Career Connections, a podcast from South Dakota State University

Kelsey Sweeney is the Regional Sales Manager and Project Manager for Lloyd Companies in Sioux Falls. She provides some great insights into what career readiness looks like in her industry and why you can have a great career as long as you prioritize relationships and helping others.

I kickoff my exploration of what is possible in South Dakota by speaking with Brienne Maner, who is the President of Startup Sioux Fall. You will hear us discuss many ways that entrepreneurs have created interesting career paths in South Dakota. Importantly, we also talk about career readiness and the importance of answering the question, what kind of problem do you want to solve? How do you want to contribute?

Check out these links:

Startup Sioux Falls

SD State Office of Career Development

In Season 3 of the Career Connections Podcast, I will be exploring what is possible in SD. There are a multitude of ways people create their career paths and I want to discuss some of the nontraditional avenues people choose, which is often motivated by the question, "what problem can I solve for my community?"

This episode is for faculty and staff. It is the audio from a webinar I hosted in early April 2026 for the South Dakota Higher Education Association. In this webinar I discuss different ways to embed career development into courses and our work with students. See below where you will find links to platforms where you can watch the video version of the webinar.

Resources:

South Dakota Higher Education Association Webpage

Webinar Video

Faculty and Staff Online Toolkit

This episode is the audio of the Professional Development Series Webinar I co host with my colleague Travis Jensen who is part of the South Dakota State University Alumni and Foundation. Every year we host 3-4 webinars on different topics with the intent of providing professional development for alumni and current students.

A common question for graduating students centers on the theme of what’s next? How do I do this?

The content of this episode focuses on a few recent alumni who have figured this out. Each panelist has different experiences post-graduation and work in different sectors. I’m confident you will find this informative and interesting.

During the webinar portion, you will hear from Travis who hosted the event solo along with the alumni panel.

Resources:

South Dakota State University Alumni & Foundation YouTube Channel

SD State University Career Development

Office of Career Development

SD State Alumni & Foundation

There are countless stories we hear about the job market. From unemployment rates and a frozen job market to anecdotal scenarios of people getting jobs, losing jobs, starting their own businesses, we hear it all. At South Dakota State University, one of our challenges is sorting through the national story to try and understand what is happening in South Dakota and the Upper Midwest.

My guest on this episode will help navigate some of this story. Jessica Meyers is a proud alum of SDSTATE. She is also the founder of Porchlight, which is a recruiting firm with the mission of rural economic development. She will shed light on many of the challenges her clients face as well as some of the wins she witnesses through her work.

For current students and alumni of SD State, I want you to remember that my office provides several services that will help you navigate and prepare for the job market. So when you hear Jessica mention preparation, different resume tips, etc., we can help you individually with those items. I encourage you to follow the links below for more information and resources.

Office of Career Development website

Porchlight website

Many students continue to wonder- are career fairs important or even effective? The short answer is an emphatic YES.

This episode is part 2 of “The Career Fair.”  

In this episode I reconnect with Maddie Haen who now works for Hefty Seeds and attends many career fairs as their recruiter. She is an alumnus of South Dakota State University and was one of the students I interviewed for the episode titled “The Career Fair,” early in season 1 of this podcast. I encourage you to go back to that episode and listen to it because we define the career fair and highlight different ways to prepare for career fairs.

In my conversation with Maddie on this episode we highlight a few key items students need to consider when preparing for a career fair such as how to answer the prompt, “so tell me a little bit about yourself.” We also highlight what is helpful from the recruiting perspective that build on what she shared in the original Career Fair episode.

Please explore the links below for additional information about my office and the link to The Career Fair (Part 1)

Link to the Office of Career Development

Link to The Career Fair episode from Season 1 of Career Connections

I collaborate with the South Dakota State Alumni Association to host a professional development webinar series, and we had a session in October on servant leadership. The presenter for that webinar was Toby Uecker who currently serves as the Dean of Students here at South Dakota State and this episode is the audio from that webinar.

I am sharing it on this podcast because the content is relevant not only to career development, but also in my exploration of storytelling in this season of Career Connections.

The story of servant leadership has many different themes. Servant leadership is a phrase we hear often but I feel we rarely actually dig in to learn what the label servant leadership actually means. Toby references a few resources that help us learn more about servant leadership and I have shared that information in the show notes. I hope you find this information helpful.

Resource links:

South Dakota State Alumni Association YouTube Channel

Focus on Leadership edited by Larry C. Spears

Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership by James W. Sipe

Office of Career Development

SDSU Alumni Association

Using Stories within the Career Everywhere Initiative

How do we tell stories? Why should we even think about stories? What kind of story am I telling people?

She’s a journalist turned marketer. Meredith Metsker is the host of the Career Everywhere Podcast, and she joined me on this episode to share her thoughts about the questions above and Career Everywhere.

The Career Everywhere Initiative is the dominant strategy at many university career centers across the country including South Dakota State University. Part of the story of Career Everywhere is how each campus embraces this concept, and it is having a significant impact on students.

Links:

Meredith Metsker's LinkedIn

SD State Office of Career Development

We tell ourselves a story of our professional identity. What happens when that story needs to change whether you want it to or not? In this episode we discuss Transition Theory and how we can support students through important big transitions.

Resources:

Office of Career Development

The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron