FloridaACE 2026

At New College of Florida, “Careers in Weeks” is a three-day micro-series that builds career readiness through immersive industry exposure and transferable skill development. Each short-format series focuses on a career field such as pre-health, finance and technology, education, or the arts, while pairing practical skill-building activities with reflective exercises that connect students’ academic pathways to professional opportunities. Developed collaboratively by career services staff, faculty, alumni, and local employers, these modules foster career confidence, expand access for underrepresented and international students, and reinforce the relevance of liberal arts education. By embedding career programming into existing campus rhythms, “Careers in Weeks” encourages participation from students who may not self-select into traditional career events. Attendees of this session will learn how to design and implement similar high-impact, equity-minded micro-series at their own institutions, leveraging limited resources while advancing student engagement, retention, and recruitment.

Hackathons/Buildathons are often perceived as resource-intensive, yet they can be quickly implemented as high-impact, career-focused experiences. This session introduces a scalable model for launching campus hackathons/buildathons in as little as three hours to two days using Base44. Designed for FloridaACE professionals, this presentation highlights how hackathons can drive student engagement, build AI and digital skills, and connect experiential learning to career readiness outcomes. Attendees will learn best practices for planning and facilitating hackathons across disciplines, engaging non-technical students, and aligning events with employer needs. Real examples of student-built tools—such as healthcare management systems and small business solutions—will be shared to demonstrate impact. Participants will leave with a clear framework, actionable resources, and strategies to implement hackathons on their campuses, enhancing student outcomes, employer engagement, and innovative programming across career services and higher education.

Career services professionals are using AI; however, impact depends on strategic, efficient, and responsible application. This session offers practical, human-centered approaches to integrating intelligent tools across student support and operations. We’ll demonstrate how AI can help students clarify skills, explore pathways, and take confident next steps through intentional prompting and structured workflows. We’ll also show how AI streamlines program planning, synthesizes advising notes to support staff reflection, and aligns services with institutional and state priorities, translating data into actionable decisions. Attendees will engage in facilitated small group work to co-create adaptable prompts and microworkflows, contributing examples to a shared resource hub for continued collaboration.  Highlights: include real use cases (e.g., Copilot, Quinncia, labor market tools) and peer-tested prompts. 

What if your most powerful career center resource is not more staff but stronger partnerships? Career centers are often expected to deliver high-impact programming with small teams. This session explores how collaboration with campus and community partners helps small teams expand capacity and create engaging student experiences. Using examples from collaborative events, presenters will share how campus and community partners help bring programming to life through interactive tables and activities that support career exploration, transfer planning, job readiness, and career-ready competencies. By sharing expertise and working together, small teams can create dynamic experiences that would be difficult to deliver alone. Interactive formats such as games and themed tables create a welcoming environment where students naturally connect with partners and conversations happen organically. This approach encourages participation, reduces the pressure often associated with networking, and helps students engage more comfortably with career development topics. Participants will engage in collaborative brainstorming activities to generate ideas for partnership-driven programming and interactive engagement and leave with practical strategies for building partnerships and designing engaging career programming that can be adapted at their own institutions.

Career services teams and early talent recruiters are sitting on a goldmine of data, from student engagement and event attendance to application funnels and hiring outcomes. However, often these insights don’t translate into action, nor are they leveraged to achieve influence for securing resources, demonstrating impact, or building stronger partnerships. During this fast-paced, highly interactive workshop, participants will learn how to transform data reports and charts into clear, persuasive stories that influence decisions, strengthen campus–employer partnerships, and improve outcomes for students and hiring teams alike. Rather than focusing on complex analytics, this session zeroes in on what matters most: clarity, relevance, and impact. As part of the session, participants will learn a creative approach and practice turning messy or simple metrics into a focused narrative that answers the key question every stakeholder is asking: “So what?" and "What should we do next?”

In Fall 2025, Florida Gulf Coast University launched its first-ever Internship Week—an innovative, campus-wide initiative designed to strengthen internship culture and connect students with meaningful experiential learning. Led by the Office of Internships & Cooperative Programs, the week brought together students, faculty, staff, and employers through targeted events that highlighted pathways to career readiness. The initiative significantly increased student awareness of internship support and became a signature engagement effort on campus. Notably, this work also positioned FGCU ahead of the curve as the university later selected internships as its SUS Metric 10 priority, reinforcing the long-term value of intentional experiential learning programming. This session will share the strategies, partnerships, and lessons learned from building Internship Week from the ground up.

Large-scale career fairs can be exciting—but also overwhelming—for students navigating high expectations, crowded environments, and performance pressure. This 30-minute roundtable will explore an innovative Standard Operating Procedure: the Care Spotter Team model implemented at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University during the Spring Career Fair and Fall Career EXPO. Participants will learn how cross-campus collaboration between the Center for Career and Professional Development, the ERAU Counseling Center, and trained Eagle-2-Eagle peer supporters creates a proactive response system for students experiencing mental health events or physical distress.

The discussion will outline identification protocols, peer-to-peer de-escalation strategies, escort procedures, and the implementation of a “Rest & Re-Set Room” equipped with calming resources and on-site professional staff. Attendees will engage in dialogue about staffing models, training considerations, risk management, and scalable implementation strategies. This session is ideal for institutions seeking to intentionally integrate well-being, belonging, and student-centered care into high-impact recruiting events.

