Switching
Moving your career center to Career Forge
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 moves over
| 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. |
How long it takes
From kickoff to go-live, implementation runs about three to four months for a typical career center, and most of that runs in parallel. The clock that matters is your calendar: plan the move back from the first event you want on the new system.
- Kickoff and data in the first weeks: students, employers, picklists and single sign-on.
- Staff training over about six weeks, scheduled around your calendar, with recordings.
- A testing pass on your most common workflows before anyone outside the team sees it.
- Students first, employers a couple of weeks later; the old system goes off once students have pulled what they need from it.
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
Coming from a specific system
SwitchingFrom HandshakeHandshake is a national network: employers post once to many schools, students hold accounts of their own, and each school configures its corner of a shared system.What changesSwitchingFrom SymplicitySymplicity CSM is a career services manager from a vendor with products across the campus, configured per institution and keeping each school's own employer and student data.What changesSwitchingFrom 12twenty12twenty is a university-first platform with a shared job network and a strong outcomes-reporting hub, used by undergraduate, business and law programs.What changesCompareCareer Forge vs HandshakeHandshake is a national network: employers post once to many schools, and students hold accounts of their own. Career Forge is configured for one institution, with your own employers, your approval rules and your data.Side by sideCompareCareer Forge vs SymplicitySymplicity CSM is a career services manager from a vendor with products across the campus, configured per institution and keeping each school's own data. Career Forge covers the same career-center work in one product, configured per institution by a smaller team.Side by sideCompareCareer Forge vs 12twenty12twenty is a university-first platform with a shared job network and a strong outcomes-reporting hub, used by undergraduate, business and law programs. Career Forge keeps employers, approvals and data per institution and runs the fair itself, invoicing and check-in included.Side by side
Plan the move with us
Bring your current system's exports to the call; we will say what comes across.
