Susan Bauer started working at YU in 2016 as the Director of Employer & Alumni Relations and quickly went to work engaging students and alumni in new and innovative employer recruiting events resulting in an increase of 40% in the amount of employer contacts engaged with YU within her first year. Currently, Susan is the Interim Executive Director of the Career Center where she returns to a familiar role for her, having had career counseling, employer relations, and experiential education in her portfolio in her former role at LIM College.
1. What profession did you think you would hold when you were a student?
When I was a student I wanted to work in the fashion industry and yet studied pre-law and psychology. My parents believed studying fashion merchandising would lead to managing the local Macy’s which is what you think fashion is when you live in a small town. I changed my major three times before transferring to a school in NYC where I could study fashion and little did my parents know I would go on to be the Fashion Director of one of the largest media companies in the world.
2. What aspect of your job with YU do you most enjoy?
I enjoy the creativity and strategy behind developing unique ways of engaging with students, alumni, and employers. The best feeling of all though is when the students come give me a hug or a high five telling me they received the offer.
3. What are some of your goals in the YU Career Center?
My goals for the Career Center are exciting. First is to create brand awareness so that all students, not just undergraduate students, know that we are here to support them and it doesn’t stop at graduation. I want the Career Center to be the gateway for future alumni engagement as we leverage the Community to its fullest capacity. We will be introducing an algorithm based alumni mentoring platform to the University that I am very excited about. Most importantly though, and my top priority, is building a team who is excited to come to work each day and who wants to be fully integrated in the student experience, partnering and collaborating with faculty, advising, student life, residential life, etc. It takes a village…
4. What would you consider some of your professional successes?
I’ve really had two careers thus far, the first in entertainment and fashion, and the second in higher education. The transition from one to the other is my biggest accomplishment. I often tell students you cannot plan your life’s course. In 2008 I lost my job when the economy turned for the worst. I started teaching career development courses which led to an opportunity to build a career services department from the ground up with my previous institution, something I never in a million years planned on ever doing. I have to mention that I worked full time, while attending graduate school in the evenings, completed a 20 hour a week, year long, clinical internship, and had a baby…finishing with my Master of Education in Mental Health Counseling degree with a 4.0. Now I am in a position that never entered my mind 15 years ago and at a level most career services practitioners only hope to achieve at a place like YU. One always has to have faith that he or she will be led in the right direction.
5. What would your colleagues be surprised to learn about you?
I think my colleagues would be surprised to learn that I have a surfboard. I don’t use it nearly as much as when I was growing up near the ocean. It’s not like riding a bike. I am however taking lessons this summer as nothing compares to being one with nature and being out there waiting for the next wave.
