When Jeffrey Selingo was interviewing for his first full-time journalism position after college in 1995, he was riding back from lunch with the editor when the editor pulled the classic newspaper interview test — dropping him off in downtown Wilmington, N.C., with a four-hour deadline to come back with a story to file. 

“I wanted to see how well you could navigate the ambiguity of the situation,” Selingo recalled the editor telling him. He filed a story and was hired for the job, which laid the groundwork for becoming a published author. In a similar way, liberal arts colleges must do a better job of preparing their students for the ambiguity of the working world, says Selingo, author of “There Is Life After College.” 

Selingo spoke recently at a conference hosted by Grinnell College, “Purposeful Lives and Meaningful Work: Preparing Students to Thrive After College.” College career center administrators and student advisers from 37 liberal arts colleges around the country attended the conference, a testimony to how much brainpower small colleges are devoting to the topic. 

Grinnell College is among an increasing number of small liberal arts colleges that have thoughtfully reimagined the traditional career center approach. The college in 2014 launched its Center for Careers, Life and Service, a network of seven career-focused learning communities. About 300 Grinnell students now participate in one or more of the learning communities. 

The approach dovetails with the findings of Selingo’s research, which builds on the increasing conviction among education leaders that students are spending too much time and effort on getting into and paying for college, and little to what happens once they get in. 

“Too many kids go off to college thinking, ‘As long as I get that piece of paper, I’m going to be golden in this job market,’ ” Selingo said. “Really, what my book finds is that’s no longer true — it’s what you do in college, the courses you take, the majors you decide to take on, the other types of experiential learning you do, that actually end up being much more important in the job market than the degree itself.” 

To encourage better engagement, Grinnell has instituted a policy of assigning three advisers to each student — a faculty adviser, a career adviser and a residential adviser. 

The approach impressed Selingo, who has traveled extensively to all sizes of college campuses nationwide. “The fact of the matter is, no one person can really provide students with all they need, so I’m very impressed with this idea of a three-person advising corps,” he said. 

Navigating the job market is considerably different from how it used to be. In his presentation, Selingo noted that Google now has more contract and freelance workers than it does full-time employees — and among U.S. employers freelance work has increased by more than 50 percent in the past decade. 

“So employees are going to have to learn how to self-direct their learning throughout their lifetime. It’s going to be critically important to us to help students develop these skills while they’re still in college.”  

In his research for his latest book, Selingo found that in a study of 20 million online job ads, three-quarters of the ads had just 25 skills that appeared across all industries, and the top five were remarkably similar themes of communication/writing, organizational skills and problem-solving. Employers specifically list those “navigational” skills because they’re no longer assured that they’re embedded in the degree, he said.  
“In many ways, the modern work world looks a lot like a preschool classroom, where curiosity, sharing and negotiating are front and center,” Selingo said. 

Grinnell College provides an environment for building those navigational skills. 

Among the faculty who lead the seven learning communities at Grinnell is Mike Lawrence, a former oil company executive whom the college recruited to lead the new Business and Finance Community. Lawrence held senior positions with Exxon-Mobil and BP and most recently worked with several graduate business school programs. 

“I think Grinnell is really in a leadership position [with the communities],” said Lawrence, who was hired last summer. “While the communities are newer, one of the key things I looked for when I came here was that that the work we’re doing with the CLS is a strategic part of the college, and that’s important. That kind of support [from the trustees and administration] makes a big difference.” 

Early on, freshmen can meet with exploratory teams from the seven communities as part of the advising process, and have the option to join or leave communities as their interests evolve. The Business and Finance Community has about 80 students participating currently, he said. 

The Center for Careers, Life and Service, which now has 22 advisers on staff, was originally developed as part of Grinnell’s strategic planning process in 2012, said Mark Peltz, the center’s dean. 

A primary goal is getting students engaged in “high-impact” experiences, Peltz said. “It’s really about building a portfolio of experiences before graduation.” 

An element that Grinnell added with the CLS is an Employer Engagement Team that coordinates with employers ranging from local businesses to multinational corporations to bring representatives to campus. That team is led by Kelly Harris.

“For decades, Grinnell didn’t have anyone dedicated to cultivating relationships with employers,” Peltz said. “Now we have a leader and a team dedicated to that.”

Lawrence noted that students in his community who were anthropology majors have landed positions with leading firms such as McKinsey Consulting. Another graduate of the Business and Finance Community who double-majored in music and economics accepted an offer with health care software company Epic Systems Corp. 

“Personally, in my community, one of the biggest opportunities is to really teach the students how to tell that compelling career story,” Lawrence said. “Technology is changing things so quickly — it’s a matter of how do you present your story, and how you’re going to be a lifelong learner for that company or industry that makes you attractive.”