Train for Your Future: Carrington Employer Relationships
Learn With Confidence: Carrington College’s Relationship With Local Employers
Education is a common and sometimes necessary way to get a head start on pursuing your career goals. Carrington College can offer you more than education. We help set you up for success by creating opportunities that help you work toward your future career and life goals.
One way we do this is by offering the support of our Career Service Advisors who help Carrington College students and alumni with guidance such as career-search strategies, interviewing techniques, and more. You’ll have the support you need to help you reach your future goals.
Career Services Advisors maintain regular contact with employers within the communities that neighbor each of our locations. These employers regularly host Carrington College students and have a history of hiring Carrington College Alumni for open job roles. Our strong employer relationships can help you get where you want to go with your future.
Learn why employers find Carrington College students and graduates well-prepared for careers in their fields of study.
Externships
Most Carrington College programs offer opportunities for real-world experience with employers before graduation, including clinical rotation for a section of programs. Depending on the program you’re pursuing, participation in an externship may be required for you to graduate.
Exactly what is an externship? A main goal of an externship is for students to gain real-world, on-the-job experience and test drive their job skills before finishing their education. Externship opportunities may also provide employment or networking opportunities after you graduate from Carrington College. Career Services Advisors work with you to find externship opportunities that could possibly lead to local employment opportunities after your externship ends.
Providence Health has had a long-term relationship with Carrington College and frequently hosts Carrington College Medical Assisting students through externships for medical assistant candidates.
“Clinic managers are evaluating their externs based on their competencies and their skills and whether they are going to be a fit for their clinic,” says Pamela Murray, HR business relationship with Providence, in a 2021 recorded Q&A session.
“Really making your best first impressions as you’re doing your externship [is important] because those managers are looking to make sure that they hire [qualified candidates] and typically those are Carrington College students,” Murray says.
Are externships paid? Externships are unpaid, but can provide you with firsthand experience in a real-world work environment. It’s an opportunity for you to apply what you’ve learned in the classroom and labs in an actual workplace that’s related to your field of study. Externships also offer employers an opportunity to work with and get to know externship participants. In some cases, externships have led to post-graduation job offers from the employer with whom a student has externed, but that’s not guaranteed.
“The Carrington College graduates are very respectful and they work very hard in our clinics and that is exactly why we like to hire them from their externships,” says Kimberly Kildahl, Integrated Medical Services, in a 2019 recorded Q&A session.
Carrington College Employer Relationships
The College maintains relationships with employers in communities neighboring each of its 18 locations. Employers frequently reach out to Carrington College’s Career Services Department about positions they have open and skills that are needed to fill these roles.
Career Services Advisors maintain regular contact with these employers. As trusted members of the communities, advisors frequently help employers fill open positions with Carrington College graduates.
Pacific Dental Services
Carrington College has had a valued relationship with Pacific Dental Services for several years. PDS supports more than 800 dental offices throughout the U.S. and employs more than 10,000 people.
Carrington College students complete various competencies during their externship progress that sets them up for success. Carrington College students are well-prepared to work from day one on the job, Rose Olague, PDS’s manager of dental assistant national strategy and school relations, says in a 2020 recorded Q&A session.“
They want to get hired. They want to be employed and that’s where that humble and hungry personality comes out with each Carrington College student I’ve been able to work with,” she says.
“Thanks to all of [Carrington College’s] program directors and instructors, students leave their education with that solid foundation of clinical skill sets. Then, it’s our job at Pacific Dental Services during an externship, to elevate those clinical skill sets.”
Providence Healthcare
Providence Healthcare is another employer with a long-term relationship with Carrington College. The enterprise has 52 hospitals and 120,000 caregivers. Among other qualities, “Providence seeks out employees who are driven, self-motivated, compassionate, reliable, and adaptable”, according to Toni DeCaro, Manager for Centralized Staffing, Providence Medical Group.
“We like to hire students from Carrington College because they are coming out of school and they know the basic skills for a medical assistant, so they’re able to jump in and learn quickly in the clinics,” DeCaro says in a 2021 recorded Q&A session.
“They also have a positive attitude and that compassion we’re looking for to build that relationship with the patients as well as the other caregivers in the clinic,” DeCaro says. “We’ve been creating a great relationship with Carrington College throughout the years to make sure their students are successful in their externship as well as when they continue out into their career.”
“We also have medical assistants who have come from Carrington College that have gone on to become RNs with Providence and also ones that have become physicians in the Providence community,” DeCaro says.
