During this year’s Summer Institute (https://fctl.ucf.edu/programs/summer-conference/) organized by the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, Dr. Sharon Woodill, Associate Lecturer from the Interdisciplinary Studies Program in the College of Undergraduate Studies and Faculty Fellow for Career Services, and Emily Flositz, Career Development Training Specialist with Career Services, organized a panel of distinguished faculty at UCF to showcase their achievements in leveraging curriculum to support career readiness for their students. This rich conversation was part of a three-day professional development series in the Classroom-to-Careers Track of the institute. The sessions delivered practical strategies, addressed common challenges, and showcased creative innovations for infusing career readiness into the classroom. Each panelist shared how they integrate career readiness into their curriculum—empowering students to better prepare for life after graduation.
Setting the Stage for Success
Dr. Sharon Woodill, who also served as the panel’s moderator, opened the discussion by emphasizing the importance of supporting faculty through collaboration with Career Services. Her message was clear: faculty don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Many career readiness elements already exist in their teaching; they just need to be reframed for alignment. She encourages connecting assignments to NACE competencies and even includes the top three relevant skills at the bottom of each assignment, regardless of the specific learning outcomes. Through this process, Dr. Woodill emphasizes how the entire learning journey cultivates numerous highly valuable transferable skills that can readily be aligned with the competencies articulated by NACE. She includes icons representing each of the three identified competencies and links them to the NACE website (https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/career-readiness-defined/).
I pick the top three competencies that I think are most represented in the assignment (no matter what the assignment is) and I ask the students, “Do you recognize that your your educational journey is cultivating these competencies that are highly valuable and highly transferable even if it’s not necessarily directly related to the course content?” Then I put the NACE icons at the bottom and then I link the icons to the NACE web pages to share information about what those competencies are. At the end of the semester, I give them an opportunity to go back and basically collect all the competencies that they’ve encountered throughout all the different assignments and help them and get them to reflect on it them.
– Dr. Sharon Woodill, Interdisciplinary Studies
Reflection and Practical Application
Dr. Karen Haslett (Lecturer, Interdisciplinary Studies) shared how she requires students to reflect on their participation in career events like EXPOs and workshops. Her course includes a professional portfolio assignment involving resume and cover letter revision, elevator pitch practice, and the use of VMock, a sophisticated career platform powered by AI for resume and cover letter improvement. While she noted that nontraditional students sometimes push back, she continues to emphasize lifelong learning and upskilling.
We get students to start thinking about what they are going do in the future and have them actually try to plug into something in line with their career of interest, whether it be attend a Career Services event or talk to someone in their field. Then they reflect on it later in the semester answering three questions: What did you do what activity to participate in? What did you learn from this experience that was meaningful to you? Now that you did this thing, how is that going to help you in the future?
– Dr. Karen Haslett, Interdisciplinary Studies
Empowering Networking Skills
Dr. Kathleen Hohenleitner (Senior Lecturer, English) saw a gap in how English majors talked about their skills—and filled it creatively. She launched an in-class networking event where students took charge of inviting professionals, reserving rooms, creating promotional materials, and writing thank-you notes. This hands-on experience not only built their confidence but gave them tangible content for their resumes.
Students just need to understand that what they’re doing is in the classroom is already very remarkable and useful. We just need to make them aware of the language they need to articulate what they do and know that they have these skills to self-advocate.
– Dr. Kathleen Hohenleitner, English
Visualizing the Future
Dr. Karen Mottarella (Senior Lecturer, Psychology) teaches a two-course sequence on career readiness. A standout assignment is the “aspirational resume,” where students build a future version of their resume alongside their current one. They then set SMART goals to work toward those aspirations. Dr. Mottarella also gives her students a STAR-technique exercise to help them learn how to articulate their accomplishments in interviews. Rather than penalizing mistakes, she provides detailed feedback with low-stakes grading to help students grow.
The Aspirational Resume adds a little twist on a resume assignment for your students who are early on and it really gets them thinking about what their resume looks like now, compared to what they want their resume to look like when they graduate, and encourages goal setting for how to get there.
– Dr. Karen Mottarella, Psychology
Building Relationships and Recommendation Letters
The panel also addressed the challenge of preparing students to ask for letters of recommendation. Dr. Mottarella has a dedicated module that outlines what students should provide when making a request, including a resume and a reflection on their academic engagement. She also includes this expectation in her syllabus and uses a request form to streamline the process. Dr. Woodill emphasized the importance of relationships when it comes to preparing letters of recommendations and encouraged faculty to convey the significance of building good rapport with professors and peers as the foundation of securing an effective letter of recommendation.
Feedback That Sticks
Both Dr. Haslett and Dr. Mottarella have refined their feedback systems to encourage student engagement. Dr. Haslett uses VMock’s AI feedback to help students improve their documents before submission. Dr. Mottarella requires a final project where students synthesize and revise based on feedback received throughout the semester, helping ensure the feedback cycle is complete and meaningful.
Deadlines and Real-World Expectations
Deadlines matter, especially when mimicking real-world scenarios like job applications. Dr. Mottarella experimented with assigning zeros for late submissions but found students were discouraged. Now, she deducts points instead but clearly communicates that real employers won’t be as flexible. The importance of adhering to deadlines was echoed by employers the next day during the Employer Panel, also hosted by Career Services.
Key Takeaways for Faculty
- Start where you are: Career readiness can be woven into existing coursework with minor tweaks
- Reframe assignments: Link coursework to NACE competencies and require student reflection on career experiences
- Use available tools: Leverage Career Services platforms like VMock to reduce grading burden while providing AI-powered feedback
- Foster relationships: Build connections with students to support authentic recommendation letters
- Make feedback count: Create iterative assignments that help students learn, revise, and improve over time
The faculty on this panel demonstrated that when curriculum is aligned with career readiness, students benefit in both confidence and competence. Their insights are a strong reminder that with thoughtful integration, any classroom can become a launchpad for career success.
Ready to infuse your curriculum with career readiness? Visit https://career.ucf.edu/channels/staff/ to access tools and resources available from Career Services, or connect with the Career Education team at careereducation@ucf.edu.
