Career Everywhere

Scaling career readiness across an entire campus takes more than good intentions—it takes shared language, faculty buy-in, and a whole lot of infrastructure. In this episode, host Meredith Metsker sits down with three leaders from the University of Montana's Experiential Learning and Career Success (ELCS) office: Andrea Vernon , Executive Director; Melissa Dadmun , Associate Director of Curriculum...

What does it take to get career services a seat at the table—and keep it, through four presidents, eight bosses, and constant reorganization? In this milestone 100th episode of the Career Everywhere Podcast, host Meredith Metsker welcomes back Dr. Josh Domitrovich , Executive Director of the Career Center at Pennsylvania Western University (PennWest)—and her very first guest when the podcast launc...

What does it take to build a 25-year career in higher ed career services—and know when it's time to walk away on your own terms? In this episode of the Career Everywhere Podcast, host Meredith Metsker sits down with Harold Bell , who recently wrapped up 25 years as Director of Career Planning and Development at Spelman College, the No. 1-ranked HBCU for 19 consecutive years and, more recently, the...

What if the single biggest predictor of a student's success after graduation isn't their major, their GPA, or even their school's brand name—but simply whether they engaged with career services? In this episode, host Meredith Metsker welcomes back David Kozhuk , Founder and CEO of uConnect , for his second appearance on the show. David makes the case that career services engagement is the most imp...

In this episode of the Career Everywhere Podcast, host Meredith Metsker sits down with Dr. Nicole Hall , Senior Associate Vice President of Student Affairs and Dean of Students, and Christian Garcia , Associate Vice President of Career and Professional Development, at the University of Virginia. Christian is also Nicole's direct report—a dynamic that shapes nearly everything they discuss. The conv...

In this second bonus episode recorded live at the uConnect booth at NACE 2026 in Denver, host Meredith Metsker puts a twist on the "Answer-a-Question/Leave-a-Question" segment from the regular show. Each guest answered a question left by the person before them, then left a new question of their own—resulting in a fun, unpredictable chain of career-focused insights and lighthearted personal stories...

If you haven't listened to part one yet, start there first. In that episode, Dr. Barbara Blake walks through the origin story of ODU's Monarch Internship & Co-Op Office —why it was created, how it's structured, and how four distinct pathways are making work-based learning accessible to every student regardless of major, background, or circumstance. In part two, the conversation goes deeper. Ho...

In this special bonus episode, host Meredith Metsker brings listeners inside the NACE 2026 conference in Denver, where she did live mini-podcast interviews at the uConnect booth and asked career services professionals from across the country the question at the heart of this show: What does Career Everywhere mean to you? The result is a fast-moving montage of voices—more than 20 higher ed professi...

What would it look like if every college student—not just the ones who knew to ask, or had the time, or could afford to go unpaid—actually got a meaningful work-based learning experience before graduation? That's not a hypothetical at ODU. It's the mandate. In this episode of the Career Everywhere Podcast, host Meredith Metsker sits down with Dr. Barbara Blake , Chief Internship Officer and Execut...

What does it actually take to make career services a campus-wide strategic priority—not just in name, but in budget, staff, and institutional structure? In this episode, host Meredith Metsker sits down with Barbara Zerillo , Senior Director of the Career Development Center at Post University, to talk about how she turned career readiness into one of the institution's five official strategic pillar...

What does it take to build a career development program for students you may never meet in person—students scattered across time zones, juggling jobs and families, logging in at 3 a.m.? In this episode of the Career Everywhere Podcast, Amy Ballard of Eastern University talks about how she built an online career development program from scratch for a population that's as diverse as it is distribute...

The internship landscape is shifting—and if you've been feeling the pressure in your career center, you're not alone. In this episode, host Meredith Metsker sits down with Todd Schuster , Senior Director and Head of Network Development at Forage , to take an honest look at the state of experiential learning in higher education. Todd brings a rare dual perspective: he spent the first half of his ca...

