Just a few thoughts from my placement so far!
Its been interesting to see guidance interviews conducted in an environment where there doesn't seem to be any interest taken in how the interviews are carried out - i.e. no particular method is deemed as being the one to follow, and there's never any type of monitoring of what goes on other than the usual numbers game. What freedom to try new things out and test particular approaches! Unfortunately though nothing very innovative going on, person centred to a certain extent, but beyond that no particular theories are evident. Lots of knowledge is imparted at interviews, which appears to be very gratefully received by students.
The university doesn't seem to be very interested in individual guidance due to the small numbers it can reach but rather has focussed money and resources on careers education through the Confident Futures programme. I have to say I think these sessions are excellent on the whole, but many of the students don't seem to be too excited about the whole thing and attendance is poor at some of the modules.
Lots of students don't seem to be at all engaged by anything to do with careers, in fact the majority of people coming in to the guidance interviews appear to be unemployed graduates rather than current students.
There definitely seems to be a need for the careers service to raise its profile and market itself both to the students and to the decision makers in the university. Its amazing how many students have never looked at the careers web-site which has loads of vacancies on it. I guess we're not trained to market ourselves and I think as a profession its caring types that are attracted in, rather than self-promoters. There is a definite need for us to believe in the worth of what we're doing though - that has got to be the best marketing tool there is. This is so important for a service to thrive and move forward.
There's deifnitely some excellent work going on but trumpets just aren't being blown about it.
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17 years ago
I understand what you're saying and agree, having shared the same placement it certainly seemed to me that there was a vicious circle going on, the careers service is very small compared to the number of students hence it appeared to me that staff did not want to raise the profile so much for fear of not being able to cope with the demand but at the same time management could not it seemed make a case for expanding the service without being able to clearly evidence need and demand. There is definately an emphasis on expanding programs like Confident Futures that focused on employability and I was wondering whether individual guidance would be squeezed out? Also you mentioned attendance could be poor at these workshops so was just wondering who put the programme together in the first place and whether they sought out students views in the process. Like your experience most of the guidance interviews I sat in on were with ex students who were now having difficulties gaining employment in their chosen field but maybe for many it's when they come up against these difficulties that they are finally ready to engage with someone who can help.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was on placement in an HE setting I was completely underwhelmed. Nobody was that bothered if clients didn't turn up for interviews, most of the emphasis on the staff was organising events and going to meetings. It all felt very corporate and the few interviews I did see seemed to offer little encouragement or engagement to the client. It's all very much "well you're at uni, you should be able to find things out for yourself". Which makes you think...what's the point?
ReplyDeleteI think would have to agree with Paddy here- and my inpression from personally using career advisers at University was a bit of sorry state of affairs. I found many of the advisers, not up-to-date with what was happening, and actually quite unconcerned with any problems or issues-there was almost an underlying presumption from them that the information wouldnt be followed up anyway. I asked from advice from 3 advisers at University and to be honest wouldnt bother going back.
ReplyDeleteI hope that your experiences are a sign that possibly times have changed!