Traditional measures of career success—primarily salary and job titles—offer a limited and often misleading view of post-graduation outcomes. These narrow metrics fail to capture the complexity of career trajectories and provide little actionable insight for institutions seeking to improve student preparedness. This paper advocates for a holistic approach to measuring career success by incorporating objective indicators, such as cost of living and industry trends, and subjective measures, such as alumni perceptions of job satisfaction and career fulfillment. Examples and strategies for measuring career success beyond salary and first-destination outcomes are provided. Lessons learned from collecting these measures are shared, including leadership commitment, community building, stakeholder engagement, and the use of technology and analytics. Additionally, it is important to integrate data collection into curricula, foster industry collaboration, and establish feedback loops to align academic programs with workforce needs. By redefining career success beyond traditional metrics, this study offers a framework for institutions to assess and enhance graduate outcomes more effectively in an evolving job market.
Berwick et al. (Sun,) studied this question.