U. advertises for new Executive Director of Career Services

The University has advertised for a new Executive Director of the Office of Career Services to“augment the existing strengths of Princeton's current Career Services leadership," according to a posting on the University's jobs website.

The job will be a "new senior position" which reports directly to the Vice President for Campus Life and will work with other senior administrators and alumni leaders,according to the announcement posted on the database of open positions.

Beverly Hamilton-Chandler is currently the Director of Career Services, the most senior position at the agency presently. Hamilton-Chandler said she was unavailable for comment.

The executive director would be responsible for developing and leading an advisory council for the agency, which would include employers, alumni, faculty members, administrators and leaders in employment sectors, according to the job description. The posting also calls upon the executive director to create a “partners group” consisting of students, faculty members and administrators.

This posting comes a few months after the departure of former President Shirley Tilghman, who expressed disappointment with the results produced by Career Services. In a speech delivered to the senior class on May 13, Tilghman said she thought of the career advising agency as “a work in progress.”

“We’ve made some investments in the last couple of years there, but we’re not doing nearly as good a job in helping you, not just get a job, but how to think about what it is you want to do after graduation," Tilghman said. "So I would say that’s on my conscience, that I haven’t done a better job in fixing that."

She elaborated further upon her vision for Career Services in a May interview with The Daily Princetonian, stating that, while she thought the agency was going in the right direction, she had commonly heard students express their impressions that Career Services had a strong emphasis on finance and consulting jobs. In the interview, Tilghman said that such types of jobs have effective recruiting operations, but increasing help for students seeking other career paths has continued to be a challenge. Hamilton-Chandler commented in May that the addition of a new position — the assistant director for arts, nonprofit and public sector — had helped in those efforts.

The job advertisement calls for the new Executive Director to “strengthen and expand partnerships with a wide stakeholder base of outside constituencies including employers from all industry sectors.”

The announcement specified that the University is seeking for someone with “experience in higher education, commercial or social enterprise, [or] government or professional services,” with at least a bachelor's degree. It also stated that candidates should have progressive management experience involving liberal arts students and recent graduates, as well as the skills to establish new institutional relationships and professional networks, reach high standards of employee effectiveness and manage budgets.

Christopher Burkmar ’00, the executive director for planning and administration in the Office of the Vice President for Campus Life, will be staffing the position. He declined to be interviewed.

The search is led by Chuck O'Boyle of C.V. O'Boyle, LLC, a consulting firm that specializes in searches for higher education talent. O'Boyle declined to comment.