Get to know: Joycelin Randle

Joycelin Randle, Colorado College’s new associate director of employer relations, doesn’t get jobs for CC students. Instead, she cultivates relationships with alumni, parents, and employers regarding internships and entry-level positions, passes information along to students, and helps position them as front-runners for potential employment. Randle searches out job prospects, but when opportunity knocks, it’s the students who get up and open the door.

The career center position was revamped when the former associate director of the career center retired last summer. Randle, who started in August 2011, says the job is less that of a counselor; indeed, the position’s new name reflects the emphasis on building employer relations, with a large part of the job being outreach and networking in order to better assist CC students in identifying and securing jobs and internships. Randle is developing relationships through email, telephone calls, and in-person visits, working closely with the development office and the office of alumni and parent relations.

She also accompanied President Jill Tiefenthaler on several trips to visit alumni and parents as part of the new president’s “year of listening” tour. Recently, Randle traveled to the Bay Area where she met with alumni in diverse fields – marketing/advertising, health care, and financial investing – to explore internships and employment opportunities for CC students. She also encourages parents, alumni, and employers to visit campus for job fairs and recruiting lunches. “My job is to meet people and talk to them, and get them excited about CC and CC students,” Randle said. “It’s great.”

Originally from North Little Rock, Ark., Randle comes to Colorado College by way of Vanderbilt University’s law school – where she was both a student and an employee. She graduated cum laude from Arkansas State University with a major in speech communication and a minor in political science. During her sophomore year in college, she decided she wanted to go to law school, so she printed a list of the top 20 law schools in the country and stuck it above her bed. “I told myself, ‘this is what I’m going to do’,” she said.

At Vanderbilt Law School she received several awards, including being honored as Outstanding Graduate/Professional Student. During the summer of 2005 she interned at Fredrikson and Byron, a law firm in Minneapolis that specializes in civil and commercial real estate litigation. Upon graduation the following year, she went to work for them as an associate.

However, she soon discovered that working in a high-powered law firm was not what she wanted. “It was eye-opening,” she said. “It was not what I expected.” She left the law firm after two years, and went to clerk for a judge in Hennepin County, Minn. “There I was in the courtroom every day,” she said.

In the meantime, her mentor at the law firm continued to work with her, pointing out that Randle was outgoing and good with people, and Randle eventually realized that she wanted to be in higher education. She had stayed in touch with friends and administrators at Vanderbilt, and knowing the importance of networking, she put the word out that she was eager to get into career services. It wasn’t long before Vanderbilt called, offering her a position as a career advisor at the law school.

 “It was the perfect job,” Randle said. She developed relationships between Vanderbilt and state courts, contacted judges throughout the U.S. about job opportunities for students, and built awareness of state court clerkship positions. There was only one drawback: Her husband, Casell, who she met in Minneapolis 48 hours before she started her job at the law firm, worked for Cargill. He and Randle, who were married in March 2010, hoped he would be transferred to Nashville; instead, Casell was transferred to Colorado.

“I’m living proof that informational interviews and networking pay off,” Randle says. She networked purposefully, seeking to get a position in Colorado. Randle was primarily interested in the University of Denver and spoke with potential employers at both the graduate school and law school. However, nothing happened for months, and in the meantime, she interviewed at Colorado College. Randle eventually was interviewed by DU, but it was too late: CC offered her the job the day after her DU interview.

 Randle’s educational experience has been at universities, not a small liberal arts college. “I’m having fun learning the many areas students can go into,” she says. “I enjoy meeting alumni who have done so many things with their education – first they study English, then they travel, then they start a business, for example. It says a lot about the flexibility of a liberal arts education.” She also touts the Block Plan to potential employers, telling them if they want a task completed well and quickly, to hire students who have studied on the Block Plan. “These students know how to get it done,” she said.

Randle has put her time as an attorney to good use. She just completed the first draft of a book titled “What You Should Know Before You go to Law School” and is getting ready to send it to her twin sister, a Ph.D. candidate in urban education policy at Rutgers University, for a first reading. She also has a younger sister, who is studying to be a nurse in Arkansas.

While living in Minnesota, Randle was active with Hands on Twin Cities, a nonprofit that promotes volunteerism in a wide variety of areas, and with Twin Cities Diversity in Practice, designed to increase diversity in the legal community. Both she and her husband also were active with Big Brothers, Big Sisters (Randle started with the organization while still in law school), and they hope to continue volunteering with the organization in Colorado Springs.