Implementation

From contract to first term

A move to Career Forge is mostly a data question and a term's worth of habit. Here is how it runs, from the help centre's setup guides and the customers who have done it.

How a move runs

1
Set up the institution
Branding, the picklists students and employers choose from (majors, school years, position types, work authorizations, degree levels), the profile fields you want, single sign-on, and the staff who see across every career center. Done once, with us, in the first week.
2
Set up each career center
Its staff and their permissions, its coaching topics, locations and booking limits, its email templates and payment methods. A second career center on the same campus repeats only this step.
3
Load the data
Students from a roster export, employers and recruiters from your list. Students sign in with the university account they already have.
4
Build the first event and connect the coaches
An event setup session walks your team through sessions, questions, packages and pricing on a real event; a jobs session covers posting and review. Coaches connect their calendars and set availability.
5
Launch to students, then employers
Students first, with a welcome page on your own site and the sign-in they already have; employers a couple of weeks later, before the first registration opens. The launch section below covers what comes with the platform for that.
6
Keep a standing call
Every customer has a recurring check-in with the team that builds the product. Bugs and ideas also go in from inside the app, and customers see them fixed.

Launching to students and employers

The part of a move that worries people most is not the data. It is the first weeks of the term, when students and employers meet the new system. What comes with the platform for that:

Copy, flyers and logo files you can useThe help centre's Brand & Asset Hub has the Career Forge logos, approved one-line and short descriptions, and the colours, for your career services pages, student and employer emails, event graphics and slides.

No new accounts for studentsStudents sign in through the university's single sign-on, so the first thing a student does on the new system is register for an event or book a coach, not create a password.

Help centres for students and recruitersCareer Forge keeps a help centre for students and one for recruiters, so your team is not writing how-to guides for the new system during its busiest term.

Training before the term, not during itStaff training runs over about six weeks before go-live, scheduled around your calendar, with a recording and a recap after each session.

A weekly call through the launchA standing 30-minute call with the team that builds the product, weekly through the launch weeks and monthly after that, so what comes up in the first weeks is handled while it is small.

Students first, employers nextLaunch students a couple of weeks before employers, so the student side is settled before the first registration opens. A welcome page on your own site, linked from the places students already look, does most of the announcing.

What moves over

A switch is mostly a data question. Here is what comes across, from the help center, and what to decide with us on the call.

What	How
Students	Imported from a roster with the Candidate Data Import, with majors, school years and degree levels mapped to your picklists. Single sign-on means nobody gets a new password.
Employers and recruiters	Loaded from your list, so the employers you work with are in place before the first event opens.
Events	Set up fresh in Career Forge. An event is a few screens, and a copied event carries its questions and options to the next one.
Staff, coaches and topics	Created in the staff portal during setup, with each coach's topics, availability and calendar sync.
History	Past appointments, postings and registrations are not imported by default. Tell us what you need to keep, and we will say what can be loaded and what should stay as an export.

Switching from Handshake, Symplicity or 12twenty

If you start with check-in and badge printing

The one-time setup is the hardware: label each iPad and printer as a pair, install the kiosk app, pair the printer over Bluetooth, log in and load the badge template. Before each event, create the event, upload the employers, and load the data onto the iPads. On the day: power on, connect, confirm the event, do one test check-in.

The first term

Your first event, set up with us, is the first thing students and employers see
Coaches start taking appointments as soon as their calendars are connected
The job board opens once your approval rules are set
Students and employers find their way in from your own pages, like the schools above

In their words

After launch, in their words

“We haven't had any questions or complaints, not even a “what do I do”. In past systems, brand-new students would ask how to get in and what to do. We haven't had any of that.”