Switching

From Symplicity to Career Forge

Symplicity 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.

The short answer

Move if your career center wants one product shaped to its process, with fairs, invoicing and badge printing in the box. Stay if the campus is standardising several offices on Symplicity, or a program depends on its separate co-op products and REST API.

What changes

One product instead of a suiteSymplicity sells CSM alongside Advocate, Accommodate, Residence Life and Student Engagement. Career Forge is the career center's system only; if other offices use Symplicity products, they keep them.Symplicity: home page

Fair invoicing and badges are part of the eventSymplicity added an invoice payment workflow for fair registrants and offers kiosk and QR check-in for employers; badge printing is not described on its site. Career Forge invoices every registration and its iPad kiosk prints student and recruiter badges.Symplicity blog: CSM 9.8, 10 February 2026

Experiential learning flows are built step by stepSymplicity's experiential learning module has forms, approval workflows and evaluations. Career Forge lets the center define each step, its actor and its questions, and assemble several flows for different programs or terms.Symplicity CSM (product page)

Your data comes out as reports, not a projectSymplicity says clients can extract data at any time through its reporting engine and that a full data dump is a professional service. In Career Forge the report builder exports raw data on demand.Symplicity: for university IT and security departments

Leaving Symplicity is a dated stepIts IT page says a client may request immediate data removal at the end of the contract with 30 days' notice, and backups cycle out within 35 days. Plan the export before giving notice.Symplicity: for university IT and security departments

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 a move runs, and the first term

When Symplicity is the right choice to keep

Symplicity's value is breadth and tenure: one vendor across the campus, with a long record.

Other campus offices on the same vendor's products
Separate co-op and internship management products where a program needs them
1,500+ universities and 25 years of product history, by its own account

Career Forge vs Symplicity, side by side

Questions people ask

Students, imported from a roster and signing in through the university's identity provider; your employer list; staff, coaches and topics. Events are created fresh. Symplicity's IT page says data can be extracted through its reporting engine at any time; bring those exports to the call.

Yes. Career Forge is the career center's system. Advocate, Accommodate, Residence Life and Student Engagement are separate products and are not affected.

Its IT page says a client may request immediate data removal at the end of the contract with 30 days' notice, that backups cycle out within 35 days, and that a full data dump is a professional service. Plan the export before giving notice.