As early-career hiring continues to evolve, employers and career development professionals are seeing shifts in interview expectations, candidate readiness, and communication skills. This roundtable will examine what employers currently seek in early-career talent, the interview questions being used across industries, and how students are performing in real-world interview settings. Participants will explore emerging student strengths, common challenges and habits that hinder interview success, and practical strategies institutions and employer partners can use to better prepare students for today's hiring landscape. Emphasis will be placed on collaboration between career services and employer relations teams to align student preparation with workforce expectations and support stronger interview outcomes for the next generation of talent.

Today's career decision making process is influenced by rapidly changing labor markets, competitive academic environments, and societal pressure to achieve. These factors may intensify student stress, burnout, and self doubt which directly shape how students select majors, engage in career exploration, and build professional identities. This roundtable will examine the deeply interconnected relationship between student well-being and career development in higher education. Career development professionals play a significant role in creating environments that support not only student career success but also student career wellbeing. By focusing more on building a supportive career development, higher education institutions can help this next generation navigate their paths with confidence, clarity, and resilience.The session invites participants to collectively rethink advising practices, program design, and collaboration strategies that contribute to a supportive career development ecosystem. Through shared dialogue, participants will explore approaches that emphasize balance, purpose, and student well-being related to the career decision-making process.

OBBBA is now law, and career centers across Florida are racing to figure out what "demonstrated experiential learning" and "measurable career outcomes" actually require in practice. Most directors are still building the answer in real time. This roundtable convenes career services leaders for a tactical exchange: what counts as experiential learning under the new requirements, how are you tracking it, what audit trail are you building, and where are your current systems most exposed? Facilitated by Rahul Jindal, the conversation draws on lessons from 200+ career center director interviews to surface concrete approaches institutions are already piloting. Participants leave with a working checklist of what to track, what to document, and what to fix before the next academic year. Bring one question, one example, and one challenge from your campus.

While many career centers are expanding digital learning opportunities, there are continued barriers in scaling recognition and tracking completion in meaningful ways. This roundtable will explore how one team designed and implemented an automated certificate workflow that delivers completion certificates to students after finishing asynchronous career development modules. Participants will engage in a discussion on tools, integrations, and process design, including platforms like Qualtrics and PDF generation solutions, to better understand how to streamline credentialing while reducing manual work. Attendees will share their own approaches (or challenges) with issuing certificates, micro-credentials, and tracking engagement. Together, we will identify scalable strategies, common pitfalls, and opportunities to enhance student motivation and program visibility through automation.

This engaging roundtable discussion invites participants into a high-impact conversation on how partnerships with businesses, organizations, and nonprofits are transforming student mentoring beyond traditional advising models. Together, we will explore how employer-led and student-focused mentoring creates powerful hands-on learning experiences, expands professional networks, builds student confidence, and accelerates career readiness. Attendees will actively exchange ideas, challenges, and proven strategies for designing, sustaining, and scaling mentoring partnerships that meaningfully connect students to real-world opportunities. This session is ideal for professionals seeking innovative, practical approaches to employer engagement that guide students from the classroom to the community. Expect actionable insights, shared successes, and collaborative problem-solving in an idea-rich discussion designed to spark new connections and amplify student success.

In an era where “doing more with less” has become an expectation rather than an exception, burnout in higher education is no longer a risk, it’s often inevitable. For career services professionals, expanding responsibilities, constant urgency, and growing student needs can quietly erode capacity, creativity, and purpose. This roundtable reframes the conversation from managing overload to intentionally doing less with clarity and impact. Participants will engage in candid discussion about how unchecked work demands affect effectiveness and how strategic decision making, prioritization, and boundary setting can protect both staff well-being and institutional outcomes. Rather than focusing on balance as a destination, this session invites participants to reflect on how work can better support life and how leaders and teams can reclaim control over their time and energy.

MyCareerCloset in partnership with USF present: Professional attire is more than appearance. It affects confidence, access, and employer perception. This roundtable will explore how institutions can move beyond traditional donation closets to build scalable, sustainable, and equitable professional attire strategies. Participants will discuss implementation models, funding pathways, employer partnerships, and ways to position attire access as a core part of career readiness. Attendees will leave with practical ideas for piloting or strengthening a campus approach that supports students while improving recruiting outcomes and institutional visibility. 

This session highlights the design and launch of a three‑day Career Trek to Tampa created for Pre‑Law students through a cross‑departmental partnership between the Rollins Center for Career and Life Planning and the Immersion Programs team within the Center for Leadership & Community Engagement. Attendees will learn how the program was conceptualized, planned, and marketed, how site visits and professional experiences were curated, and how intentional collaboration expanded both funding possibilities and student engagement. The presentation will offer practical insights into building immersive, interest‑specific career experiences, including strategies for identifying host organizations, crafting a balanced weekend itinerary, and working with companies that serve a range of student interests. Participants will leave with a replicable model and adaptable strategies that can support innovative programming, strengthen partnerships, and deepen students’ real‑world exposure.

Career offices at any-sized school are often challenged by limited staff and resources, many of which we know will not increase in the future. Instead of pushing for outside resources, have we considered looking within our offices and colleges? This session challenges the idea that student employees serve only as front desk support or event staff, and instead positions them as strategic contributors to the work of career services. At Eckerd College, through intensive training and established trust, our student employees are tasked and run programs such as peer advising, industry research, job procurement, marketing and content creation, blog writing, professional headshots, and mentorship program support. This drastically increases the work of 3 full-time staff members to include a team of 10. Reimagining student employment as work-based learning, allows career services staff to develop critical skills for the workforce for their students, as well as letting career centers to expand capacity while empowering students as active partners in career development. This model not only enhances office operations but also creates meaningful professional development opportunities for our student staff.