COSD Products and Services
As part of the continuing efforts of COSD to assist higher education professionals prepare college students with disabilities and to encourage employers to recruit those same qualified candidates, there are four product and service areas that are highlighted in this section. COSD Career Gateway is the first nationwide online job posting and college student resume database specifically and only focused on college students and recent graduates with disabilities. It is a primary tool for employers to reach this population. Students use Career Gateway as a tool for identifying employment opportunities and employers who are committed to including disability as part of their diversity efforts. For employers, COSD Career Gateway is a vital pipeline for their future workforce. For students, COSD Career Gateway is the closest link with employers specifically seeking them. There is no charge for students to register or for employers to post available jobs, internships and/or co-op opportunities. FULL ACCESS Student Summits are regional educational and networking events for student with disabilities and employers to become more comfortable with one another. The purpose of FULL ACCESS is to bring together up to sixty college students or recent alumni with disabilities and ten select employers for a two half-day networking and education summit. The students are those who are attending or have attended colleges and universities in a specific regional or state area. N-the-Know Live Broadcasts and Archived Webinar Series N-the-Know is a brand new product that is an online educational series designed for Disability Services and Career Services professionals on college campuses, as well as service providing agencies working with college students with disabilities. In 2009 - 2010, the series consists of seven broadcasts of one-hour presentations on specific aspects of career employment for college graduates with disabilities. Alan Muir, Executive Director of COSD and Sarah Helm, Coordinator of the Disability Careers Office at the University of Tennessee Knoxville are the presenters. The Second Season of N-the-Know is underway for 2011 - 2012 and it consists of four new live broadcasts that will also be archived and available in a package to be viewed on-demand. For more information on N-the-Know, please click here.
Annual National Conference
This professional conference brings together approximately 100 representatives of higher education and employers to discuss the latest trends and best practices in the area of career employment and college students with disabilities. It is the only conference that welcomes professionals in Career Services and Disability Services from Higher Education and professionals from major national employers in such specialties as Human Resources, College Recruiting, Diversity, Disability / Special Populations and Affirmative Action / Equal Opportunity. The Conference highlights prominent national speakers in the area of disability and diversity, interactive sessions discussing specific issues from the perspectives of the three constituencies attending, student testimonials and specific disability topic presentations. The Conference is a prime forum for networking with rare opportunities for employers and higher education professionals to network with each other. The Conference also features recognition of cutting-edge best practices through our Annual Robert Greenberg Award For Innovation, a highly competitive national honor.
The Conference is held in different cities and regions of the country each year and will be celebrating its 13th anniversary in Los Angeles in November 2012. Other Conference cities include Cincinnati, Houston, Washington DC, Seattle, Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Minneapolis and San Francisco, Dallas, Boston and Morristown, NJ. For more information on specific past Conferences, please see the Conferences section of this website.
COSD Career Gateway™
On the front page of the COSD Website, there are two entry buttons, one for students and one for employers. Clicking on those buttons will take you directly to the Career Gateway site.
FULL ACCESS: COSD Student Summit for Career Exploration
The primary goals of the Summit are to have college students and recent alumni with disabilities be comfortable when talking with employers and for employers to have first-hand experience with people with disabilities and to help keep this population in the forefront of their minds when developing Diversity recruitment plans.
It should be noted that FULL ACCESS is not a career fair and is not an opportunity for interviews with individual students. However, after the Summit, interviews are encouraged and may be scheduled.
For more information and specific details on the upcoming FULL ACCESS Student Summits, please click here.