Starting a peer coach program at your university
Peer Coaches are a select group of students who assume career development roles for their fellow students on their respective campuses. Peer coaches help their fellow students navigate college life and post-college planning. They are a great resource to review students professional documents and providing constructive feedback. Peer coaches can also assist with mock interviews and with executing university career events. Aside from their functional roles, the proximity of peer coaches to students and their approachability makes them ambassadors for the career center of each university. They bridge the gap between the career center and the student body by fostering a better of understanding of students needs and promoting the career services available to students.
Due to their functional and strategic value to the career center, recruiting and training peer coaches is a fundamental practice in deepening the impact of a career center. The attached resource provides a guide to starting and managing a peer program as it details:
- The qualities of a good peer coach
- The soft and hard skills a peer coach needs to hone
- Steps to starting a peer coach program
- How to train a peer coach
