Building a Vertical AI Agent for Career Services: Connecting Every Student to Opportunity
Career services teams strive to prepare every student for professional success. A purpose-built AI agent can extend career guidance to more students while maintaining personalized support.
The Career Services Challenge
Career services faces a fundamental capacity problem:
- Scale: Thousands of students, each with unique goals, backgrounds, and needs
- Timing: Students often engage too late—senior year rather than freshman year
- Equity: Students with existing professional networks get more guidance than those who need it most
- Industry Evolution: Career pathways change faster than static resources can capture
- Measurement: Outcomes happen after graduation, making it hard to optimize interventions
Career counselors can provide exceptional support when they meet with students. The problem is reaching every student who would benefit—not just those who seek help.
What a Career Services Agent Does
A vertical AI agent for career services extends career guidance to every student, at every stage, while freeing counselors for high-value conversations.
Career Exploration Support
Early in their journey, students need to explore:
Interest Assessment: Interactive exploration of interests, values, and strengths that informs career direction.
Career Path Information: "What can I do with a sociology degree?" answered with labor market data, alumni outcomes, and realistic expectations.
Major Connection: Understanding how academic choices connect to career possibilities.
Industry Awareness: For students from backgrounds with limited professional exposure, introducing industries and roles they might not have encountered.
Job Search Preparation
As students prepare to enter the workforce:
Resume Assistance: Review and feedback on resumes, tailored to target roles and industries. Not writing for students, but helping them improve their own materials.
Interview Preparation: Practice questions, feedback on responses, and guidance on professional presentation.
Job Search Strategy: Where to look, how to network, what timeline to follow.
Application Tracking: Help students stay organized as they manage multiple applications.
Opportunity Matching
Connecting students with opportunities:
Job and Internship Recommendations: Based on student interests, qualifications, and goals, surface relevant opportunities.
Event Recommendations: Career fairs, employer info sessions, networking events aligned with student interests.
Alumni Connections: When appropriate, facilitate connections with alumni in target fields.
Ongoing Development
Career development continues after the first job:
Alumni Engagement: Career support for alumni navigating career changes or advancement.
Skills Development: Recommendations for continued learning aligned with career goals.
Labor Market Updates: Information about evolving industries and emerging opportunities.
Memory Architecture
Career agents require comprehensive understanding of both students and opportunities:
Student Profile Memory
Academic background, interests, experiences, career goals, and application history. This builds over time through interactions.Career Pathway Memory
What paths are available? What do they require? What do alumni from various paths report about their experiences?Labor Market Memory
Current and projected demand, salary ranges, required qualifications, and industry trends.Employer Memory
Relationships with employers, their hiring patterns, and what they seek in candidates.Platform Integrations
Career services connects multiple information sources:
Career Services Platform
Handshake, 12Twenty, or other career platforms. The agent integrates with job postings, events, and student engagement data.Student Information System (SIS)
Academic records that inform qualification assessment and graduation timing.Alumni Database
Career outcomes data and alumni willingness to connect with students.Labor Market Data
External sources providing job market intelligence.Employer CRM
Information about employer relationships and recruiting activity.LMS and Experiential Learning
Records of relevant coursework, projects, and experiences.Student Experience
For students, the agent should feel like having a career guide always available:
Available When Needed: Career questions arise at midnight before applications are due. The agent is there.
Personalized: Recommendations based on their specific situation, not generic advice.
Progressive: Guidance appropriate to their career stage—different for freshmen exploring than seniors applying.
Connected: When deeper support is needed, seamless connection to counselors with full context.
Counselor Experience
For career counselors, the agent should amplify their impact:
Extended Reach: Students who would never schedule an appointment still get career guidance.
Meeting Preparation: When students do meet with counselors, context is already gathered.
Focus on High-Value Work: Spend time on complex cases, employer relationships, and programming—not routine questions.
Outcome Visibility: Better understanding of student engagement and career development.
Equity Focus
Career services has particular equity implications:
Leveling the Field
Students with professional networks already have access to career information and connections. The agent can provide similar support to first-generation students and others without those networks.Proactive Outreach
Don't wait for students to seek career services. Use engagement data to identify students who might benefit and reach out.Bias Awareness
Career pathways have been shaped by historical patterns of access and discrimination. The agent should expand possibilities, not reinforce limitations.Accessibility
Not all students can attend office hours or career fairs. The agent provides flexible access to career guidance.Building on the Right Foundation
Career data includes sensitive information about student aspirations and job searches. The platform foundation matters.
Data Sovereignty
Student career data—goals, applications, outcomes—should remain under institutional control.LLM Flexibility
Language models for resume review and conversation continue to evolve. An LLM-agnostic platform allows:- Using appropriate models for different tasks
- Upgrading as capabilities improve
- Controlling costs appropriately
- Maintaining vendor independence
Code Ownership
When your team builds custom matching algorithms, engagement workflows, or career pathway models, that intellectual property should belong to your institution.Implementation Approach
Career services agent implementation should extend reach incrementally:
Phase 1: Information and Exploration
Deploy an agent that answers career questions and supports exploration. This extends access to career guidance.Phase 2: Preparation Support
Add resume review, interview practice, and job search strategy assistance.Phase 3: Opportunity Matching
Implement personalized job and event recommendations.Phase 4: Proactive Engagement
Reach out to students who haven't engaged with career services but could benefit.Working Together
Effective implementation requires partnership:
Forward-deployed engineers who understand both technology and career development, working alongside your career counselors.
Domain practitioners who understand career counseling, employer relations, and student development.
Counselor involvement in defining what guidance is appropriate for automation.
Continuous improvement based on student outcomes and counselor feedback.
The Opportunity
Career success after graduation is a core promise of higher education. Career services teams that can reach every student—not just those who seek help—will better deliver on that promise.
AI agents make universal career guidance possible. The key is building on foundations that keep the institution in control and focus on student success.
*Universities exploring career services AI should prioritize platforms that offer full data control, integration with career platforms, and implementation partnerships that understand career development. The goal is connecting every student to opportunity—not replacing the human guidance that helps students navigate complex career decisions.*
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