This is a book for any student affairs professional who wants to strategically shape his or her career path—and will be particularly helpful for people in early or mid-career, or contemplating a career, in student affairs.By engagingly offering us the fruits of the reflective and strategic approach she has used to shape her own career, and of the theoretical and practical approaches she has undertaken to map out the culture and dynamics of student affairs, and by gathering the voices of 25 professionals who offer the insights and advice derived from their own experiences, Sonja Ardoin has created a guide for everyone in student affairs who wants to be intentional in setting the course for their professional and personal development.She begins by describing the changing and varied student populations who are the heart of this field, and outlines the typical organizational structures of student affairs, the range of functional areas, and how practice varies by size and type of institution. She highlights major trends, discusses the typical paths of entry to the profession, the expectations and realities of starting in a new position, the process of socialization, and the required skills and competencies. She devotes the core of the book to the five key elements for developing a career strategy: Lifelong Learning, Extending Your Experiences, Planning for Professional Development, Networking/Connecting, and Self-Reflection, and provides advice on the job search, from application through interview. In doing so she ranges over choices to be made about formal qualifications, and describes activities – from volunteering and committee work to conference presentations, writing and teaching – that we can use to strategically develop the proficiencies to attain our goals.

This is a book for any student affairs professional who wants to strategically shape his or her career path--and will be particularly helpful for people in early or mid-career, or contemplating a career, in student affairs.By engagingly offering us the fruits of the reflective and strategic approach she has used to shape her own career, and of the theoretical and practical approaches she has undertaken to map out the culture and dynamics of student affairs, and by gathering the voices of 25 professionals who offer the insights and advice derived from their own experiences, Sonja Ardoin has created a guide for everyone in student affairs who wants to be intentional in setting the course for their professional and personal development.She begins by describing the changing and varied student populations who are the heart of this field, and outlines the typical organizational structures of student affairs, the range of functional areas, and how practice varies by size and type of institution. She highlights major trends, discusses the typical paths of entry to the profession, the expectations and realities of starting in a new position, the process of socialization, and the required skills and competencies. She devotes the core of the book to the five key elements for developing a career strategy: Lifelong Learning, Extending Your Experiences, Planning for Professional Development, Networking/Connecting, and Self-Reflection, and provides advice on the job search, from application through interview. In doing so she ranges over choices to be made about formal qualifications, and describes activities - from volunteering and committee work to conference presentations, writing and teaching - that we can use to strategically develop the proficiencies to attain our goals.

Co-published with This groundbreaking book examines a concept that has gone unexamined for too long: The concept of “job fit” in the student affairs profession. Fit is a term used by nearly everyone in student affairs throughout the hiring process, from search committees and hiring managers to supervisors and HR professionals. This book opens a conversation about the use of “job fit” as a tool for exclusion that needs to be critically investigated from multiple standpoints.This edited collection brings together a number of voices to look at the issues involved through various lenses to explore the ways policies, procedures, environments, and cultural norms provide inequitable job search experiences for individuals from various marginalized groups. These include looking at the legal aspects, employer definitions, communication barriers, as well as scholarly personal narratives looking at the concept from the perspective of class, race, gender and sexual orientation.Emerging from the Commission for Social Justice of ACPA, the personal narratives and critical explorations in this book are an attempt to provide graduate students and professionals with a resource that is relevant to the job search in an increasingly competitive job market, while taking into account the complex realities of their identities. The normative assumptions of “fit” are analyzed by the authors to make visible the barriers those assumptions create for those with non-dominant identities.The student affairs profession strives for inclusion and acceptance as a core value, and an essential competency. The profession has made progress in the way it serves students, but there is a disconnect between the conversation about students and the way those same values play out in the treatment of practitioners and scholars in the field. This book aims to help job seekers looking to evaluate fit in their current and possible future positions, as well as hiring managers who face challenges in creating equitable hiring processes.Challenging the norms and rhetoric about job fit in student affairs means that scholars and practitioners alike must be able to incorporate this topic explicitly into various aspects of the profession.