Here are some of the best questions for a freshmen student survey about career expectations, plus tips that help you create them. With Specific, you can generate a conversational survey like this in seconds.

Best open-ended questions for freshmen student survey about career expectations

Open-ended questions let freshmen students express their unique perspectives and experiences about career expectations. These are best when you want honest, detailed, or unexpected feedback—especially if you aim to capture hopes and anxieties that simple choices miss. Enhanced engagement is a big plus here; AI-powered conversational formats often drive completion rates of 70–90% compared to just 10–15% for static online forms. [1][2]

1. What are your biggest hopes as you think about your future career?

2. Which industries or fields interest you most right now, and why?

3. Who has influenced your career expectations the most?

4. What are your biggest concerns or worries about the job market after graduation?

5. How do you define career success for yourself?

6. If you could work anywhere or in any role, what would it be and why?

7. What skills do you believe you need to develop during your studies for your career goals?

8. Have your career goals shifted since starting college? If so, how?

9. What support or guidance would help you feel more confident about your career path?

10. Is there something that excites you about your future career that you haven’t had a chance to share elsewhere?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for freshmen student survey about career expectations

Single-select multiple-choice questions help you quantify trends and identify where most students stand. These are perfect for kickstarting engagement—respondents feel less pressure and can quickly choose, which often opens them up for deeper follow-up questions later. It’s a practical way to surface broad patterns, then dig in with clarifying “why” questions. Here are three examples:

Question: Which area are you most interested in pursuing after graduation?

• STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)

• Business/Finance

• Arts/Humanities

• Healthcare

• Education

• Other

Question: What matters most to you in your future career?

• Salary and benefits

• Work-life balance

• Job stability

• Making a difference

• Opportunities for growth

Question: How confident do you feel in your ability to achieve your career goals?

• Very confident

• Somewhat confident

• Neutral

• Somewhat uncertain

• Very uncertain

When to follow up with “why?” Follow up with “why” when a student’s choice suggests an underlying motivation, concern, or unique backstory. For example, if a student picks “Work-life balance,” asking “Can you share why work-life balance is most important to you?” will give you richer insight.

When and why to add the “Other” choice? Always add “Other” if possible—it signals you welcome new ideas and can surface surprising career aspirations or expectations. A follow-up asking the student to elaborate often uncovers new trends or unmet needs you may not have predicted.

Should you use an NPS question?

NPS—Net Promoter Score—is a single-question format that measures how likely someone is to recommend something. For freshmen career expectations, it helps gauge overall satisfaction with the career support they’ve perceived so far. This metric gives a quantitative, easy-to-track way to measure changes over time and can drive targeted improvements in student support programs.

The NPS format for freshmen might be: “On a scale from 0-10, how likely are you to recommend your college’s career guidance resources to a friend?” Segmenting responses by promoters, passives, and detractors can uncover not just overall happiness, but also the specific areas needing more attention. You can try a ready-made NPS survey for freshmen about career expectations in one click.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions are crucial—they dig into the “why” behind every answer. When respondents clarify, expand, or add context in real time, their feedback gains real depth. Specific’s automatic AI-powered follow-up questions continually probe for details, clarifications, or motivations, ensuring you never end up with just one-liners or incomplete feedback. These can turn a generic survey into a true conversational experience that feels natural and comfortable—one reason why AI-powered surveys cut interpretation errors by 50%, delivering more accurate insights. [3]

• Freshmen student: “I want job stability.”

• AI follow-up: “What does job stability mean to you, and why is it your priority at this stage?”

How many follow-ups to ask? We find 2–3 well-crafted, relevant follow-ups are enough; but if the student has already explained fully, they can always skip ahead. Specific includes a setting so you never overwhelm respondents—just enough detail to get actionable context.

This makes it a conversational survey: Right from the first answer, the survey evolves into a two-way conversation—gently guided, not interrogated.

AI survey response analysis: Even if you collect hundreds of paragraphs of feedback, you can use AI to instantly analyze all survey responses—saving hours, and surfacing real patterns from unstructured text.

These next-gen follow-up questions are a fresh, powerful concept. If you want to see this in action, generate a survey and explore their effect yourself.

How to compose an effective AI prompt for great survey questions

If you want to create better questions in ChatGPT, Bing Copilot, or any other GPT tool, it really helps to write a clear prompt. A great starting prompt looks like this:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for freshmen student survey about career expectations.

But giving more background improves results. For example, tell the AI about your school, why you’re running the survey, or what you hope to change. Your refined prompt could be:

I'm preparing a survey for first-year college students to understand their career goals and concerns. Our aim is to improve career advising resources for this audience. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a survey on career expectations.

AI also sorts and extends your ideas. After generating questions, try:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Then, pick the categories you want to pursue and prompt:

Generate 10 questions for categories [e.g. Career Influences, Guidance Preferences, Confidence Levels]

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey is an interactive format where the questions flow like a natural chat, not a static form. It’s smarter than a long, intimidating online form—respondents answer in their own words, and the AI asks follow-ups, turning the session into a genuine conversation instead of just ticking boxes.

An AI-powered survey generator lets you launch a custom survey via chat (not just templates), ask dynamic follow-ups, instantly analyze responses, and edit questions directly by chatting with the AI. With Specific, we’ve seen conversational surveys increase engagement—and the result is both richer quantitative data and deeper qualitative feedback.

Why use AI for freshmen student surveys? Traditional online surveys often struggle—students lose steam, and responses drop. With conversational AI, the entire process is more enjoyable, and you capture honest feedback before attention fades. Plus, AI makes it easy for both survey creators and students alike. AI survey example and conversational survey variants consistently outperform manual forms for engagement, response rate, and insight depth.

Specific provides a best-in-class, frictionless experience, making the entire survey process—creation to analytics—smooth and enjoyable for both you and your students. Learn more in our guide to creating a survey for freshmen about career expectations.

See this career expectations survey example now

Dive deeper into your students’ aspirations and concerns. Start engaging, conversational surveys to get faster, more actionable insights, and transform your career guidance strategy—see the differences for yourself today.