The Oscars? The Tonys? The Grammys? All incredible honors, but they pale in comparison to what we’re striving for in Career Services, the NACE Awards! Well, we’ve done it again… the Center for Career Readiness and Life Skills is proud to announce it has received the 2025 NACE Career Services Excellence Award for the introduction of Work+ UConn.
What is Work+ UConn?
At UConn, there are over 6,000 on-campus jobs for students. This means 6,000 students are developing the competencies employers are looking for in entry-level talent, while helping further the University’s mission. Many of these students; however, have difficulty translating what they’ve learned and accomplished to their application materials and struggle to articulate this during interviews. Work+ UConn aims to bridge that divide.
“Many on-campus jobs often lack structured opportunities for professional growth and alignment with career competencies, leaving students underprepared for future careers,” states Eran Peterson, Associate Director for Work+ in the Career Center. “UConn developed the Work+ Pilot to address this gap by integrating intentional career readiness development into on-campus employment.”
The Career Center has operated a Career Intern program that focuses on building and articulation of the eight NACE Career Competencies and recognized an opportunity to bring this framework to the University at large.
Work+ Pilot Program
The UConn Work+ Pilot took place over the 2024-25 academic year in partnership between the Career Center and UConn Student Employment with sponsorship and support from The Hartford. Work+ integrates career readiness into on-campus student employment, enhancing professional development for over 200 student employees and 40 supervisors across multiple departments and campuses. By aligning work experiences with NACE Career Competencies, the program fosters skill-building, career exploration, and stronger supervisor-student collaboration. Recognizing that students are gaining valuable skills through student employment, student workers enrolled are referred to as “working learners”.
The program aimed to enhance students’ self-awareness of their career journey, foster a sense of belonging, and strengthen workplace skills. Supervisors were also engaged to create a supportive community, mentor students, and model effective workplace practices. By addressing both student and supervisor development, Work+ ensures that on-campus employment builds transferable skills, strengthens workplace culture, and equips students for career success.
The five pillars that the Work+ Pilot program include:
- Enhance Career Readiness and Competencies: Enable students to develop self-awareness about their career development journey by setting working learner goals and assessing their progress in career readiness and NACE Career Competencies.
- Foster a Sense of Belonging: Build a supportive workplace culture where students recognize their contributions to the department’s mission/vision through mentorship, collaboration, and community engagement.
- Promote Workplace Skill Development: Equip students with foundational workplace skills, such as communication, teamwork, and professional feedback, and connect these skills to their roles and departmental goals.
- Strengthen Supervisory Practices: Create a community of supervisors dedicated to mentoring students, fostering inclusivity, and standardizing supervisory practices to ensure consistent expectations for all working learners.
- Cultivate a Positive Workplace Environment: Encourage active participation in team initiatives, mentorship, and collaborative relationships between supervisors and peers, contributing to a cohesive and supportive workplace culture.
The Work+ Pilot embedded career readiness into on-campus student employment by offering curated, compensated professional development for 200 working learners and providing robust resources for supervisors. Students received one hour of paid professional development per month, delivered through Blackboard, covering topics such as NACE Career Competencies and their alignment to student labor and future goals, rights and responsibilities as a student employee, career and major exploration, and resume development.
Kristen Soprano, Assistant Director for Work+, shared her thoughts on the impact of working learners earning compensation for their professional development:
“It shows that their employer/the university really cares about and is invested in their future. Not only does it signal that on-campus jobs are vital in helping prepare working learners for post-graduation career success, it also creates a sense of purpose and immediate satisfaction that helps support retention within the position and university as a whole.”
During the spring semester, Mark Turek, Head of University Relations at The Hartford, ran a professional development presentation for working learners. The workshop focused on providing students with the tools and information to build their personal brands and represent their authentic selves when making professional connections. The Hartford’s Early Immersion program greatly aligns with the Work+ program with a strong focus on resume building through professional development and networking. Seeing the commonalities between both programs, The Hartford took the opportunity to bring what they’ve learned to help students and supervisors connect the dots between what they’re doing with their on-campus jobs and how to use that when applying and interviewing.
Over 40 supervisors benefited from a comprehensive set of resources designed to support student success. These included a customizable learning roadmap to onboard and guide Working Learners, templates for job descriptions, offer letters, and student employee handbooks, and ongoing training sessions. Regular check-ins with supervisors ensured consistent implementation and addressed challenges, fostering a culture of mentorship and collaboration.
NACE Career Services Excellence Award
By the end of the pilot, there was a 93% increase in NACE Competency awareness, a 51% improvement in positive work environment support, and a 67% rise in students’ comfort seeking help. Work+ creates a workplace culture prioritizing growth, feedback, and inclusivity, equipping students with transferable skills for future success.
Recognizing the Work+ Pilot’s impact, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) awarded Eran Peterson, Nancy Bilmes, Kristen Soprano and the Center for Career Readiness and Life Skills the 2025 Career Services Excellence Award (Large College Winner)!
When asked which aspect she was most proud of, Nancy Bilmes, Director of the Center, expressed that,
“Work+ unites student employee supervisors from all across the university who previously had little direction and/or training and are eager to learn and grow as supervisors to provide even better and more meaningful opportunities and outcomes for their working learners.”
By combining structured professional development for students with tools and training for supervisors, Work+ created a cohesive framework that enhanced career readiness, strengthened supervisory practices, and aligned work experiences with future goals.
Work+ UConn has cultivated an environment where students and supervisors collaborated to build workplace skills and foster a supportive, growth-oriented culture, aligning with UConn’s mission to provide impactful on-campus employment. UConn remains dedicated to expanding Work+ and its transformative impact on working learners.
