1. Careers Centre Nalayini Thambar Anne Hamill Scott Hobbs Career Development for Finalists. What makes the difference?

2. Careers Centre Outline of Session  Background and Context  Outline of the module and 2010/11 experience  2011/12 plans  Talent & Potential – introduction and activity

3. Careers Centre Brief Biog: Nalayini  Assistant Director (Business Services) at UoL Careers Centre  Responsible for Employer Engagement, Business Start- up, IT and Marketing  Careers Adviser with 19 (eek!) years experience from LEA schools work to FE careers and schools liaison to the University of Leeds, then project management (Graduates Yorkshire)

4. Careers Centre University of Leeds – teaching activity  10/11; 1100 students took career development modules either within their department or centrally  Generic Careers Centre modules:  Level 1 – Career Planning (10 and 20 credits)  Level 2 - Career Development (10 and 20 credits)  Level 2 – Industrial Placement Year (120 credits)  Level 3 ??

5. Careers Centre The mission – which I chose to accept  To develop a 10 credit Careers Centre module for finalists which did not focus on :  Career decision making and planning  Transferable Skills (teamwork (including Belbin), communication, presentations, networking  Application and selection techniques  Research into companies  Personal reflection and action planning

6. Careers Centre Sources of inspiration  Feedback from AGR 2006/7; Commercial Awareness is the most sought after and difficult to find quality in applicants for graduate schemes  Spark; the Leeds Business Start-up Programme, based at the Careers Centre  A short-lived level 2 Commercial Awareness module ; a promising foray which hadn’t quite gathered momentum

7. Careers Centre The key elements  Introduction to the graduate labour market  Introduction to self- employment  Business Awareness in a Consultancy setting  Business Planning  X-ing (Business Game)  MBTI  Professionalism in the workplace  Driving your Career; managing the early stages of graduate life

8. Careers Centre The Assessments  20 minute group pitch “Our business – planning for success” which outlines an original business idea and demonstrates an understanding of the key success factors for a business. 25%  A 2,500 word project report which evaluates the way in which it would be appropriate to demonstrate and deploy Commercial Awareness skills within two contrasting sectors or organisations of your choosing with a clear rationale for your choice. Your rationale should include a demonstration of an understanding of your own skills and motivations in relation to those sectors or organisations. 75%

9. Careers Centre 2010/11 points of interest  Group dominated by people who had spent a year in industry or studied abroad  Mainly Business or Management  Mainly male  All really appreciated the small and interactive group nature of the course  All really appreciated the external speaker input  Most struggled to grasp the concepts around Commercial Awareness

10. Careers Centre 2011/12 – new developments  “Compulsory” individual guidance interview during the course of the module  Greater segmentation between the sessions on entrepreneurial and corporate approaches to commercial awareness  More direction about the assignments  Bringing forward the assessed presentation date  Greater promotion through our existing modules

11. Careers Centre 2011/12- the dawn of 20 credits “ The 3,000 word assignment will ask students to analyse the current economic and graduate recruitment trends and reflect and report on how they will create their own graduate success within the current graduate opportunity structure. Students will be expected to take advantage of the broad range of graduate recruiters who visit Leeds and include primary sources in their analysis of the market. They will be asked to consider current and predicted trends in the private, public and third sector as appropriate and relate this to their plans for the first twelve months after graduation. They will be expected to articulate the route through which they arrived at these plans and demonstrate that they are congruent with their interests and abilities. “

12. Careers Centre Looking back, what did you really like about the module?  “ The Talent & Potential sessions were brilliant. They were the best thing in the whole course. I found them really useful and I really liked the cards. I still take them out and look at them and will find them really useful when I get into a graduate job” Module student in focus group. April 2011

13. Careers Centre Why I chose Talent & Potential  At Leeds we do a lot to prepare students for work placement preparation and very little transition into the graduate workplace – this was a way of adding value and differentiation to this module  The extent to which T&P base their materials on research into the career development strategies of hundreds of successful graduates  The experience that T&P have in graduate development within organisations  The quality of their materials