Alumni and Careers

Alumni Areas of Practice

Alumni Employment

Below you will find just a few of the many organizations where MSW students have gained employment after graduation. 

Alumni Salary Ranges

Data taken from 2022 MSW Alumni Survey

Alumni Licensure

Data taken from 2022 MSW Alumni Survey

Alumni Spotlight

Julia O'Connor (MSW, 2019)

MSW Alum, Julia O'Connor was recently interviewed on the Interest to Impact podcast for the episode titled: Mental and behavioral health workers: how to attract more people to the field, and train and support and pay them properly‪.‬

Listen to the Episode

Kevin Skiena (MSW, 2020)

Career Development Resources

Seattle University Alumni Association

The Seattle University Alumni Association opens pathways to engagement with the university by connecting and engaging alumni, building lifetime relationships within the Seattle U community.

Seattle University Career Engagement Office

The Career Engagement Office at Seattle University helps students and alumni explore careers, develop professional networks, and make plans for career and vocational development. 

NASW Job Board

Search for open social work jobs across the United States.

CSWE Job Board

Search for open social work jobs across the United States. 

MSW Program Career Events

Each year, the MSW program hosts multiple career preparedness events for current MSW students. Examples include: 

• Job Search and Interviewing Skills Workshop: Presented by the Career Engagement Office
  
  • At this workshop, students had the opportunity to learn job search best practices and interviewing skills, including best practices for effectively answering questions and preparing for behavioral questions. Strategies on how to navigate a virtual interview and job searching during a pandemic were also shared. 
• Negotiating Salary and Benefits Workshop: Presented by the Career Engagement Office 
  • The Career Engagement Office discussed salary and benefits packages and how to negotiate salary and benefits when offered a professional position. 
• Washington State Licensing Presentation and Discussion: With Department of Health Representatives
  • A special licensure information session with U. James Chaney, MPA, MA, Executive Director, WA State DOH. This is an exclusive session for our MSW students to learn about the WA State licensure for clinical social workers and ask questions they might have. 
• Clinical Skills in the Treatment of Co-Occurring Disorders
  • Attendees learned skills in the treatment of co-occurring mental and substance related and addictive behavioral disorders.
• Washington State SUDP/T Certification Workshop 
  • This workshop reviewed the DOH requirements to become a SUDPT and the steps needed to eventually become a SUDP.
• Interview and Resume Writing Skills for Social Work Careers
  • Attendees learned skills for interviewing and responding to behavioral questions that helped candidates stand out. 
• Social Work Career Pathways: A Practitioner's Reflection
  • Words of wisdom from a licensed social worker and tips on navigating the WA State licensure process. 
• Anti-Racism in Practice: Cultivating Health Discourses
  • This workshop helped students, practitioners, and faculty learn skills for cultivating environments that promote healthy discourses about race and its implications for practice and interpersonal professional relationships with colleagues and clients. 
• Self-Care: A Social Work Essential
  • Attendees learned the meaning and aspects of self-care and how it impacts self and working relationships. 
• Preparing for the Launch of Your Social Work career
  • Students learned about the social work job market outlook and skills for landing that first social work job on the first interview. 

Keys to Help You Land the Healthcare Job of Your Dreams

By Charlotte Jones, Chief People Officer, Diversity & Inclusion, Sound

So, as you leave your college years behind, you know you’ve done everything right. You’ve studied hard, participated in vigorous class discussions, aced your tests, turned in assignments on time and made sacrifices to get good grades. You’ve found ways to learn outside of the classroom too. Now, it’s time for all that hard work to pay off with a rewarding career in healthcare.

But wait. There is one last, important step toward pursuing your dream career: the application and interview process. Sound, one of King County’s largest providers of behavioral healthcare services, wants to share these helpful tips that may assist you through the interview and application process.

Pre-Interview

A heap of resumes: No two jobs are alike and providers vary widely in what they are seeking in a candidate. Your resume, the, should reflect these variances and should be adapted to the job and organization. This will help the recruiter more easily identify strengths and qualifications. It is not necessary to rewrite your resume each time; just make slight adjustments based on what the employer is seeking.

Words are key:  Many employers, like Sound, have specific job and experience requirements so it is best to review job descriptions to identify key words and match them in your application or resume to stand out from your competition. Like the recommendation above, this will not require a significant amount of time; just a little attention to detail.

The right stuff: Focus your search on providers that offer opportunities for upward growth. Providers with a wide array or programs offer you greater opportunity to explore the right fit.  Whether you wish to work with kids, families, older adults, in schools, in the criminal justice system or with people with intellectual disabilities, we recommend seeking providers that offer options for future career growth.

During the Interview

Beyond the job description, Sound, like most employers, seek a set of “skills” not necessarily acquired in an academic environment. This is why it is important to highlight the “soft” skills that help you stand out from the crowd. The time to you take to emphasize these skills in interviews will be time well spent.

Below are just a few of those qualities that employers appreciate:

Highlight Communication/Collaboration: There will always be an opportunity for you to emphasize ways you used communication and team work to get things done. Whether it is in past internships, school projects, volunteer work or more personal matters, Sound appreciates team members who thrive in collaborative situations and demonstrate strong communication skills. Employers as a whole, value communication. Be sure you find ways to introduce this in your interviews.

Demonstrate Flexibility and Adaptability: No work environment, even the most ideal ones, are without the unexpected – especially in outpatient healthcare settings like community behavioral healthcare. In these settings, a job prospect’s currency is their demonstrated ability to adjust to changes or new challenges. Like your ability to communicate effectively and collaborate successfully, become practiced in sharing examples of your ability to adjust and how that led to successful outcomes.

Technical Skills Acquired:  There are likely other “hard” skills you’ve learned from past academic, internship or job environments that can readily apply to your next job opportunity.  Obvious examples are the latest applications, software or other platforms (know HTML? WordPress, email marketing platforms, design work) that may elevate you in the minds of employers. Take an inventory of all of your technical skills and utilize these in our interviews.

Mistakes Are Gold: Anyone can expound upon their successes at work, internships or school as a sign of their marketable qualities. But we often learn a great deal from the missteps we’ve made (and corrective measures taken), that represent invaluable experience that can benefit an employer. Risk a bit of vulnerability, acknowledge mistakes made, what you’ve learned and how you’ll apply it to your future employer and you can be confident that this honesty will be well regarded.

Post Interview

Hand-written thanks: In the day and age of email, Direct Messaging and other instant communications, nothing stands out like a short, hand-written thank you note. Address each person you interviewed and highlight something you bring to the job in your acknowledgement.

Thoughtful follow up: There is nothing wrong with reaching out to the interviewer to ask a few very thoughtful, job related questions, particularly if they demonstrate ways you think you can contribute to the organization. This affords you the opportunity to stand out, communicate ways you can bring value to the organization and establishes your “brand” in the mind of the employer.

Conclusion

While Sound’s recommendations above are not exhaustive, these recommendations offer you some idea of ways to begin standing out from others competing for the same opportunities. Consider these recommendations as guidelines in developing tactics that help you garner attention and sell yourself to a prospective employer. Sound wishes you the best of luck in your job search!

Employment Alerts

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Employers

Please send your employment opportunities to SocialWorkJobs@Seattleu.edu