Career centers invest enormous effort in supporting students, yet a closer look reveals that much of this time is lost to repetitive, low-value tasks.
Behind every resume review, FAQ email, and scheduling request lies a massive drain on staff time - time that could otherwise be spent on personalized, strategic guidance.
The result is a system working hard but not necessarily working smart - one where staff burnout rises, student access shrinks, and outcomes fall short of potential.
Let's take a closer look at the time audit of career services, quantifying the opportunity cost and revealing how these inefficiencies limit reach, equity, and impact.
The Time Sink: Auditing Manual Tasks
Career advisors are often bogged down by a high volume of recurring tasks that could be automated. These tasks include:
Resume and Cover Letter Reviews
This is the most significant time sink. A counselor might spend 15-20 minutes on a single resume.
For instance, at a university with 20,000 students, even if only a quarter seek a single resume review, that’s 5,000 reviews.
At 15 minutes each, this translates to 1,250 hours of work - the equivalent of one staff member working full-time for over 31 weeks on just one basic task.
Answering Repetitive FAQs
Career services inboxes are flooded with identical questions day after day.
A study by the UK-based Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) noted that member institutions reported over half of all student inquiries were foundational questions.
These include: "Where can I find internship postings?", "What should I wear to the career fair?", "How do I use the career portal?", and "Can you send me the link to register for the workshop?".
Each email, while quick to answer individually, collectively represents a massive drain on resources.
Manual Event & Appointment Logistics
The process of scheduling one-on-one appointments, managing employer information sessions, and tracking attendance for workshops is often a complex web of spreadsheets, emails, and calendar invites.
This not only consumes administrative hours but is also prone to human error, leading to double bookings or missed communications.
When advisors are spending upwards of 60% of their time on the manual tasks above, the system is mathematically set up to fail the majority of students.
Also Read: What are some federal funding options for career centers in the US?
Quantifying the Staggering Opportunity Cost
The true cost of this manual workload isn't measured in hours alone; it's measured in lost opportunities.
Every hour spent on a remedial task is an hour not spent on a strategic initiative that could transform student outcomes.
Let's quantify this with a conservative model:
- A career center has 10 advisors.
- Each advisor spends just 3 hours a day on manual tasks (resume checks, FAQs, scheduling).
- Total daily time sink: 3 hours/advisor×10 advisors=30 hours.
- Total weekly time sink: 30 hours/day×5 days/week=150 hours.
- Total annual time sink (assuming a 40-week academic year): 150 hours/week×40 weeks=6,000 hours.
Those 6,000 hours are the equivalent of having 3 full-time employees dedicated solely to administrative work.
The direct financial implication is also significant.
If the average salary for a career advisor is around $50,000 per year (approximately $25/hour), those 6,000 hours of administrative work cost the institution $150,000 annually in salary alone, spent on tasks that technology could handle for a fraction of the cost.
This doesn't even account for the long-term cost of lower student placement rates and reduced alumni satisfaction.
Beyond the direct financial drain, the true loss lies in what a career center could achieve with those 6,000 hours of repurposed, high-skill professional time:
- Proactive Employer Development: Instead of waiting for companies to post jobs, advisors could dedicate time to building relationships in high-growth sectors like renewable energy, AI, or biotechnology, creating exclusive opportunities for their students.
- Scalable Career Education: They could design and launch comprehensive online courses on topics like "Building a Personal Brand" or "Navigating the Tech Industry," helping thousands of students simultaneously.
- Data-Driven Student Interventions: They could analyze student data to identify which demographics are under-utilizing career services and design targeted outreach campaigns to engage them, closing equity gaps.
- Mentorship Program Expansion: Launching and managing a robust alumni-student mentorship program, a proven high-impact practice for career success.
This inefficiency also leads to staff burnout.
A report by Research Gate emphasizes that when skilled employees are bogged down by monotonous tasks, it leads to decreased job satisfaction and higher turnover rates, creating additional costs for recruitment and training.
The Impact on Student Reach & Equity
A reliance on manual processes inherently creates an inequitable system.
Support becomes a resource available only to the most proactive and privileged students, those who know how to navigate the system, book appointments early, and persistently seek help.
Students who are first-generation, from underrepresented backgrounds, or juggling part-time jobs and heavy course loads are often the ones who fall through the cracks.
They may not have the time to wait for an appointment or may be intimidated by the process. Here are some stats:
- First-Generation Students Use Career Services Less: A fact sheet from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) and The Suder Foundation's First-generation Student Success initiative, using data from the U.S. Department of Education, found that only 16% of first-generation students used career services in their first year.
- Broader Lack of Engagement: The challenges faced by first-generation students are not limited to career services. They are often less likely to engage in a wide range of high-impact practices. Research published in the journal TLAR ("Breaking Down Barriers: Academic Obstacles of First-Generation Students at Research Universities") notes that these students often have competing job and family responsibilities that serve as significant obstacles to their academic success and engagement with university resources.
- The "Very Helpful" Gap: A Gallup study found that only one in six U.S. college graduates (approximately 17%) reported that their career services office was "very helpful." This indicates a massive gap in reach and impact across the entire student population, which is likely even more pronounced for those from underserved backgrounds.
Also Read: How to improve FDS response rates?
The Solution: Proactive Advising Powered by Technology
When advisors are freed from the burden of resume reviews, FAQs, and scheduling logistics, they can finally shift from a reactive “first-come, first-served” model to a proactive, data-driven approach.
Research from the Pullias Center for Higher Education at USC emphasizes that proactive advising is particularly crucial for "at-promise" students.
This approach involves initiating contact early and consistently to connect students with tailored resources, which can lead to increased retention, academic confidence, and overall success.
And technology is the enabler here: automation creates a scalable, 24/7 first line of support through AI-powered resume feedback, FAQ chatbots, and automated scheduling, ensuring that every student has immediate access to foundational resources.
This allows counselors to focus their limited in-person time on students who need it most, helping close equity gaps for first-generation students and those balancing work and family responsibilities.
The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) notes that AI and other digital tools can level the playing field by bridging professional network gaps and providing on-demand guidance that historically only well-connected students could access.
The impact of reclaiming time is staggering: in a typical career center, 6,000 advisor hours lost annually to manual tasks could instead be reinvested in initiatives like employer development, equity-driven outreach, and alumni mentorship.
Real-world results show what this looks like in practice.
Rasmussen University, serving tens of thousands of nursing students across 23 campuses, leveraged Hiration to scale resume and interview prep - freeing advisors for personalized coaching, and achieved a 93% increase in student placements (2,331 vs. 1,206) and a 147% rise in wages earned.
Similarly, Shawnee State University, with a lean team, deployed Hiration and achieved a 65% increase in student engagement in under a year, while saving 100+ of advisor hours that were redirected into high-impact employer partnerships and mentorship programs.
Together, these outcomes illustrate how turning wasted hours into proactive, equity-centered advising doesn’t just save money, it fundamentally transforms student success and institutional impact.
And if you’re exploring platforms to help scale that kind of transformation, Hiration is built for exactly this purpose - trusted by 100+ colleges to deliver optimized resumes, tailored interview prep, and 24/7 student guidance.
Book a quick demo to see the impact for yourself - we offer a free pilot with no setup fees.
