Lower division career orientation/cornerstone and upper division capstone courses are pervasive across college campuses, as institutions focus on ways to increase student success during and after college. Despite the surge in career preparation and planning courses, very little has been published about the best practices for teaching these courses. In this paper, we present a review of existing courses, which we then use to create a framework for designing and teaching cornerstone and capstone career courses. The proposed best practices framework is general enough to apply to any discipline and aligns with NACE competencies and high-impact practices. We discuss the implications of the framework for career advising and the design of career readiness and planning courses.
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