10/01/2026
Supporting International Students through Collaboration and Community
By Rosie Ruoci Shen & Mitali Temurnikar
Job Search Challenges of International Students
Mei is an international student pursuing her master’s in education and beginning her final year. Because she has never looked for a job in the United States before, she felt overwhelmed and unsure where to begin, especially with the added complexity of work authorization. Sam is a first-generation international student pursuing an advanced degree in counseling psychology. He started applying for jobs early and checked the sponsorship box whenever prompted, yet he rarely heard back from an employer. The silence left him questioning whether his visa status or his materials were the problem. Both students reached out to the university career center for help.
Sam and Mei are not alone. Navigating the United States job market for the first time can feel lonely and intimidating to international students. These shared experiences warrant the services of a career development professional who can apply research-informed practices, facilitation tips, and adaptable program structures to build community and confidence. Through structured, supportive peer learning, international students like Mei and Sam can increase their chances for a successful job search.
The Context: Barriers and Emotional Strain
International students face challenges when seeking employment in the United States, such as work authorization, labor market unfamiliarity, and language differences (Balin et al., 2016). These challenges often intersect with acculturative stress, which can undermine confidence and complicate decision-making (Franco et al., 2018; Nadermann & Eissenstat, 2018; Reynolds & Constantine, 2007).
Many also wrestle with whether to remain in the United States or return home. This decision involves complex personal, professional, and cultural considerations, including visa uncertainty, family expectations, and differing definitions of success (Domínguez et al., 2022; Du & Wei, 2015).
Beyond these barriers, the job search itself can be isolating. Job seekers often withdraw socially, experience heightened anxiety, and report poorer well-being (Kwak et al., 2025). In today’s shifting political climate, these pressures have intensified. Creating spaces where international students can build connections, belonging, and hope has become essential.
The Job Search Team: A Group Intervention Approach
To address these challenges, university career development professionals may implement a job search team program, which uses established interventions designed to foster trust, continuity, and peer accountability. This approach is based on three strategies which create a trusted environment for reflection, practice, and mutual support.
- Job clubs, which emphasize peer support and shared accountability as key predictors of reemployment success (Azrin et al., 1975; Maina et al., 2025);
- Job search groups, which highlight the value of structured skill development and guided reflection in building self-efficacy (Liu et al., 2014; Pyle & Hayden, 2015);
- Group counseling, whose principles, especially the role of group norms and psychological safety, promote vulnerability, mutual learning, and empowerment.
Program Structure
The job search team program at a university is a structured, closed-cohort program designed to support 15 to 20 international students navigating the job search through peer community, guided discussion, and shared accountability. The program meets in person for 1.5 hours each week over four to six sessions. Participants are selected through an application process that captures students’ background, degree completion timeline, and interest in the program, with priority given to those close to graduating and those demonstrating readiness for collaborative, community-based learning.
To foster accountability, accepted students complete a commitment form, affirming consistent attendance and active participation throughout the program, reinforcing shared responsibility to the group.
Facilitation and Topics
Each session begins with a brief check-in and reflection to help students set weekly goals, track progress, and stay accountable to the group. Facilitators then introduce a rotating topic tailored to students’ needs. Topics include work authorization, job search strategies, networking, and interviewing, alongside panel sessions featuring employers or alumni. Topics can be adapted to students’ needs. For example, University of Pennsylvania students benefited from foundational work authorization guidance delivered in partnership with International Student Services, while University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign engineering students, gained employer insights and built networking confidence through an employer panel.
Group Mindset
Participants committed to mutual support, offering encouragement and insight to peers, learning from others’ experiences, maintaining confidentiality, and being open about their challenges. This mindset fosters vulnerability, meaningful exchange, and reciprocal support.
Implementation Strategies
Institutions interested in implementing this program may consider the following strategies:
- Build a facilitation team: Assign one or two leads (a career development professional or a student staff) to coordinate logistics, speakers, and communication.
- Leverage partnerships: Collaborate with alumni, employers, international student services, and student affairs to enrich content.
- Be intentional: Use an application process, establish group norms and accountability; set expectations upfront.
- Cultivate community: Incorporate relationship-building activities that foster psychological safety and connection.
- Gather feedback during sessions to allow real-adjustments and future improvements.
For institutions interested in creating their own version of the job search team, career development professionals can access the facilitator handbooks and session templates.
University Outcomes
The job search team program has been implemented across seven cohorts at two institutions, serving 119 international students. Data from a recent cohort of graduate engineering international students at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign indicate strong program outcomes, including a high satisfaction rating (8.88 out of 10). Pre- and post-program comparisons suggest that while stress levels fluctuated, participants’ confidence generally increased or remained stable over the course of the program.
