Golden Path Solutions Newsletter – July 2025

Jul 7, 2025 | Blog, News

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In this month’s newsletter, we’re welcoming a few new partners to the Golden Path community (including our first school district in South Carolina!), highlighting new Compass features that improve everyone’s ability to make connections, recommending several actions for employers to take over the summer, and also featuring events coming up in the fall. We hope all of you are enjoying the summer!

Compass expands to South Carolina

We’re excited to announce a major milestone – Compass is now available in South Carolina! Cherokee County School District with offices in Gaffney, SC, is one of our first school partners in the region, which marks a significant step in expanding our mission to connect students nationwide with meaningful career pathways.

With this growth comes refinement of an important feature: zones in Compass. Zones help manage who sees what within Compass, ensuring that students and employers only connect when it makes geographic and logistical sense. This is especially helpful when districts are spread across large regions. Employers with a national footprint, however, will be able to connect with students across zones.

Updating your information in Compass

Have you updated your Compass account recently? Now is a great time to make sure everything is complete and that you’re getting the most out of the tools and connections available to you.

If you are an employer, we recently sent out an email with helpful tips and links to walk you through the best ways to optimize your membership, including reviewing your organization’s information and ensuring the right people on your team have access. Whether you’re a long-time partner or brand new to Compass, these quick updates can unlock new opportunities and improve your experience.

If you are an educator, we recommend doing a refresh of your course list before school starts up again and students begin updating their information. It’s also a good time to add or remove school professionals from your school’s Compass access.

We’re excited to share that the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction will be recommending Compass for the Four-Year Rolling Plan again for the 2025-2026 school year. We will soon publish a course in the ND Education Hub where educators can earn credit for reviewing information, updating their class list, and creating a plan for students to update their profiles.

In Minnesota, we’re partnering with Moorhead Area Public Schools to improve Plan of Study completion percentages and student course lists

Better understanding Career Profiles

Career Profiles are detailed job descriptions in Compass, written specifically for high school students to help them learn more about a company and its roles. Employers create these profiles to highlight specific careers and include vital information such work culture, job responsibilities, required education, salary and benefits, and what a typical day might look like. They also include information about what high school classes, activities, and hobbies might help prepare someone for this career, or at least spark interest in it. Career Profiles also include information about any related scholarships, Sponsorships, or other tuition reimbursement programs.

We recently launched a refreshed design that makes these profiles even more user-friendly and powerful. Read the blog post to learn how the update helps both students and employers get the most from this online tool. For employers, it’s a fast way to discover talent aligned with your needs. For students, it’s a great way to learn about careers you might be a fit for!

If you are a Golden Path member, you can publish as many Career Profiles as you’d like. Golden Path can also build them for you for a one-time fee if you’re an Awareness member. Our professionally written profiles are included with your Connections, Premium, or Partnership Memberships.

Seeking internships for Bismarck State College students

Golden Path is working closely with Bismarck (ND) State College (BSC) to expand high-quality internship opportunities for its students. As part of this effort, we’re focusing on partnerships with employers in key, high-demand industries across the region, where hands-on experience is a game changer for students and a pipeline builder for employers.

We want to hear from you if your company wants to connect with BSC students this fall. Simply create and publish your internships in Compass by mid-August to ensure visibility in time for the new semester. If you already have internships for high school students in Compass, you can copy your opportunity, set the audience to “College Students,” and hit publish.

Please contact us if you need help setting up your opportunities. You can also reach out to BSC Dean of Students Lea Quam at (701) 224-5666 or lea.quam@bismarckstate.edu for more information.

Educators can now publish events in Compass

Here’s something many educators may not realize: you can publish your own career-related events directly in Compass! Whether you’re hosting a classroom guest speaker, planning a field trip, organizing a job shadow, or running a career fair, Compass makes it simple to share those opportunities with your local employer network.

You choose which employers to invite and Compass handles the outreach for you by notifying employers by email and adding the event to the Compass master calendar available to employers. This not only saves time, but it also ensures your events are filled with the right people who are ready to engage with your students.

To publish your event, simply log into your Compass account (Compass Console if you’re in ND), selected “My Employers,” and then “Create Event.” Indicate that this event is available for employers and then choose the employers to invite, either by industry, career cluster, distance, or name.

Welcome to our new employer partners

Please join us in welcoming several new organizations to the Compass platform this month! We’re thrilled to have these businesses on board as we continue growing our network of employers dedicated to supporting student success through career-connected learning. New organizations include The STEM Practice, H.A. Thompson & Sons, and Red Rock Auto. We are helping these partners connect with schools, students, and communities to build strong local talent pipelines.

Spotlight on the Professional Development Conference

We’re gearing up for a busy (and exciting!) few weeks as we prepare to participate in the North Dakota Career & Technical Education (NDCTE) Professional Development Conference (PDC) Monday, Aug. 4 -Wednesday, Aug. 6, in Bismarck. “Level up with CTE: Skills That Pay Off” includes numerous events and sessions, of which you’ll find the Golden Path team at several, including:

  • Training sessions for career advisors and family and consumer sciences (FACS) teachers
  • A breakout session about new Compass features and participation in a couple of other sessions (more details to come)
  • A presentation at 1 Million Cups
  • A training session around RUReady.ND.gov
  • A training session with RUReady. ND.gov and Laura Glasser from NDCTE
  • A booth at the PDC expo

This is one of our biggest annual opportunities to connect with educators and career professionals in North Dakota. We’d love to see you there. Please stop by and say hello!

Golden Path will also have an expo booth at the South Dakota Career & Technical Education (SDCTE) Summer Conference July 27-30 in Rapid City.

Important dates

Connect with us

Keep up with the latest opportunities and information here:

More information

Contact Patrick for more information or to connect about opportunities with Golden Path Solutions.

 

Categories: Blog | News
Tags: Career Profiles | Compass | Employers | RUReady.ND.gov | School Professionals | students | work-based learning | workforce