Careers and Employability

1. Careers and Employability Rose Watson, Senior Careers Adviser

2. ‘Strong academic performance is a prerequisite but those with the employability edge will demonstrate experience and skills gained inside and outside study’ Sonja Stockton, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

3. ‘21st century graduates need to demonstrate to employers that they can ‘hit the ground running’. ‘In addition to working hard to gain a good degree, students should engage in extracurricular activities, and obtain work experience in order to develop skills that will make them better prepared for the world of work. It is also important for students to become self-aware and develop the confidence to market themselves effectively when the time comes to apply for jobs’ Carl Gilleard – Chief Executive Associations of Graduate Recruiters

4. ‘According to a survey of 500 directors – when recruiting, 64% said graduates’ employability skills were more important to their firm than the specific occupational, technical or academic skills associated with a degree’ Institute of Directors

5. ‘The Graduate Job Market in 2012’Recent research by High Flyers ‘Nearly two thirds of recruiters warn that graduates who have no work experience at all are unlikely to be successful during the selection process and have little or no chance of receiving job offers for their organisations’ graduate programmes’

6. E= Q + WE + S x C E = Employability Q= Qualifications WE= Work experience S= Strategies C= Contacts Paul Redmond (2010) The Graduate Jobs Formula

7. What skills and attributes have you developed as a StAR?

8. What employers are looking for Enterprise Rent-a-Car Customer Service Work Ethic Leadership Communication Flexibility Google Leadership Role related knowledge How you think Googleyness

9. Leadership Enterprise: Can you work well in a team and win the respect of those around you? We are looking for those of you who can work cooperatively as part of a team and will offer praise and support to their colleagues. Google: We’ll want to know how you’ve flexed different muscles in different situations in order to mobilize a team. This might be by asserting a leadership role at work or with an organization, or by helping a team succeed when you weren’t officially appointed as the leader

10. Using STARR to frame your examples Situation: ‘When I was a student academic representative I had to collect views from my 40 fellow students and present this to the course leaders. Task: I called one meeting and it became clear that some students were unhappy about the quality of feedback they were getting about their assignment from one particular member of staff. Action: ‘to find out whether this view was shared by the majority I called an informal meeting but also made sure that I spoke privately to those who couldn’t attend. As there was consensus on this I then arranged a private meeting with the course leaders and asked them to speak to the member of staff concerned. After this I agreed to speak to my fellow students on a monthly basis to pick up any future problems. Result: ‘communication in both directions is now much better, and now it is all out in the open everyone felt relieved and able to tackle their future work. Reflection‘in retrospect I would have tackled this situation earlier before it became such a big issue.

11. For more help • Information and resources from Careers and Study Skills Zone • CV and interview skills workshops www.worc.ac.uk/workshops • Individual feedback from Careers Drop In. • Mon, Wed, Fri 12.00-1.30, Tue and Thur 2.30-4.00. Book on the day at firstpoint.