know the earlier they come in, the better company choices and locations and geographic preferences they get as well. And so there's just a lot of data that we have to show that engagement is good, but early engagement is even better. So we try to do whatever we can to be proactive and outreach and get them involved early just to start the process. Because we don't want them to wait until their senior year to start that career process, because sometimes it's too late.

Derek Smith:
Well, and I think for most everyone along the way that the process of finding a job or navigating something you don't know can be a little misdefined. You used the term coach earlier. It is great to have a coach. And the earlier you get in there, like you said, the more you can be prepared. So maybe if there's something you're a little trip up somewhere, you're just dealing with it rather than trying to get caught up.

Michael Estepp:
Yeah, there's a lot of coaching involved. I mean, when we do interviews, we tell a lot of our applicants that a lot of this is helping them maintain activity. But the coach piece is really working with them to help them to get there. But then there's also a cheerleader aspect of this, cheering them on, pushing them to do better, holding them accountable, those types of things. So it's a real process of just constantly motivating and pushing students and helping them to achieve their goals. I mean, that's really the whole point, and that's the most rewarding thing from the career center. All of our staff love one-on-one career coaching appointments.
We can sit there with the students, talk about where they're from, their dreams, their passions, their calling, their skill sets. We can even talk about the skill sets that they need that they don't have and how to get those, right? So there's a lot of this coaching and strategy involved with getting you to the end goal throughout that journey. And again, the earlier you start, the better you get. You're going into medical school and you're starting this your late junior, you're senior year, but you haven't done patient contact hours and volunteer stuff, your freshman, sophomore hours, then your application's not going to be as strong. So there's all kinds of arguments and instances where we need to start earlier.

Derek Smith:
This is Baylor Connections. We are visiting with Michael Estepp. He'll be assuming the role in June of assistant vice provost at the career center after long serving as senior director at the Baylor University Career Center. Michael, you touched on some of these earlier, but I want to ask you a little more specifically the cornerstone resources. How would you describe, what are the cornerstone resources that students can be thinking about, students of their parents keeping the back of their mind if maybe they're coming into Baylor, they can start to imagine what that looks like?

Michael Estepp:
For sure. Yeah, we are actually really ahead of the game on resources. We're early adopters. We want to make sure that we're using AI and technology and all kinds of stuff to help the students and empower the students, and also to help our staff be efficient. One of the first tools that you'll come into contact when you come on campus is a tool called Steppingblocks. They have a [inaudible 00:13:44] assessment that the students will take. And then from there, then we've worked with the vendor to map all the Baylor majors, and then they actually scrape Baylor alumni data through LinkedIn and various tools. And so the students can actually look at geographic areas preferences, have they been out 3, 5, 7 years, job titles, and really start to think about, are these the things in the places and the locations and the salaries that I'm looking for to help affirm or start from scratch?
So that's a really solid tool. And then on the admin side, we have a lot of our deans and department heads saying, "Hey, where are my majors at 5, 10, and 15 years after they graduate?" And as a staff, we've got a great staff, but we just don't have enough to survey the students and alums over and over again after they finish. So what the tool's allowed us to do on the admin side is communicate with students and even those deans and say, okay, these liberal arts majors are these companies. These sciences majors are these companies. And that helps too. So really it works twofold. So that's the initial tool. And then in our business, we really have two main problems. I mean, there's a lot of other conversations to have, but we either have an interviewing problem or a resume problem, right? The resume is the first. The resume is the vehicle to get you the interview, right?
And so if you're sending out a resume and you're not getting interviews, then you got a resume problem. So we've got a great template and we've got a tool called JobScan, which is kind of like a faux applicant tracking system. So you put your resume in there, your job description in there, and it gives you this score. And based on the score, then you know how good of a candidate you are matched compared to the job description. And so you go through this exercise of adding different words and phrases and technologies and different skill sets, and you put that in there and you get a higher score. And once you're satisfied with the score, you apply. So our students have got a lot more traction using that JobScan tool and the resume optimization process. And then on the back end, if you're getting those interviews, but you're going through two or three or four and maybe you're just not landing that interview on the accepted position or the accepted internship, then we probably need to do some mock interviews.
So we've got some great tools called Big Interview, which does curriculum and prep and printing planning on interviews, but it also has a mock interview platform. So we use that in our classes and set up assignments, and they answer all those questions and then we grade them. Or in our one-on-one coaching sessions, we can set up a mock video interview and they can do that, or they can come in person and do a mock interview with one of our coaches. So those three aspects are just really amazing tools for us that allow us to be efficient and help the students get prepared. Because if they're not prepared, then they won't land those jobs or those interviews. So those are great tools for us.

Derek Smith:
Great. Competitive advantage for our students. Any step of the process, there's a way it sounds like Link can connect with you and get some thoughts and be equipped to improve in these areas. Visiting with Michael Estepp on the program. Michael, let's turn our attention a little bit to the employer side. I know Baylor has a lot of relationships with employers. They come to campus for job fairs, but that's just one of the more visible aspects of it. Take us inside what that side of things looks like, that relationship with employers across the country.

