Career Launch

Sean O'Keefe
Founder & Partner

Sean O'Keefe is the Founder and a Partner at Career Launch and an award winning professor of career development courses at Santa Clara University.  

Sean is an innovative and service-oriented leader and teacher.  He has expertise on the confluence of student employment outcomes, career education, how to teach cold & warm networking, frictionless micro-learning, career development partnership programs, scaffolded teaching, and how to embed high-impact career education practices into course curricula and co-curricular programming.

Sean speaks, trains, and consults for colleges, universities, high schools, and career education nonprofits and government agencies. Sean’s reputation as a speaker is built on his openness to be vulnerable and communicate authentically. He loves to share both researched-back data and evidence-based success stories of our partners. He is a thought-leader with the uncommon ability to both inspire organizations and audiences and provide them with practical takeaway strategies. 

Sean teamed up with his colleague, Professor Barry Posner, a researcher and best-selling author of The Leadership Challenge and The Student Leadership Challenge, to conduct research titled "Networking & Career Readiness of College Students: A Nationwide Survey."  NACE and the Career Leadership Collective recognized the research as the first of its kind and NACE published the data in their quarterly journal. Due to Sean's success in the classroom, his research, Career Launch's growing list of partnerships, he received several offers to publish Launch Your Career: How ANY Student Can Create Relationships with Professionals and Land the Internships and Jobs They Want.

Sean has a BA in Communication from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and a MBA from Santa Clara University.  Sean enjoyed 14 years in business prior to his switch into higher education. His first job out of college was in the business development department for the Oakland A's baseball team. Then, he spent seven years as Vice President for Shamrock Office Solutions. During college, Sean earned internships with the San Francisco 49ers, Oakland A's, and San Francisco Giants — without having any connections or the best grades. Sean lives in Northern California with his wife, whom he met in the third grade, and their two children. 

LEADERSHIP

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Schedule an exploratory call to learn more about partnering with Career Launch

Schedule an exploratory call to learn more about partnering with Career Launch

Our Story

Sean O'Keefe is the Founder and Chief Impact Officer of Launch Your Career. He is an Award-winning Professor and Career Coach.

What began as a personal strategy to land a job with the San Francisco 49ers and Oakland A’s, evolved over the years during his time as a Jesuit university professor into the official Career Launch Method. This method teaches students the power of cold networking for career success.

Many students have expressed immense gratitude for the career readiness accountability and empowerment that led to life-enhancing internships and jobs. Since 2018, we’ve paid it forward by providing coaching to thousands of students, of all ages, backgrounds, and programs of study. Our students have landed with companies and organizations across the globe in countless industries.