UM News

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (August 18, 2015) —The Patricia and Harold Toppel Career Center has been recognized among the Top 25 Career Centers on Social Media in JobBrander’s annual review of the effectiveness and influence on social media of the nation’s university career centers.

Ranking the Toppel Career Center seventh on the list, JobBrander noted that the center has not only built a fan base on Twitter and Facebook—as have all the other ranked career centers—but “they’ve built their own original content through their blog and YouTube channel. They feature interviews with interesting students in many areas of study to give future students a better idea of what college will really be like.”

As an example, JobBrander, which provides entry-level job seekers and interns with advice and resources to help them break into the workforce, singled out a video in which Ana Collado, a vocal performance major who graduated from the Frost School of Music in May, discusses the unexpected opportunities she found at UM.

Christian Garcia, associate dean and executive director of the Toppel Career Center, said he and his staff are proud of their place on the list, “especially considering that we weren’t even on it three years ago.” He described the center’s social media strategy as two-fold: “To be in all places at all times (we accomplish this through our presence on nine social media platforms) and to utilize our dynamic staff of students and professionals to deliver relevant and timely content. Our goal isn’t to only promote events and programs; instead, we seek to engage our many audiences by including them in the conversation.”

According to JobBrander founder Karl L Hughes, the goal of the rankings, now in their third year, is to highlight career centers that do a great job staying on top of the latest communication trends and making sure their students know how to use social media responsibly and professionally. As he notes, “Social media has become an increasingly large part of searching for and finding a job…and because it’s important for college students to know how to take advantage of social media, it’s just as important for college career centers to know the ins and outs of each network.”