What career services team wouldn't benefit from reaching more students—without adding more hours to the workday? In this episode, host Meredith Metsker sits down with Nikki Pebbles, Learning and Development Specialist for the City University of New York and a career content creator with over 400,000 followers across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Nikki shares how career advisors can pos...

What does it actually look like when a university president makes career a strategic priority — and how does a career services leader make the most of it? In this episode, host Meredith Metsker sits down with Joe Catrino , Executive Director of the Center for Career Design at Dartmouth College, for a candid look at what's possible when career services has a seat at the highest table on campus. Joe...

What if "not knowing" wasn't a problem to fix—but exactly where students are supposed to be? In this episode, host Meredith Metsker sits down with Dr. Justin Lawhead, Assistant Vice President for Career Readiness and Postgraduate Student Success at the University of South Carolina, to talk about one of the most persistent challenges in career services: the deficit model. Justin is working to repla...

The job market hasn't been this hard for students and recent grads in decades. In this episode, host Meredith Metsker sits down with John Koelliker , co-founder and CEO of Leland —a platform that connects students and professionals with expert coaches and partners directly with career centers to amplify their impact. John works with tens of thousands of students and the employers trying to hire th...

What if your on-campus student job could do more than pay the bills? What if it was actually a career development experience? In this episode, host Meredith Metsker sits down with Eran Peterson , Associate Director of Work+ at the University of Connecticut, to talk about how UConn is reimagining student employment through the Work+ program. UConn's Work+ program — adapted from a national model pio...

What does it look like when a small career services team thinks big—and builds the systems to back it up? In this episode, host Meredith Metsker sits down with Amber Goreham, Jess Johnson, and Derrick Gill from the University of Central Missouri's Career and Life Design Center to talk about how their six-person team is scaling career education across a campus of nearly 9,000 students. UCM has spen...

What if career services leaders thought more like Chief Marketing Officers? In this episode of the Career Everywhere Podcast, host Meredith Metsker sits down with Ashley Safranski, Chief Marketing Officer at uConnect, to explore why adopting a CMO mindset can help career services leaders elevate their impact across campus. Ashley shares the striking parallels between marketing teams and career cen...

In an era of constant technological change, a liberal arts education builds the adaptability, critical thinking, and career agility students need to stay employable—even as jobs evolve or disappear. In this episode, host Meredith Metsker is joined by Sharon Belden Castonguay , Executive Director of the Gordon Career Center at Wesleyan University, to explore why a liberal arts education may be more...

In this repurposed live session from the Career Everywhere Community , Meredith Metsker sits down with Gerald Tang , Executive Director of Career Services and Internships at Bridgewater State University, to explore how institutions can rethink and strengthen their employer engagement strategies. Gerald shares how his team moved beyond counting career fairs and job postings to develop a tiered, dat...

What does it really take to scale career services when you’re a team of one—or leading a very small team? In this episode, host Meredith Metsker is joined by Anita DeCianni Brown (SUNY Empire State University), Nick Edwards (Hardin-Simmons University), and Tyler Orr (Southern Virginia University) for a candid conversation about doing more with less. The panel shares practical strategies for expand...

In this episode, Dr. Matt Cowley of Virginia Tech shares how his team united career services, financial aid, procurement, legal, payroll, advancement, and employers to build a creative, compliant solution for funding unpaid and underpaid internships. Matt discusses how simple leadership moves—framing the problem around student impact, asking the right people to the table, and staying open to itera...

How do you launch a university-wide Experiential Learning Center—in just one year—across three campuses, during budget cuts, staffing challenges, and constant organizational change? In this episode of the Career Everywhere Podcast, host Meredith Metsker sits down with Dr. Josh Domitrovich, Rhonda Gifford, and Meaghan Clister of PennWest to unpack the strategy, persistence, and cross-campus collabo...

In this episode of Career Everywhere, host Meredith Metsker talks with Jeremy Schifeling , Founder of The Job Insiders, AI and ChatGPT expert, keynote speaker, author, and former higher ed career services leader. Jeremy breaks down how AI is actually changing the job market right now, who’s being most affected (including Gen Z and tech talent), and why he believes we’re moving from the “revenge of...