1. Employability Festivals: Innovation in Practice

2. Kathryn Jones Careers and Employability Coordinator University of Cumbria ext.5876
1 Minute
Introduction:
Careers and Employability Coordinator at UoC.
Diverse role:
1-2-1 advice
Employability Workshops
Creating resources for students
Providing advice and application feedback via
Organising events.
Part-time: MA Internship in Tourism, Hospitality and Events Management at University of Central Lancashire.
Wide range of experience in Events Management, Careers Support, Business Support, Customer Service and Youth Work.
University of Cumbria
Has anyone heard about us before?
Know where Cumbria is?
Started in 2007 by bringing together existing colleges and institutions – 10 year anniversary this year.
students
We are well know for nursing and health courses, education courses and the arts.
Carlisle (2 campuses), Lancaster, Ambleside, London, Workington, Barrow-in-Furness.

3. Kathryn Jones
Study
Work

4. Events Events I have worked on Business exhibitions Awards evenings
Music and Arts Festivals
Careers Service:
Various careers fairs
Networking
Nursing Employability Conferences
Teaching Conferences
Futures Festival
Regular pop-up and drop-in events on campus.
Employer visits

5. University of Cumbria 7 rural and urban locations.
Courses split across campuses.
7 Careers and Employability Service staff members who work across all courses.
No student facing office.
Different campuses have different cultures.
65% of students are mature students*.
70% of students are female, 30% are male*.
8% of students have a disability*.
10% BME, 88% white, 2% ethnicity not known*.
* University of Cumbria, Student Equality Profile 2016
Started in 2007 by bringing together existing colleges and institutions – 10 year anniversary this year.
students
Undergrad, postgrad, CPD, short courses – business, health, arts, education, sciences, outdoor studies.
Carlisle (2 campuses), Lancaster, Ambleside, London, Workington, Barrow-in-Furness.

6. University of Cumbria Our event successes:
Nursing Employability Conferences and Careers Fairs.
Teaching Conferences and Careers Fairs.
Futures Festival.
English and Creative Writing Employability Day.
Part-time Jobs Fairs.
Regular pop-up and drop-in events on campus.
Visiting employer events.
Employers recruiting on campus.
Annual Creative Networking Events.
Media Industry Days.
Partnership Events with the Student Enterprise Service.

7. University of Cumbria What works for us:
Targeting events at specific courses or sectors.
Getting events into the timetable.
Considering the needs of the target students, e.g. final year nurses and CPD.
Creative team with the space to come up with good and bad ideas.
Reviewing staff time and resources available before designing an event.
Input from academic staff.
Allocating a ‘lead’ for each event who then delegates to other available staff members.
Holding cross site events on different days with staff travelling if required.
Improving the event experience through providing catering and resources such as conference bags and freebies.
Raising revenue through the sale of careers fair exhibition stands to agencies.
Collecting evaluations at each event and producing an evaluative report for each event.
Reflection and development moving forward.

8. Background Information
Why am I here today?
Work based practice module – work experience in current role - area for development – large employability festival not held before.
Events usually arranged at academic/employer request.
We offer high quality events, however, limited connection to existing research into the conceptualisation (creation of the ideas for) events – expected in busy environment. Events is a relatively young research area and I, as many are, am used to using my experience organising events to get results.
We are always looking for ways to improve working practices – e.g. event kit. Useful for organisational stage.
There is little focus on what comes before organisation and planning; the creation of the idea for the event.
It is very tempting to go straight from ‘I have an idea for this great event’ to ‘I am now organising the event’, without taking the time to consider and develop the original idea and figure out if it is going to work. Setting aside some time for these discussions can save time and resources later on in the organisation process.
Later on I will briefly cover some of the research I have undertaken into creating event concepts and evaluating them. For now, here are the key outcomes for today’s session.

9. Key outcomes:
Discuss and explore Employability Festivals from different stakeholder perspectives.
Consider how you can adapt and adopt theory and practice to deliver a personalised experience at a large Employability Festival.
Look at:
Event trends.
Conceptualisation (idea creation) of Events.
Idea screening processes to ensure efficient use of time.

