Research & Trends Committee: Career Services Benchmarking Survey

This survey is typically conducted every other year, ideally in late summer/early fall (timing may vary based on committee/staff availability or other external factors). School members are asked to provide operational data that is helpful for internal benchmarking. Key questions include salary information, budget, staff size, resources used, program size, etc. The process for survey creation to completion is as follows. The work is typically done through a subcommittee unless the overall committee is too small to break into subcommittees. 

• School members of the committee and the Executive Director review the previous year’s survey and make notes regarding any changes or edits. Committee members involved in this step should have participated in the previous survey because the full results are only provided to those who participate. The Executive Director can confirm which committee members' schools participated in the previous year's survey.
• The CSEA Data Analyst makes the requested edits and creates a draft survey for review.
• The committee makes additional edits if needed, and the Executive Director approves the survey for distribution.
• The Executive Director distributes the survey to the membership and sends additional communications to the membership to encourage participation, including through social media. Committee members also assist with outreach if needed. Committee members are strongly encouraged to have their school participate in the survey so they can be a part of the discussion about the results.
• The Data Analyst provides regular updates on the number of participants and conducts phone and email individual outreach as needed. The committee assists with this outreach.
• Once the survey is closed, the results are compiled by the Data Analyst. Committee members whose school participated in the survey review the results and provide insight into the full report and Executive Summary, which are created by staff. 
• The Data Analyst and Executive Director send survey results to the members based on who completed the survey and their level of completion. Schools that didn't provide salary data will not receive the salary analysis, for example. 
• The Executive Summary is added to the web site, and distributed to all members and the media by the Executive Director. 
• If possible and deemed necessary, a webinar is created and recorded so members may be educated on how to interpret and effectively utilize the data.

The full results of the survey are only provided to the schools that participate in the survey. This serves as an incentive to participate. Non-participating schools may purchase the partial survey report through their online account at www.mbacsea.org at a price approved by the board (currently $399). Salary and operational budget data are only provided to the schools who answered those questions on the survey. 

Executive Summary results from past surveys can be found on the CSEA web site and in the Document Library.