Employer engagement intentionally connects students with professionals, workplaces, and authentic industry perspectives throughout their academic experience. These experiences help students understand how classroom learning applies in professional settings while allowing employers to contribute directly to student learning and workforce preparation.
Employer engagement exists along a continuum. Some experiences provide brief exposure to careers and professionals, while others immerse students in authentic workplace challenges and allow employers to provide direct feedback on student performance.
Research consistently demonstrates that meaningful interactions with employers improve students' career readiness and post-graduation success. While immersive experiences such as internships often produce the strongest outcomes, lower-intensity experiences also play an important role by helping students explore career options, build professional networks, understand employer expectations, and increase motivation for learning.
Employer engagement benefits students by:
At UNT Dallas, our aspiration is that every student experiences a range of experiences. To guide planning, activities have been grouped as either High-Intensity experiences or Low-Intensity experiences.
High-intensity employer engagement refers to learning experiences embedded within an academic program where students complete authentic work connected to an external organization and receive meaningful feedback from professionals in that organization.
Examples include:
Low-intensity employer engagement consists of opportunities for students to engage with industry professionals and employers in low-stakes ways and support students' career exploration while also potentially enhancing their professional network.
Examples include:
High-intensity employer engagement can be a component of many high-impact practices. As a result, for planning purposes, see the relevant resource within the associated high-impact practice (e.g., collaborative assignments & projects, capstone course, internships). If seeking to designate a course with High-Intensity Employer Engagement, note and complete the often optional last row in the course planning guide for that HIP.
Given the varied types of low-intensity employer engagement, distinct guides have been created:
Employer Engagement Course Planning Guide
Guest Speaker/Employer Panel
Informational Interview
Job Shadow
Career or Industry Day
Career Fair
Use these resources to inform planning. Please complete the guide once updates are complete, both as a program self-check and to assist curriculum review teams. The completed guide should be attached in Coursedog in the Course Form (new or edit, as appropriate).
If you have an employer engagement idea in mind, but do not see a relevant course planning guide, please contact us to explore options.