Friday 28-04-2017 - 10:43

Next week marks the launch of our employability campaign where we will share some learning we have gathered over the last year, and launch some of the new resources and programme we have developed for students to access. This is all designed to enhance your degree and help you stand out to employers.

 

Motivation for this work

We carried out research with students in 2015 via a series of focus groups. The groups discussed students’ goals for the future, the challenges they face, their student lives and perceptions. The feedback from students highlighted:

• The University teaches a lot of skills, there is however a sense that their experience doesn’t provide them with everything. In particular, employability skills, understanding what working life is really like and personal development.

 

• Students feel this could offer them a better idea of what being in the real world/in a career is really like.

 

• This is something students had an appetite for even if it meant and it happened outside of course hours/term time.

 

• Trends illustrate the importance of universities focusing on job prospects/career, and increasingly students are placing more emphasis on what that degree/experience will give in terms of employability and skills/ opportunities for the future.

 

• International/EU students also share these goals, with the added motivation of learning to live in a new country and understanding a new culture. Again this is viewed to further enhance their employability; giving them the opportunity to show employers they can adapt to new situations and have a wide variety of skills and experiences.

 

What the campaign will include

The campaign will run throughout this term. It will incorporate:

• Information on what employers want: we will share the results from some research undertaken with a range of leading graduate employers (from a number of different sectors: finance, law, charity, etc.) on what they look for when recruiting graduates. We will highlight the key skills, application pitfalls and how to stand out. We will also publish the full report so you can access as much detail as suits you!

 

• Online resources: we will launch our Learning Hub. This will offer a range of different opportunities for students to enhance their employability from online training, to first-hand experience.

 

• New programme: we will launch our Work Insights programme where you can shadow leaders from a range of industries in their day-to-day work and see first-hand what makes a good leader

 

Look out for our posters, Facebook posts and follow #MoreThanADegree on Twitter