Faculty & Staff
Our vision is to unite the Notre Dame community to inspire and prepare every student to pursue a life of impact and purpose. Working together, we can help students discern, pursue, and achieve career goals that align with their values, interests, and skills. One of the ways we do this is by offering a wide range of resources, events, and career-related services to support all students. Some of our more commonly-used resources are described below. Our staff looks forward to partnering with you.
CCD Help Career Champions Network Data Employers & Recuiters Handshake Headshots Help Students IrishCompass Recommendation Letters Room Reservations
Self-Service Reports and Data
To best understand how to support students with their career development, we share a wide array of career development-related data with faculty and staff partners across campus, including (but not limited to) insights into student preferences, engagement in career development activities, and outcomes. Our campus partners are provided access to self-serve reports on the University's password-protected Tableau server. Please log in with your NetID to access the reports.
How we can help you
We are a service-minded team of professionals who enjoy collaborating with campus partners. Here are a few ways we can help you support career development:
- Visit your class or department meeting to present on a particular topic.
- Brainstorm with you to create a special program.
- Connect you with alumni by utilizing IrishCompass.
- Provide guidance for how to respond to employer and recruiter inquiries.
- Suggest how to write an effective letter of recommendation.
- Utilize Handshake to help recruit for your research positions.
How you can help students
Many faculty and staff are engaged in advancing career development efforts. You can
- Engage students in conversations about the intersection of their values, interests, and skills.
- Create a Handshake account and show students how to use the system to research employers, find internships and jobs.
- Encourage students to update their profiles on Handshake.
- Introduce us to contacts which can help advance hiring students into internships and jobs.
- Join the Career Champions Network (see below).
Career Champions Network
The Career Champions Network (CCN) is a community of faculty and staff interested in supporting students in their career development journey. Students are more likely to engage in career conversations when they happen organically—often with trusted faculty and staff across campus. But not everyone feels confident navigating those conversations. That’s where the CCN comes in. Members gain access to curated resources, tools, and guidance to address career-related questions and make informed referrals to the Center for Career Development. Whether a student asks about internship searches, interviews, or exploring career paths, the CCN equips you to respond with confidence. Join today to enhance your impact on student success—or, if you’re already a member, explore the latest resources designed just for you.
Join the CCN CCN FAQ Resources for CCN MembersEngagement Options
Handshake
Handshake is a centralized resource where students can research employers, search for internships and full-time jobs, network with other students, schedule career counseling appointments, RSVP for events, and much more. The Meruelo Family Center for Career Development offers University faculty and administrators the ability to request an account for access to Handshake.
How to join Handshake Handshake login
IrishCompass
IrishCompass is an exclusive, online community that provides an opportunity for Notre Dame students and alumni to facilitate career-related connections. This resource is a joint collaboration of the Meruelo Family Center for Career Development and the Notre Dame Alumni Association.
Students can benefit from the system by:
- Connecting with alumni for career networking, mentorship, and job shadow opportunities.
- Asking career-related questions through industry specific discussion forums.
- Accessing exclusive online resources for career discernment and networking tips.
As a Notre Dame faculty member, you are provided the opportunity to create an IrishCompass account. You may find value in creating an account with your Net ID to:
- Re-connect with former students.
- Find guest speakers for your class.
- Find industry contacts to introduce to your students.
Room reservations for meetings
If you have a meeting with 10 or less attendees, you are welcome to request a conference room in the Center for Career Development on the 5th floor of Duncan Student Center. You are welcome to view our rooms here. Please know larger spaces (room 526 and 512) are not available.
Free professional headshots on-demand
In an effort to advance our strategic priority to eliminate barriers for students to engage in career development, we purchased a self-service headshot booth where all undergraduate and graduate students can take a professional headshot for LinkedIn, professional websites, etc.. We welcome anyone (including faculty, staff, alumni, and employers) to use this free service.
Summer internship and research ideas
More than 85% of undergraduates will secure an internship at some point before graduation. These experiences not only lead to full-time employment, they are also valuable discernment opportunities for students to explore their interests and how their skills can be applied in a professional setting. One question we receive on a regular basis is "Where do students do internships?" At the beginning of the fall semester, we ask students to share how they spent their summer months. This data is then aggregated and made available for students to learn about the many opportunities available to them. Click the link below to access the page on our student-facing website (which students can also access).
Explore the Summer Database and Directory
Summer internship funding for undergraduate students
We want to ensure every Notre Dame student is financially able to participate in at least one summer internship. We recognize that some internships are located in high-cost cities or may be with organizations that offer unpaid internships or do not provide enough financial support to cover your summer living expenses.
Thanks to benefaction from a number of donors, we offer a Summer Internship Funding Program to enable Notre Dame undergraduate students to participate in unpaid and low-paying internships by providing funding to offset travel, housing, and food costs.
For the purposes of this webpage, "summer internships" are defined as:
- internships (unpaid, low-paying)
- research (unpaid and low-paying)
In addition to funding through the CCD, the Flately Center for Undergraduate Scholarly Engagement (CUSE) also mantain a list of funding opportunities for students.
Mentorship program for students
If you are reading this page, you know that mentorship can be one of the most meaningful experiences that can help a student with career discernment. We partner with Development to match students (through an application process) each March with members of the President's Circle and Cavanaugh Council.
Learn about the President's Circle Mentorship Program
Fielding requests from employers and recruiters
At some point you may be contacted by an employer, recruiter, or alumni who is interested in identifying candidates for positions. The Meruelo Family Center for Career Development supports the National Association of Colleges and Employers's (NACE) recommendations for offering job posting information to all students, which include:
- All candidates should have equal access to the opportunity.
- Colleges and employers should support informed and responsible decision-making by candidates.
- All aspects of the recruiting process should be fair and equitable to candidates and employing organizations.
- Career services professionals and faculty involved in recruiting should provide generally comparable services to all employers.
- As required by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), any disclosure of student information outside of the educational institution will be with prior consent of the student unless health and/or safety considerations necessitate the dissemination of such information. Both career services professionals and faculty will exercise sound judgment and fairness in maintaining the confidentiality of student information, regardless of the source, including written records, reports, and computer data bases.
For the full content, please refer to A Faculty Guide to Ethical and Legal Standards in Student Hiring, a resource provided by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), one of the professional associations our staff participate in. If you have any questions, please call 1-5200 or email us at careerdevelopment@nd.edu.
Writing Recommendation Letters
Letters of recommendation are often used by an organization's hiring officials to gather additional information about a candidate.
It is assumed that a confidential letter of recommendation will provide a candid viewpoint of an applicant's abilities and professional promise. An effective letter of recommendation typically includes:
- how you know the student (in what capacity and how long)
- personal characteristics and traits (an emphasis on communication and interpersonal skills is helpful since this may not come through in a student's resume)
- performance and experience related to the position the student is applying to (the more specific, the better)
- strengths and capabilities (intellectual curiosity and resilience are helpful traits to highlight)
- how the student compares to others students you work with
- how to contact you
To get you started, the National Association for Colleges and Employers provides a quick template. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Burroughs Wellcome Fund published Writing a Letter of Recommendation, a very detailed, 19-page PDF resource with insight about recommendation letters which you may find helpful.