"What are our peer schools doing?"
That's the #1 question I get from universities about AI in career services. And we're now FOUR YEARS into this journey! 😮
So when the wonderful Julian Alssid and Kaitlin LeMoine had me on the Work Forces podcast, I said something a little spicy: "Do not allow the complexity to be your permission slip for inaction."
Here's why that matters right now. Your students are about to walk into a job market where AI fluency isn't a bonus - it's the baseline. And if the career center waits for someone else to go first, they're the ones who pay for it.
So let's talk about the permission slips I hear most - and a simple 3-step way to tear them up.
The 3 Permission Slips for AI Inaction
When I work with career centers around the world, the reasons to wait almost always sound like one of these:
"I don't want to get in trouble with IT." We've all been shamed by our IT teams over the years. Don't touch that new technology - it's too scary, you might break it!
"I'm not sure what Legal thinks." So nobody touches anything until a policy memo shows up. Which could be never.
"Let's see what everyone else does first." This is the peer schools question in disguise. The leader gets arrows in the back, so why not be the follower?
I get it. I really do. Nobody wants to be the one who gets burned.
But here's the deal: AI is the one technology that breaks all the rules for IT - because you CAN'T break it. It is a digital sandbox. You're not rewiring the student information system. You're typing into a box and seeing what comes back. 🙌
Why Waiting on AI in Career Services Costs Your Students
Even if you personally feel lukewarm about AI, your job is to make sure the NEXT generation is ready for the world they're about to inherit. And that world has already decided:
66% of leaders say they wouldn't hire someone without AI skills, according to the 2024 Microsoft and LinkedIn Work Trend Index.
Yet only 39% of AI users worldwide say they've gotten AI training from their company (same report).
Translation: employers expect AI skills, and most of them aren't teaching it. So if students don't pick it up before graduation, they're on their own. The career center is the one concrete bridge to the world of work on campus - which makes it the natural place to lead. ⚡
Step 1: Get Into the AI Sandbox Yourself
If you've been on the sidelines, it is NOT too late. The first step is simply to play.
Don't start with a high-stakes work project. Start with something fun and low-risk, where you'll instantly know if the answer is good or bad. Plan a vacation. Come up with a witty joke to tell your kids at dinner. Here's a prompt you can steal:
I'm planning a 3-day trip to [city] with [who's coming]. We love [interests]. Build me a day-by-day plan with one rainy-day backup for each day. Then tell me which parts of your plan you're LEAST sure about.
That last line is the secret sauce. You'll start to see what Wharton's Ethan Mollick calls the jagged frontier - AI is superhuman at some things and completely clueless at others, and there's no manual telling you which is which. The only way to find that edge is by getting your hands dirty.
And once you've put in a couple of hours, something shifts. You stop sending students out to the wolves to figure this out alone - because now you have real opinions about what works.
Step 2: Find Your Shadow AI Leaders
Here's the good news: the leaders are probably already on your team.
In career center after career center, I see the same pattern. It's usually not the director - they're busy managing the bureaucracy and the politics. It's the associate director quietly doing incredible stuff with AI. It's the entry-level coordinator who feels super comfortable with these tools. And they're afraid to share too broadly, because they don't want the IT team to rap their knuckles.
This isn't just a campus thing. The same Work Trend Index found that 52% of people who use AI at work are reluctant to admit using it for their most important tasks. That's a LOT of hidden expertise! 🤯
So ask for it out loud. At your next team meeting, try something like:
Who here has used AI for something at work - even something small - that actually saved you time? No wrong answers, and nobody's in trouble. I want to learn from you.
That last sentence does the heavy lifting. You're giving your team permission to come out of the shadows.
Step 3: Let Them Teach the Team, Then the Students
Once you know who your AI champions are, give them the mic.
Make it a habit. A short "show and tell" at a regular team meeting, where one person demos one real use case, is plenty to start.
Celebrate the experiments. The goal isn't perfection. It's momentum and shared learning.
Then turn it outward. Once the team feels confident, bake what you've learned into your student workshops and appointments - the right way and the wrong way to use AI in a job search.
Bring those folks out of the shadows. Let them teach the team. Then let the team teach the students. That's the whole playbook.
If you want a broader roadmap, check out my 5 steps to lead your career center through the AI revolution - and why keeping up IS the job now.
The Bottom Line
Complexity is real. But it's not a reason to wait. If we truly want to pay it forward to the next generation, we owe it to them to put in the time ourselves - not wait for someone else to go first.
🎧 Want the full conversation? Listen to my Work Forces episode with Julian and Kaitlin on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
What's the permission slip for inaction you've seen the most? Let me know in the Comments!