Employability

Do your students have the skills to manage degree program choices and their careers?

The days of 'a job for life' have gone. Transience, flexibility, change and the need for lifelong-learning now characterise much employment. Students need to be fully conscious of the requirement to actively manage their choices within degree programmes, in extracurricular activities, and in their personal and professional development during employment. In this way they will be optimally positioned to make the transition into work and pursue and successfully manage their desired career path.

Students who possess the career management skills needed to make appropriate career choices will be:

• aware of their strengths and weaknesses – e.g. the knowledge and skills they possess (see 'Are your students helped to steer their university experiences towards developing employability?")
• aware of the range of careers they are eligible to enter (see 'Are your students aware at an early stage of the graduate employment opportunities open to them?' )
• able to market themselves successfully to employers and course providers (see 'Are students helped in making applications for employment?')

In addition they should have other attributes such as confidence and high aspirations and the ability to network, especially at times of transition.

Once students understand the need for active management of their choices and careers there are a number of tools available for staff to help students achieve these objectives.

The WINDMILLS program. This is a comprehensive package providing a range of pre-prepared career management tools for staff to use with students. For example, as well as strategies for finding out about employment opportunities and building networks there is also material to help students (i) identify what features they desire in a job; (ii) the extent to which they possess the necessary skills and knowledge; (iii) what they might do to remedy any identified mismatches.

Further links relevant to helping students to acquire career management skills

Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS)
AGCAS researches and disseminates good practice in careers education.

Graduate Prospects
Prospects Planner is a computer-based guidance program to help students to understand the career decision making process and to generate suitable career options. A simplified version is available in these web pages (Go to: What job would suit me) and the full program is available to students at all campus careers services. In many cases it is networked across campus.

TARGETjobs
Provides a succinct and lively description of the career choice process. There are sections on career decision making, skills and researching opportunities backed up with interactive exercises.

Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE)
The Innovations Fund projects scheme, administered by HEFCE, encompasses many projects relating to the acquisition by students of skills needed for career management.

University of Reading Careers Advisory Service
An on-line assessed Career Management Skills program has been developed for Reading students that takes them through self-assessment, understanding career options related to specific degree subjects, labour market trends, and applications and interviews. It is available for purchase and use by staff in other higher education institutions.

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