Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
If you weren’t convinced that the job market is bad, consider College to Career, a new company that charges fees to provide what colleges and high schools have offered for free: career coaching for students.
Mary Mackmiller, a principal in College to Career in Minnetonka, ticks off the factors fueling the need:
• The lack of time on the part of parents. “It’s literally a part-time job to coach your son or daughter, not only through the college admissions process, but also through their inner journey to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives.”
• Too many choices. “It’s impossible for them to process,” she says about students and their college options.
• Disappearing career counseling services. Traditionally offered for free, services are often being dropped during budget cuts. At one Twin Cities high school, for example, parent volunteers are staffing the career office. “Parent volunteers. That’s nice. But they’re not career counselors,” Mackmiller says.
• And then there’s the economy. “There are fewer and fewer jobs,” Mackmiller says. She cites a friend’s daughter who graduated from Dartmouth, and finally landed a job as a camp counselor. “Dartmouth,” Mackmiller laments. “And she’s a camp counselor.”
College to Career has 12 trained counselors plus the company founder, Terese Corey Blanck, who got the idea for the business when placing college graduates in jobs after school. “She was finding that even though they had a marketing degree, for example, they had no earthly idea what a marketing person does,” Mackmiller says. “The time to think about what you’re going to do with your life is as a freshman or sophomore in high school.”
They’re on the docket this fall at Eden Prairie high school, with 3,000 students, to present workshops in career classes offered there. A private high school in Richfield has asked them to develop content for a seminar. They’ll do such workshops for free, both to help those who can’t afford it, Mackmiller says, and also to find clients who’ll pay from $500 for a one-time session to $1,250 for a year of coaching.
Mary Mackmiller, College to Career: 952.294.0527; mm*********@*************er.net; www.collegetocareer.net