Saint Mary’s Healthcare
Krystal Flaniken MSN, serves as Chief Nursing Officer for St. Mary’s Health Network in Reno, Nevada. Saint Mary’s has more than a century of history offering several kinds of healthcare services in northern Nevada. St. Mary’s has had a long-term relationship with Carrington College.
“What I saw in the Carrington College program and the new graduates they were producing is really that quick learning aspect of getting in, getting acclimated to patient interactions, the teamwork and the quick responses to changes in patients’ conditions,” Flaniken says in a 2021 recorded Q&A session.
“I feel like [Carrington College’s] an accelerated program that really kind of takes a team of people and kind of pushes them to be able to integrate quickly into the healthcare industry without a lot of learning curves,” she says. Flaniken says that Carrington College students integrate quick with team members.
Aspen Dental
Emily Miller Lehr, Academic and Industry Relations Manager for Aspen Dental. Aspen, a dental service support organization to more than 800 dentist-owned offices, has had a relationship with Carrington College for many years.
“Having a “can-do” attitude is the primary attribute the company looks for in employee candidates”, says Miller Lehr in a recorded Q&A session in 2020.
“We know, especially if you come from Carrington College, that you know dental hygiene. We know that you have those clinical skills that you need to go further with your career.”
Miller Lehr says she has had “wonderful experiences” hiring Carrington College graduates. That’s because they are typically people who have proven to be people who understand what they are supposed to do and they’re excited to grow and have that “can-do attitude,” she says. “It tells me that they’ve been in a learning environment where they’re really ready for the next step.”
“We have Carrington College graduates who are now in leadership positions,” says Miller Lehr. “We have Carrington College graduates who are operations managers who have been clinical managers as well as a variety of Carrington College students who are dental hygienists with us here today.”
VCA Animal Hospitals
Veterinary Centers of America Inc. operates more than a thousand animal hospitals in North America. Veterinary medicine focuses today on high academic achievement and licensure than in the past, says Fawn Nyvold in a recorded Q&A session in 2020. She is Regional Technician Director for VCA’s Southern California Team. VCA has had a long-term relationship with Carrington College.
Nyvold says the ability to be polite, professional, and accept feedback are important soft skills to have in veterinary medicine. “My job in VCA is to help support [Carrington College] students and new grads and graduates of the program,” she says.
Critical to the company’s needs is for students to become CVA or RVT certified, Nyvold says.
Carrington College Career Fairs
Campus career fairs are important to connecting Carrington College students and the College’s graduates with employers.
The employers align with the College’s programs of study. Career fairs give students an opportunity to network with potential future employers and to learn about the types of roles they may be available to them after graduation.
“The Carrington College Career Fair is very important because it gets us out in front of the students that maybe we wouldn’t [otherwise] see,” says Kildahl of Integrated Medical Services. “It gives us a chance to meet the students and get a good idea of how they present themselves.”
Stacia Edmond, Pacific Dental Services, likes participating in Carrington College career fairs because PDS has hired several Carrington College graduates as dental assistants. “They’re great, well trained, and they are very efficient on their job. Events like this are very important to keep up with our growth by hiring well-trained students,” Edmond says in a 2019 recorded interview.
Carrington College Career Services
Exactly what are career services in college? Carrington College Career Services provide job-preparation skills to the College’s students and graduates. It is one way the College fulfills its mission of providing education directed toward continued career development before and after students graduate. In addition to teaching skills such as resume building and interviewing techniques, the department’s advisors work to connect employers with students and alumni.
“We have employers who come back all the time to talk [with students and graduates] about their industry, their company, and the opportunities that they have,” says Vice President of Student Services Rebecca Marrs-Elgharib. “Our graduates can take part in that at any time. We also encourage them to re-engage with their Career Services Advisors.”
Many campuses host mock interview events for students with industry employers. “Ultimately, sometimes these lead to real interviews, which is really exciting,” Marrs-Elgharib says. “It’s a great opportunity for a student to practice in a comfortable environment of professional interviewing techniques.”
“[The college] offers opportunities for employers to come to campus to talk about what they do, talk about the positions that they have available, talk about what it’s like to be in their industry,” Marrs-Elgharib says. “It’s really a great opportunity for our students to learn about all the different options that are out there.
“I’ve had students who have come in and attended multiple employer presentations, full job events, and through that exposure to employers that are out there, they have been able to make connections that can ultimately lead to externship or employment opportunities,” she says.
Train for Your Future at Carrington College
As a Carrington College student and graduate, you’ll benefit from services and events that are geared towards your career development and success. Carrington College’s employer relationships are an important part of the career guidance process the College’s Career Services teams offer to help you reach your bright future. Learn more about how Carrington College can help prepare you for your future.
Last Updated:
November 1, 2023