Qualitative feedback further underscored the value of the program’s supportive community, actionable search strategies, and structured accountability. Students reported feeling more comfortable and less anxious navigating the job search process as a part of a group.
Adaptation Across Contexts
While originally designed for international students, the cohort-based structure is transferable across student populations. For example, the group setting may help first-generation college students build essential professional networks (Schwartz et al., 2018) while providing collaborative peer guidance and emotional scaffolding necessary for neurodivergent job seekers (Ara et al., 2024). Large universities may offer discipline-specific cohorts, whereas small community colleges may have fewer sessions focused on relationship-building.
The job search team program illustrates the value of structured, community-based support in helping international students navigate complex job searches. It offers a scalable approach that career development professionals can tailor to their institutional contexts, complementing traditional one-on-one services and workshops.
References
Ara, Z., Ganguly, A., Peppard, D., Chung, D., Vucetic, S., Motti, V. G., & Hong, S. R. (2024). Collaborative job seeking for people with autism: Challenges and design opportunities. Proceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 73, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1145/3613904.3642197
Azrin, N. H., Flores, T., & Kaplan, S. J. (1975). Job-finding club: A group-assisted program for obtaining employment. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 13(1), 17–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(75)90048-0
Balin, E., Anderson, N. M., Chudasama, S. Y., Kanagasingam, S. K., & Zhang, L. (2016). Working with international students in the U.S. and beyond: A summary of survey research by NCDA International Student Services Committee. Journal of International Students, 6(4), 1053–1061. https://doi.org/10.32674/jis.v6i4.335
Domínguez, S., Castañeda, A., & Lin, J. (2022). Navigating licensure, employment, and belonging: Experiences of international counseling students in the United States. The Counseling Psychologist, 50(3), 783–809. https://doi.org/10.1177/00110000221097358
Du, Y., & Wei, M. (2015). Acculturation, enculturation, social connectedness, and subjective well-being among Chinese international students. The Counseling Psychologist, 43(2), 299–325. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000014565712
Franco, M., Hsiao, Y.-S., Gnilka, P. B., & Ashby, J. S. (2019). Acculturative stress, social support, and career outcome expectations among international students. International Journal for Educational and Vocational Guidance, 19(2), 275–291. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10775-018-9380-7
Kwak, Y., Kim, Y. & Chae, H. (2025). Job search anxiety and flourishing among university students: The serial mediating effects of social support and strengths use. BMC Psychology 13(652). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-02995-4
Liu, S., Huang, J. L., & Wang, M. (2014). Effectiveness of job search interventions: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 140(4), 1009–1041. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035923
Maina, D. M., Waithaka, M., & Wangombe, P. (2025). Job clubs for graduates: Reducing job search frustrations through skills, support, and resilience. International Journal of Scholarly Practice, 5(2), 26–44. https://edinburgjournals.org/journals/index.php/Internationa-Journal-of-Scholarl/article/view/628
Nadermann, K., & Eissenstat, S. J. (2018). Career decision making for Korean international college students: Acculturation and networking. The Career Development Quarterly, 66(1), 4963. https://doi.org/10.1002/cdq.12121
Pyle, K. R., & Hayden, S. C. W. (2015). Group career counseling: Practices and principles (2nd ed.). National Career Development Association.
Reynolds, A. L., & Constantine, M. G. (2007). Cultural adjustment difficulties and career development of international college students. Journal of Career Assessment, 15(3), 338–350. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069072707301218
Schwartz, S. E., Kanchewa, S. S., Rhodes, J. E., Gowdy, G., Stark, A. M., Horn, J. P., Parnes, M., & Spencer, R. (2018). “I'm having a little struggle with this, can you help me out?”: Examining impacts and processes of a social capital intervention for first-generation college students. American Journal of Community Psychology, 61(1-2), 166–178. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12206
Rosie Ruoci Shen is a Senior Career Coordinator with Engineering Career Services at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she serves as a career coach, instructor, and program facilitator. She holds an M.S.Ed. in Human Development from the University of Pennsylvania and a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. Her work is grounded in career development theory and evidence-based practice, with a focus on translating research into engaging learning experiences that support students’ career decision-making and readiness. She can be reached at ruoci.shen@outlook.com or on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/ruocishen.
Mitali Temurnikar is a doctoral student in Counseling Psychology at Boston University Wheelock College of Education & Human Development and a research assistant in the VOICE Lab. Her research centers on psychological safety in educational settings, identity and belonging, and expanding equitable access to brief, evidence-based mental health care. She has completed clinical practicum training in inpatient and outpatient hospital settings affiliated with Harvard Medical School–Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brown University Health–Bradley Hospital, has published and presented her work nationally and internationally, and serves on the executive board of the American Psychological Association’s Society of Vocational Psychology. She can be reached at mitaly@bu.edu or on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/mitalitemurnikar.