1 / 11

Making an Impact…… A Positive Approach to Marketing and Retention By

Making an Impact…… A Positive Approach to Marketing and Retention By Roy Christian & Linda Holdsworth Impact Project Officers. What is Impact?.

dbrandenburg
Download Presentation

Making an Impact…… A Positive Approach to Marketing and Retention By

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Making an Impact…… A Positive Approach to Marketing and Retention By Roy Christian & Linda Holdsworth Impact Project Officers

  2. What is Impact? • Working in partnership across the University Careers Services at the four West Yorkshire universities (Bradford, Huddersfield, Leeds and Leeds Metropolitan) – led by University of Bradford • “Positive Action” project – employability aims • Initially 2 year funding but now continuing with interim institutional funding • “Supporters Club” of Employers • Team of 2 Project Officers • Met and exceeded the student target numbers

  3. Marketing to Employers • The “hard to reach” - Opportunity to access and increase numbers of minority ethnic students applying • Awareness - Learning about other cultures and religions and spreading this awareness through own organisations (e.g. mentoring) • The “Supporters Club” - High number of major graduate employers/recruiters already signed up! • Two way process - Impact will advertise employer schemes and other “positive action” initiatives to students on a targeted basis • Meeting their obligations under the Race Relations Amendment Act as well as Diversity being a “hot topic”! • No cost to employers – though welcome sponsorships!

  4. Retention of Employers • “Supporters Club” allows for networking opportunities to learn about other employers’ initiatives and how they have implemented Diversity • Advisory support on employer schemes and honest information on what students really want • Research (e.g. Park HR) • New things on offer (Afro Caribbean Fair, Muslim females role model day) • Personal approach - Continual contact and visits from the whole Project Team wherever possible • Flexible and accommodating

  5. Marketing to Students • Word of Mouth (a good service) • Mass e-mailing (from a person not an organisation) • Careers Stands (Graduate fairs/Societies and Freshers’ Fairs/Corridors!) • Duty slots (outreach approach) • Careers Advisers’ referrals (sensitivity) • Links with academics (talks to final/first year students) • Society Links (motivations, aims and objectives of the society) • Student Union Representatives to spread the word! (priorities of the individual officer) • Consultative Groups of Students

  6. Retention of Students • Personal style and approach (awareness/one-to-one/workshops) • Offer what they want (continual evaluation of activities and take on board the feedback received!) • Time and support (average appointment of an hour) • Flexibility (out of hours workshops and one-to-ones) • Mediator (between students and employers) • Be open minded to cultural differences • Respect both ways (e.g. missing appointments) • Direct and honest with students (ambitions vs realism) • Inclusiveness - even if not a target client!

  7. Overcoming Sensitivity Students: • Inclusive – “Positive action” not discrimination • Value the focused provision (proven the need for Impact) Other Staff: • Lack of understanding - Inform and update, whilst integrating into mainstream • Reluctance to promote the services for fear of being seen as “discriminatory” - be available and spread awareness of why the service is here Employers: • Give advice on what students want - Straight talk from a focus group (e.g. Park HR)

  8. Some Impact facts to date: • Worked with 815 minority ethnic students • 130 Impact targeted careers workshop run (many with employer involvement) • Over 1,500 one-to-one appointments with students (average of 1 hour per appointment) • Over 30 students assisted into positive action work experience placements e.g. Inland Revenue, HSBC, Cabinet Office • Over 1,000 e-mails from students per year • Delivered workshops to 32 HE careers staff nationally on “Black and White” issues in employment

  9. Strength of Impact…… • Quality and variety of activities offered • The Impact Model and targeted nature of support (extended beyond normal provision) • The “visible brand” and notion of “one-stop” shop for employers • Dedicated, committed and experienced team • High level of satisfaction amongst employers and careers colleagues with Impact • Client group – demand for the provision of support (e.g. 98% of students said the workshops were very or quite relevant to their needs) • Links with Harris Report recommendations

  10. Impact – The Future …… • Building on the success of the Impact Model • Extend scheme with further Project Officer offering services in two South Yorkshire Universities (Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam) • Graduate focus • Current negotiations to extend funding to 2005

  11. For more information, contact: Roy Christian: 01274 – 235509 (Bfd) 01484 – 472124 (Hudds) r.christian@bradford.ac.uk Linda Holdsworth: 0113 343 5303 (Leeds) 0113 283 5995 (LMU) impact@careers.leeds.ac.uk or visit our website: www.bradford.ac.uk/admin/impact

More Related