10. Employability Festivals:
Edinburgh Napier
Kent
Sheffield Hallam
Staffordshire
Birmingham
Exeter
Lincoln
Southampton
Stirling
West Scotland
Lack of research available for ‘employability festivals’.
There is research for employability, festivals, events, careers fairs and virtual careers fairs
Found online – universities that already do this.

11. What do …… want to get out of an ‘Employability Festival’?

12. Write a definition of an
Employability Festival from the point of view of your stakeholder group.

13. My definition of an Employability Festival:
An event that celebrates students’ capability and readiness to step into the labour market; with the potential to add to the student experience, and so, improve student (customer)/staff (supplier) relationships.

14. Event trends: Personalisation of events. Live streaming. Event apps.
Sustainable events.
Reduced clicks to access tickets/information.
Keener focus on ROI – development of new technology.
Immersive experiences - virtual and augmented reality.
360 content.
Data collection in a manageable way.
Combined strategies for media, marketing, PR, events and social media.
Going niche – focusing events on specific areas.
Attendee contributions before, during and after.
Gamification.
Healthy eating.
Personalisation of events.
(Walker, 2017; Mowat, 2016).
In the events industry keeping up with sector trends is key to ensure clients are being offered the most up-to-date package for their event.
Here are some of the key trends being seen in 2017.
As expected in today’s world you will notice that there is a focus on new technologies.
STAT – Video is predicted to account for 80% of all Internet traffic by 2019 (Cisco) -
Focus on developing strategy and ensuring ROI.
Sustainable events. Healthy eating.
Focus for today – offering a personalised experience.
It could be argued that this focus on personalisation had come from the rise of the ‘experience economy’. Consumers are seen more and more to search for authentic experiences. In the commercial sector this has meant that, for many companies, brand experience has become the central focus in brand strategy. In higher education this can be seen through the focus on the development of the student experience, from first contact through a website or at a UCAS fair to alumnus.
Our careers service is often working within different stages of the student journey at the university of Cumbria. We work at open days, clearing call centres, registration events, welcome week, regular student support events, mature students’ coffee mornings, international festivals as well as our usual activity on campus.
So, careers events can be seen to be part of the big picture of the student experience, moreover, and they can be seen as mini experiences themselves.

15. How do we offer events that provide for all students, not just small groups, and personalise the experience?

16. Creating your event concept
What could you include as part of an event to ensure a personalised experience for students?
Consider the following questions:
Why is the event being held?
Who will the event stakeholders be?
When will the event be held?
Where will the event be staged?
What is the event content?
(Goldblatt, 2005; Bladen et al., 2012; Bowdin et al., 2011; Wagen and White, 2010; Shone and Parry, 2013; Allen et al., 2011).

17. Evaluating your event concept The Screening Process.
Assess the feasibility of your ideas against the information provided for each area of the screening process.
Are there:
ideas you will not be able to undertake?
ideas you could develop further?
new ideas that you come up with (remember to assess these as well)?
(Bowdin et al., 2011; Wagen and White, 2010; Allen et al., 2011).
Before moving onto any further planning it is important to evaluate your ideas to assess their feasibility.
There are three screening processes that could be used to do this:
Marketing screen – define your target market, will your ideas work with your target market.
Operations Screen – availability of resources and whether the ideas set-out can be achieved with the resources available – venues, staff experience, availability of staff, time, risk mitigation, licences required and legal procedures required.
Financial Screen – reviews the budget available and considered if the ideas put forward are possible within the budget constraints, this can include income from an event.
Going through this process allows you to bring together a well thought through proposal that takes into account the views of key stakeholders. This could be further developed through the inclusion of real stakeholder views, e.g. through surveys/questionnaires.

18. Thank you! Any Questions?
Thank you and questions.
Closing:
We have briefly covered a wide range of topics in this session; there is a lot of ground to cover so this has mainly been an introduction to the conceptualisation of events and the use of screening processes to evaluate ideas.
References and reading lists.

