Beyond the EU: DORA and NIS 2 Directive's Global Impact
Current challenges facing university careers and employability services 111209
1. Current Challenges Facing University
Careers and Employability Services
Chris Cardew
14th December 2011
2. 1. Student Career Focus
The Focused students Approx 5% 600
Focused Most students get
have a good idea of
what they want to do Careers support using
when they graduate traditional model
The Self Aware Approx 10% 1200
students can focus with Self aware Some students get
intervention from Careers support
significant others
Most students have Approx 85% xyz
no idea about a Very few students
career and struggle No Idea search out Careers
to formulate a plan support.
CAREERS EDUCATION
3. 2. Employability Strategies
• The Challenges:
– Employability strategies don’t include Careers
Advisers in the main stream
– They Concentrate on Work Experience and Employers
and not student self awareness, self reliance and self
learning
• How to work with the strategy:
– Ideally one Vocational/Social Psychologist (Careers
Adviser) for each College
– Create Career Education plan with Employability
Officers, tutors and employers
4. 3. Global Economy
• The Challenges:
– Fewer Graduate Jobs – Degree entry for basic roles
– More Graduates competing globally
– International students expectation
• How to support Swansea students:
– Careers Education –
• In the curriculum from year 1
• Emphasis to follow economic trends e.g. self employment
• Blended use of technology to gain most from a small team
• Use of reflective learning not by examination
– All university managers to offer work experience
5. 4. Careers Education
Employability
is a Learning
Orientation
not a Grade
Orientation
Hinweis der Redaktion
Students fall into three groups:Focused, 2. Self Aware, 3. No ideaIn a traditional Careers Service mostly unchanged for 30 years will offer one to one interviews on a voluntary basis.The focused and self aware fill most of these interviews2. The big challenge is how to support those with no idea and with little motivation to formulate a plan
The current trend is to throw money and effort into employability without thinking about the individual’s personal experience their emotional intelligence which implies a lack of it in the strategists and policy makers or simply recognising that some work experience is better than none, simply seen to be doing something.Employability Officers, tutors, and Careers advisers need to work together to create a careers education plan.Employers should be built into the plan if and when possible depending on the nature of the subject.
The entry to jobs like clerical assistant used to be O levels (GCSEs) not it is a degreeIf students don’t go into HE they may find it very difficult to progress in work, but as the jobs decrease many Graduates will be faced with unemployment.Graduates must be adaptable (self reliant), if they have to move to get work or learn a new language then they have to do it or accept being unemployedChinese, Indian, German, Dutch students tend to study more vocational subjects and as more of them join the graduate pool, this puts more pressure onto the Arts and Humanities and onto those without language skills.International students expect work experience, but many will struggle as work permit requirements determine what they can doCareers Education needs to be introduced into year 1, maybe even earlier at transitionImportant to cover self reliance skills and attributes such as willingness and acceptance to travel, self employment, languagesThe use of technology is important to give a blended approach, for students to reflect on line and tutors to give formative feedback and students can work in their time and space. Dynamic, paperless, exportable, shareable.Universities need to be more proactive in offering work placements within
The challenge is to deliver Careers Education effectively.Use a blended approach with a mix of technology and one to one.Reflecting on themselves is the most effective way to learn about themselves, but there needs to be a scaffolded approach to formative feedback.That means a lot of directed support to start with leading to some support and then very little.Developing self reliance and self learning.Learning to swim is an example of learning orientation.The learner is in control of the learning process, the tutor can only support and facilitate.The tutor can explain about the expected learning outcomes, the method, process and techniques giving formative feedback.Once the pupil has learnt to swim, maybe by swimming a width or a swimming pool, they might be deemed a swimmer.This does not mean they can now swim a length of the pool, half a mile or the English channel.They would need plenty of practice and honing of techniques.Employability and PDP are invariably a sideline in HE.When I was a student I learnt how to pass exams.When I went to work I was humbled by the apprentices.Younger than me they knew the basics far better than I did.My first two years in work were the most beneficial learning experiences of my life.Simply because if I wanted to be competent I had to know more than I needed to to fulfil my responsibilities.Work is a learning orientation culture.All my education had been about passing exams, question spotting.When I was working on a Diploma in Advice and Guidance the assessor once told me that I was doing too much work and that elements of what I as doing were not necessary. I replied that for me to have a deeper understanding and to satisfy my learning I needed to cover more than the assessed curriculum.This is a grade orientation comment from the assessor and is the culture in English speaking western civilisation.Employability tick box exercises don’t work.Learning answers to interview questions don’t always work.We need to be aware of what we are learning all the time.Piecemeal is better than nothing, but in a grade orientation culture it’s what we try to do.