<p>Tough to answer these questions straightforwardly, either for the parents generation, or the children’s.</p>
<p>My wife and I both used the same career service office when it was in its very infancy, in the mid-70s. We both got fabulous, unique internships with a lot of support from the university, that led to permanent job offers, that each of us turned down. I went straight to law school, and so the undergraduate career services office wound up being irrelevant to me. My wife got a great job after about 5 months of looking, and it had nothing to do with the career services office, but plenty to do with the unique internship on her resume. So for us, question 1 winds up being a weird split – extremely helpful, but not exactly in finding that first job.</p>
<p>Neither of us used our university’s career office for any subsequent job (but neither of us has had a day of unemployment). In one role, my wife worked with our kids’ career services office to set up an internship opportunity like the one she had had.</p>
<p>No one on faculty helped us find jobs. My wife got a placeholder first-job through a friend, whose cousin owned the business, and I think she heard about the opportunity that turned into her real first job from another friend. But she got another placeholder job by looking at bulletin boards at the university where I was in law school.</p>
<p>I will say that law school faculty mentors were absolutely instrumental for both of us when we started our careers.</p>
<p>Our children both used the same career services office at their university.</p>
<p>Child #1 used it extensively, starting in her second year. They helped her get paid internships (although the ones she got she mainly found on her own), do resume writing, think about how to groom her resume for the careers she wanted, etc. They used her resumes as models for how to make yourself attractive to employers in the main industries she was targeting. But all of that produced absolutely nothing by way of actual job offers. She wound up doing Teach For America, then getting an amazing job (in education policy, not where she started out) through its alumni network, but using the job search techniques the career services office had taught her.</p>
<p>Child #2 barely knew where it was. He basically worked his term-time job (which was connected to an EC) through two summers, and until late in his senior year thought he was going to graduate school, so wasn’t actually thinking of a permanent job. When he changed his mind about graduate school, he was mostly looking for work in a particular academic field, that would enhance a future grad school application, and relying almost entirely on faculty to help him and advise him. That proved very disappointing. After some scary months, he wound up getting two jobs that have really worked well for him in tandem – one (part time) through his EC contacts, really a continuation of what he did when he was in college, but for another organization, and a full-time position he learned about through a posting in the career services office. So it ultimately proved useful. (As did having his sister completely re-do his resume.)</p>
<p>Neither one would say nice things about the career services office. The older kid got lots of service, but no results, and thought the people there were clueless about looking for work at companies that didn’t hire scores of new graduates every year (like banks). From my perspective, though, I think they gave her some really good ideas about how to be systematic in a job search, and those ultimately served her well. The younger child didn’t really use the services in an effective way at all, but stumbled into something good (in injury time – he got offered the job literally as he was on his way to pick up the rental van to move himself back home the next day) with their minimal help.</p>