19. References
Allen, J., O’Toole, W., Harris, R. and McDonnell, I. (2011). Festival and special event management. 5th edn. Milton, Queensland: John Wiley and Sons Australia Ltd.
Bladen, C., Kennell, J., Abson, E and Wilde, N. (2012). Events management an introduction. Oxon: Routledge.
Bowdin, G., Allen, J., O’Toole, W., Harris, R. and McDonnell, I. (2011). Events management. 3rd edn. Oxon: Routledge.
Goldblatt, J. (2005). Special events. A new generation and the next frontier. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.
Mowat, J. (2016) ‘How crucial is video to university marketing?’. University business. Available at: (Accessed: 31 August 2017).
Shone, A. and Parry, B (2013). Successful event management a practical handbook. 4th edn. Hampshire: Cengage Learning EMEA.
Wagen, L. and White, L. (2010) Events management for tourism, cultural, business and sporting events. 4th edn. Frenchs Forest: Pearson Australia.
Walker, M. (2017). ‘The Event Trends That Will Shape Your 2017: Over 50 Expert Predictions’. Eventbrite. Available at: (Accessed: 3 July 2017).

20. Further Reading
Brennan, C., Daly, M., Fitzpatrick, E. and Sweeny, E. (2004). ‘Tradition versus Technology: Careers Fairs in the 21st Century’. International journal for educational and vocational guidance. Volume 4 (Issue 1). Pages Available at: (Accessed: 30 August 2017).
Carmago, P. (2007) Using tourist resources as tools for teaching and creating awareness of heritage in a local community, in Richards, G. (ed.) Cultural tourism: global and local perspectives. New York: Howarth Press.
Chartered Management Institute (2013). Carrying out a PEST analysis checklist 196. Available at: (Accessed: 14 March 2017).
Cottrell, S. (2015). Skills for success personal development and employability. 3rd edn. London: Palgrave.
De Geus, S., Richards, G. and Toepoel, V. (2016) ‘Conceptualisation and Operationalisation of Event and Festival Experiences:
creation of an Event Experience Scale’. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism. Volume 16 (Issue 3). Pages Available at: (Accessed: 30 August 2017).
Fox, D., Gouthro, M., Morakabati, Y. and Brackstone, J. (2014). Doing events research from theory to practice. Oxon: Routledge.
Higher Education Academy (2015). Models and definitions. Available at: (Accessed: 27 February 2017).
Jackson, C. (2006). The experiential Impact of events, in Flemming, S. and Jordan, F. (ed.) Events and festivals: education, impacts and experiences. Brighton: Leisure Studies Association.
Kinash, S. and Crane, L. (2015). Enhancing graduate employability of the 21st century learner. Hong Kong: International Mobile Learning Festival.
Kolltveit, B., Karlsen, J. and Gronhaug, K. (2007) ‘Perspectives on project management’. International journal of project management. Volume 25 (Issue 1). Pages 3-9. Available: (Accessed: 6 March 2017).
Lazarus, Z. (2017). ‘The experience economy: key trends for 2017’. Campaign. Available at: (Accessed: 31 August 2017).
Leece, R. (2005). ‘A Virtual Careers Fair’. Australian Journal of Career Development. Volume 14 (Issue 2). Pages Available at: (Accessed: 30 August 2017).
Lindop, E., Fothergill, J., Ringer, L., Coakley, L and Ward, B. (2011). Working towards your future, making the most of your time in higher education. Available at: (Accessed: 27 February 2017).
Lowden, K., Hall, S., Elliot, D. and Lewin, J. (2011). Employers’ perceptions of the employability skills of new graduates. London: Edge Foundation.
Trought, F. (2012). Brilliant employability skills how to stand out from the crowd in the graduate job market. Harlow: Pearson Education Ltd.
Universities UK (2016). Student experience: measuring expectations and outcomes. Available at: (Accessed: 27 March 2017).