Michael Estepp:
For sure. Yeah. We actually have most of our responsibilities set up in three aspects of engagement. If you look at career centers, engagement is the problem, just getting folks to engage with the career center. And that's why we're so proactive. So we have it sliced and diced into three areas. So we have faculty staff engagement, student engagement, and employer engagement. And all of our staff is responsible for all three of those pieces. And so right now we're going into the summer, so now we're starting our planning calls. So what is your employers that you're assigned to look like for the next year? Are they going to come do an information session? Are they going to come to career fair? Are they going to do something virtually? Are they going to participate in a case competition? What's their fall plan? What's their spring plan? And then how do we make that happen in the context of Baylor and then getting students to go there?
And then if they're not, how do we actually work to develop that relationship? So they come over and over again, right? Sometimes employers will cycle off a semester or two, but we've got some really great employers that are consistently here time and time again. And then the staff is also responsible for looking at some of their majors and some of the companies and seeing where have deficiencies in holes, and then proactively cold calling out and reaching out to those folks and trying to really find some people. And then over the years, we've actually partnered with ProSales, which is a great amazing program in the business school, Andrea Dixon, Dr. Dixon. And so those students actually do cold calls with our career coaches watching. And so we get a lot of leads generated through that process too. So the students develop those sales skills and then our coaches get those feeds from those HR contacts and those things.
So really it's about how can we get them on campus, because the students want them to be on campus. And then as a second last resort, then we try to do something virtual. And then the ultimate for us is what we call Career Treks. Each area that we have assigned does Career Treks. We do anywhere from four to six a semester, but we fill a big bus full of 40, 50 kids, take them to Austin, Dallas, or Houston, and we'll go to two to three companies in a day and make a day of it. And they really get to see the culture of the company. There's usually alumni panel, a lunch and just some networking piece just so they can really affirm if that's somewhere they want to apply for and go work for long-term. So there's a lot of amazing things that go on with employer experiences, and we've got some great relationships, but we're always looking to develop more.

Derek Smith:
Well, Michael, you've painted a great picture of the opportunities for students, the resources available, those relationships with employers. So we're on the final few minutes here, I want to ask you, obviously you've got these resources that any student can do online and get some sense there, and then you can work with a coach and interpret that a bit. I'm curious, how should people think of just how personal that service can be? We're not a large university compared to state schools, but there's a lot of students, and yet it seems like students are able to get that individualized attention that they need through your office.

Michael Estepp:
Yeah, absolutely. At the end of the day, our coach's responsibility is to make sure all the resources are scaled to every single student. And because of the structure that we have the department set up in, it allows for the developing of relationships. So all of our career coaches and all of our student-facing folks in the career center are assigned by colleges and majors. So they have that subject matter expertise, so they can really help them get to where they are. And because they have all three facets of engagement, right? Within those majors, they know what professors they work with, department heads. Then on the employer side, they know all the employers that are best for them, best suited for them for internships, careers, research opportunities. And then also on just the student side, that's a part of the student engagement. So it really works out well for us to do that.
And so because of that, you're assigned the students within those majors. So from day one, you know who your career coach is and you develop that relationship over time, whether you meet with them two times, four times or 10 times, you really start to know that person by name. We get thank you notes. Sometimes we get invited to weddings and parties and all kinds of things. And so I feel like that's the most rewarding thing that our coaches go through is just developing that relationship with students. And again, I said this earlier, but I can't stress it enough, but after you've met with a student and they come back and they say, "Hey, that mock interview was perfect. I just nailed it. They offered me the job."
Or, "Hey, this resume audits were good, and that got me the interview and then I got the job."
Or, "Hey, I remember when I came two years ago and I just had no idea, and I think I found my dream job and you guys were a part of it."
That's where we hit a home run. So all those processes and people and those structure all lead to those relationships and make sure we're subject matter experts on those students. And the more we know about the students, the more we can help them get to where they want to go.

Derek Smith:
Well, that's very exciting, and obviously it's about more than numbers, but the numbers say that you and your team are doing a great job on that. And by the way, congratulations, I know been a lot of success and growth in that office. Ken Buckley, who we've had on the show before, we certainly wish him a lot of enjoyment as he moves into a new season of retirement. But congratulations to you on this new opportunity.

Michael Estepp:
Yeah, thank you. So Ken set the standard. He was definitely a mentor and a great father figure for me over the 13 years I've been at Baylor and he set the standard high. And I know the staff is looking forward to maintaining that performance and helping every single student at Baylor.

Derek Smith:
Well, that's exciting. No, you'll continue to do that. Michael, thanks so much for taking the time to join us on the program today.

Michael Estepp:
Absolutely. Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Derek Smith:
Michael Estepp, taking on the new role of Assistant Vice Provost at the Baylor University Career Center, our guest today on Baylor Connections. I'm Derek Smith, and as we wind down today, a show note and a thank you. This is our last episode of Baylor Connections here on KWBU. It's a team effort and grateful to everyone here whose work has made it possible for us to share Baylor voices on the station over the last eight seasons. I also want to let you know that Baylor Connections is going to take a break for the summer, but stay tuned to Baylor Social media this fall for some exciting changes to the program. I'm Derek Smith. Enjoy your summer. Appreciate you being with us here on Baylor Connections.