ASC Center for Career and Professional Success Launches Quick Chat through CarmenZoom for Busy Students
You wouldn’t believe how busy college students are these days. With classes, internships, jobs, extracurriculars and more, the time students have between all these activities is limited. On any college campus, you’ll have students rushing to and from classes, work, meetings and appointments all day long.
The Career Coaches in the College of Arts and Sciences (ASC) Center for Career and Professional Success wanted to make things easier for busy students. So, they launched their new virtual chat tool, Career Success Quick Chat, through CarmenZoom. The office uses Zoom’s chat feature to “give students another avenue to connect with our office in real-time,” Career Coach Caitlyn Conrad said.
How does this feature work better for busy students? Well, instead of scheduling appointments at the physical location of the office, students can get online and chat with an available Career Coach from home, the library, between classes and more.
The process is easy. “The model we use is more of a ‘walk-in’ style. Our Career Coaches each have two hours a week where they block off their calendar to be present on Zoom for any student who logs on and has questions. All students have to do is log on to their Zoom student account and search ASC Career (our office username) and then they can start asking questions,” Conrad said.
The motivation to use Zoom in ASC’s Center for Career and Professional Success office was to make things easier for students who don’t have time to come into the physical location of the office or who don’t want to schedule appointments for simple questions.
“The students we talk to on Zoom really enjoy having it as an option,” Conrad said. “As we have in-person appointments, we give students a little hot card (promoting Career Success Quick Chat) that takes them through the steps of how to use the feature.”
So far, ASC’s Center for Career and Professional Success has enjoyed using Zoom.
“We love that we are able to send attachments to the student. I often send our tips sheets from our website and any other resource that will help them,” said Conrad.
“I would definitely recommend using Zoom,” Conrad said, “We know once the students start using it more, it will be a hit. Since Zoom is now Ohio State approved, a lot of offices are using it for group meetings, but I would recommend them trying the chat feature with students as well.”
Learn more about ASC’s Career Success Quick Chat tool by visiting https://artsandsciences.osu.edu/career-success/students/other-resources/zoom-chat-instructions