Career Services Wins National Career Spark Award

It started as a simple goal: get everybody at CSN talking about Handshake. Fast-forward a few years, and that “simple goal” just earned CSN a national honor.

The College of Southern Nevada has officially been named a Handshake Career Spark Award winner, placing us in the top 2% of more than 1,500 colleges and universities nationwide for student and employer engagement. Not bad for a project that began from scratch.

“We are thrilled to be ranked among the top 2% of schools because we started this from scratch,” said Dr. Jonathan Wright, Director of Career Services. “It took us three years to build the infrastructure, culture, and reporting that highlights the ongoing work being done across CSN. I am more excited for the Career Services staff to be nationally recognized for their hard work.”

The journey began with a campuswide push to make Handshake a familiar name. By the end of Year 1, it was part of the daily conversation. Faculty used it. Students checked it. Staff recommended it. The momentum was real.

Year 2 was all about profile completion — because students with finished profiles are seven times more likely to be contacted by employers. With a coordinated effort, Career Services helped more than 4,000 students complete their profiles in one year.

Then came a bold step: Career Services introduced the First Destination Survey to track graduate outcomes. CSN became the only institution in Southern Nevada using Handshake this way, and the data spoke for itself.

With strong student engagement, employer activity, and robust reporting, Handshake recognized CSN as one of the top-performing career services programs in the country.

A huge congratulations to the entire Career Services team for putting CSN on the national map, one Handshake at a time.