LAS Career Services and CyHire

ISU’s Liberal Arts and Sciences Career Services is home to career advisors who work directly with students and employer relations specialists who help organize career fairs. Its main purpose is to connect students with internship and employment opportunities that will get the ball rolling on their careers. The department also gathers graduation outcome data about where recent graduates have begun their careers and how they are performing in the workforce.

Tessa Brow, the director of LAS Career Services, has been working for Career Services for many years but has only recently entered the director role. When asked to explain how she views LAS Career Services, she said, “The broad summary is that Career Services is all about connecting students and alumni with employers or graduate schools, wherever their future is taking them after Iowa State.” Under Brow’s leadership, LAS Career Services is growing, searching for new hires that will expand the reach and capabilities of the department.

One of Career Services’ largest management tools is CyHire. As Brow described, “It’s the one-stop-shop for students to get connected to specific opportunities.” It has a job board of 3,000 to 4,000 internship or fulltime job opportunities created by employers to recruit Iowa State students. The listings aren’t scraped from the internet, and each listing is reviewed by the Career Services team to guarantee its legitimacy. Career fairs are also managed within CyHire, allowing students to see which employers will be attending each event.

When asked how alumni can use CyHire, Brow said, “We would love for alumni to recruit Iowa State students; whether they are in human resources or not, they can still advocate for Iowa State.… Alumni can also request an alumni account within CyHire to see opportunities.”

The platform is switching vendors in the summer of 2024, which should result in a more user-friendly interface that makes CyHire easier to navigate. Additionally, a newly required sophomore course, LAS 2030, should enable LAS students to be more comfortable thinking about their careers and help them plan ahead for life after graduation. When asked where LAS Career Services could go in the future, Brow said, “I would love to see us specialize more and provide students with tailored advice. I call that the career pathways model, where we could have one advisor who’s able to focus on health professions and another who’s able to focus on media communications professions. I think making LAS a little more focused for students would be the next level of useful for students.”