Everyone is talking about e-guidance and lots of us are doing it, but it doesn’t get a very good press. It seems to be something we do reluctantly, a poor third cousin to face-to-face guidance and even telephone guidance interviews. And actually, it’s not hard to see why we advisers don’t like it very much.
Firstly, it can be painfully slow. A student writes “I’m a history student graduating in June and I need to get a job, but not really sure what I want to do. Can you help?” The usual ‘exploration’ phase of the interview is highly problematic by e-mail. It is always a delicate balance between giving information (risking being irrelevant) and asking lots of questions to probe and clarify (risking opening up so many cans of worms that even a flock of hungry seagulls over two generations couldn’t deal with all of them!).
Secondly, misunderstandings seem to happen much more often. Of course, we are very aware that with e-mail there are no visual cues – no body language, no facial expressions or tone of voice. There’s little in the way of substance to help you get to know a person. But I think the lack of immediacy is also an exacerbating factor here. If you write “What do I need to do to get a job at the BBC?”, are you asking for information about the BBC’s recruitment methods or do you mean “Darn it, I’m so frustrated! I’ve tried everything to get a job in that bloomin’ organisation and nothing’s working. The whole world’s against me!” [cont...]
[...cont] If we were having a ‘real’ conversation, I could just ask you to clarify. Or I could inquire tentatively whether you were perhaps feeling a little frustrated. Either way, I’d probably get to the crux of the matter pretty quickly. And even if I was having an off day and jumped to the wrong conclusion initially, you would have a chance to set me straight within seconds. Not so with e-guidance.
OK so it’s a bit clunky.
But it is still great to be able to offer something for students (or graduates) who can’t make it onto campus. And we’ve talked about the video interviewing option via Skype or other technology (and by the way I want to pick up on your very interesting comments on this rather belatedly in a blog post soon)… But what if there was a ‘cheap dirty option’ which wouldn’t require any fancy technology but was quicker than e-mail?
Well… what about instant messaging? In the US, some careers services already use software which has instant messaging functionality for guidance purposes. At the University of Florida, for example, careers counsellors use a piece of software by the name of ‘Live Chat‘, developed by a company called ‘LivePerson‘, which specialises in customer service solutions for businesses.
In a careers context, students can click on a button on the careers service website which says something like “Chat live to a careers counselor” and then do just that.
The University of Florida has one of its careers advisers ‘on duty’ from home each evening providing ‘instant’ careers information, advice and guidance online in between watching their favourite sitcom or putting the kids to bed. When the adviser gets a ‘chat request’ their computer will ring like a phone, and they’ll drag themselves away from whatever they’re doing and check to see where their caller is coming from and start chatting.
Oh and it also has a customisable database of FAQs and stock (but modifiable) ‘answers’ or text that the adviser can send through to avoid trigger finger (or client boredom!), called ‘Knowledgebase‘.
Progress or brave new world? What do you think?
I spend large chunks of my job doing e-guidance and agree it can be a bit clunky – I often email questions back to them first and then work from there – but if they are reading thier email regularly, you can get quite a chatter, which does seem to work. It is a bit like messenger with ‘thinking’ pauses. Messenger requires to to work a bit harder/more intensively as long pauses make you wonder if they are still there. I can also go away and do some research on a topic and then get back to the client before responding, which can be a more satisfying response all round.
It is certainly progress though. My client base are worldwide and I think I probably work with clients who wouldn’t normally get in touch or ask questions they feel a bit self-contious about.
Hi. Instant messaging and stock/template answers are a great way forward. Keep persevering. I find Skype a really useful tool for this (no don;t work for them and am not on commission!) as it lets me do IM and, if necessary, follow-up calls and I can keep a record of both. Sometimes I even prefer the ‘remote’ to the face-to-face for a better quality of response but that’s too long for here so I’ll do a post and link across. Keep going!
[...] Does e-guidance work as well as face-to-face? That is the question posed over here. It’s a fair question but what’s the yardstick? Has anyone measured the general [...]