Friday 6 September – Annual Conference 2019 Workshop Descriptions

Annual Conference 2019 Workshop Descriptions All workshops are in the Renold Building Free choice on the day – seating is on a first come, first served basis Day 3 Area

Session E

Session F

Careers advice/ guidance Communications/ marketing/social media Data Enterprise Employability Employer engagement Information IT/systems/website Management Mentoring Placements/internships Skills Awards Student engagement

E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E7 E8 E3 E8

F2 F3 F4 F6 F7 F8 F2 F4 F6 F6 F2 F3 F4 F5 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F3 F4 F6 F7 F8 F7 F6

E5 E7 E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E7 E8 E3 E7 E3 E8 E1 E3 E8 E2 E4 E6 E3 E1 E2 E1 E2 E3 E5 E7 E8

F4 F7 F8 F2 F3 F8 F3 F4 F6 F7 F3 F7 F3 F4 F6 F7

FRIDAY AM 11:00–12:15 E1: Mapping students’ employability: a curriculum approach Presenters: Ayesha Peeran and Dr Eddie Tunnah, The Open University Room D1 A strategic programme is underway at the Open University (OU) with the development of an employability framework that will broaden the skills based approach, provide an opportunity for cross university collaboration and with tools and resources to support students’ in their ambitions and self- development. OU students come from diverse social and educational backgrounds, are widely spread across the UK, a significant minority are disabled and increasing personal aspiration and confidence and hence employability is more nuanced.

The workshop will explore: • The challenges of embedding employability for careers professionals • Why it was necessary to re- look at what employability meant for OU students • The OU experience of how professional careers expertise fits in an academic environment • What does employability look like in a distance learning context with non traditional learners • The task of re-inventing PDP • How the learning will be incorporated into future roll out of the framework across the curriculum • Through discussion, how participants can apply their learning to their contexts

E2: Applicant to Alumni: Using targeted alumni interventions to increase aspiration for female engineering students Presenters: Chris Birchall and Andy Smith, University of Nottingham Room D2 This workshop aims to highlight the ways in which alumni can be used as a valuable resource to both increase aspiration and provide targeted career support for specific student groups.

We will first discuss the ways in which interactions with both pre- and post- university students can assist those currently studying in developing employability skills in novel ways before briefly discussing an example of a programme recently undertaken at the University of Nottingham in conjunction with the Alumni Relations dept.

This program was titled ‘Inspiring Women in Engineering’ and brought female engineering alumni, university students and school pupils together to work on a joint, structured project over a 5 week period. We will aim to highlight how this programme worked at increasing aspiration for all groups involved and the feedback we’ve received.

Participants will then have an opportunity to work in small groups, identifying different student groups which would benefit from targeted alumni interaction and the skills they would look to develop. We’ll also investigate the format these interactions could take and how alumni could be used to support existing employability initiatives.

E3: #adulting – Helping Students Cope with the World of Work Presenters: Kathryn Girvan and Su Maynard, AGCAS Placements and Work Related Learning Task Group Room E1 Increasingly, students are reporting difficulties when it comes to adjusting to the workplace whether they are embarking on a short internship or a longer placement. These “negative experiences” are impacting on the career decision making of our students and no doubt having a knock on effect on their graduate destinations and their ability to “get on” with their careers.

What happens when it all goes wrong for students during this transition from academic life to work? Is there a way that we can better prepare our students for the reality of a workplace? How do we bridge the gap between expectation and reality? What is the best way of creating adaptable and resilient students who will thrive outside formal education?

This interactive workshop is designed for careers and placement professionals who help students in HE through the increasing difficulties of work related learning. We aim to discuss trends and common themes in problems arising on placement for the students and look at how we can best support during these problems as well as best prepare students for these issues in a changing landscape. We hope that participants in the workshop will leave with a sense of how they can start to embed and adapt some of the ideas in their own HEIs as well as increase awareness around common areas of concern for our students. As a task group we hope to begin these discussions with AGCAS members and facilitate support networks for professionals for when these issues arise.

E4: Dealing with the emotional side of career thinking: lessons from a workshop for researchers Presenter: Sophia Donaldson, UCL Room E2 Is there an emotional elephant in your careers consultation room? There often is in ours.

In the UCL Careers Researcher Programme team we work with PhDs and Research Staff trying to change careers. There are lots of ways we can help researchers, but sometimes they’re unable to engage with the practical steps because of the emotional strain of leaving academia behind. Are they a failure if they leave? Have they wasted their time in research? What if they make the wrong choice again and the next job is even worse? Will anyone even want to employ them when they’re only an academic? These worries stand in the way of progress.

So we ran a workshop on dealing with these emotional challenges. We consulted UCL’s Psychological Services for advice, and we delivered an initial pilot to get feedback. We think it went quite well, and we’ve since added it to our regular workshop schedule. Although the workshop was specific to researchers, we think the barriers we addressed can be universal to all careerthinkers, especially those from less privileged backgrounds who may be more likely to suffer imposter syndrome and not

understand that initial rejections are a normal part of a job search.

In this session we’ll discuss the workshop we ran and the feedback we received, and how we think it can be applied to wider audiences. We’ll also give you the opportunity to share any similar approaches you’ve used with your students.

E5: “Your Network is your Net-worth”: Entrepreneurship and community building for under-represented group at UAL Presenter: Lora Ghany, University of the Arts London Room F1 No access to networks, financial constraints, unpaid internships and unconscious bias are some of the many additional barriers that students from low-socio economic or BAME backgrounds can face when accessing the creative industries. As such, having a wide peer and professional network as well as having the confidence and agency to ‘make things happen’ is crucial to surviving a rapidly changing jobs market.

In order to respond to this challenge UAL established Connect 2, a student-led creative network. In this workshop, hear about how Connect 2 fosters a sense of community in order to encourage entrepreneurial activity among students underrepresented in the creative industries. Find out about how this philosophy is embedded, and how we aim to ‘bridge the gap’ between education and industry through collaboration. Connect To is all about building peer and professional networks, ‘learning by doing’ and having the space to take risks and make mistakes!

You’ll be invited to participate in a short activity that demonstrates the Connect To philosophy in action and also have the chance to ask questions and delve deeper into the evolving creative journey of Connect To.

E6: Can career mentoring relationships change career trajectories?

Presenter: Tania Lyden, University of Reading Room F2 This workshop will share with AGCAS members doctoral research being undertaken into whether undergraduates in HE benefit similarly from career mentoring regardless of socio-economic status and what the enhancers and inhibitors of the perceived success of career mentoring are. Learning from this research has enhance the Thrive Career Mentoring Scheme at the University of Reading which received an AGCAS Excellence award for Research Informed Practice in 2018 and has a social mobility and employability remit.

This workshop will enable participants to: • Describe case study research findings about how the processes of career mentoring seem to impact on the career trajectories of students.

• Analyze what steps could be taken to harness these processes for their students.

• Critically analyse the professional ethics of using career mentoring to alter the career trajectories of undergraduates in the light of GO/LEO. Does this workshop challenge traditional views on mentor matching, mentor training and engagement checking and mentoring supervision?

E7: Embedding the 3 Es in the curriculum: a social (mobility) enterprise?

Presenter: Dr Stephen Watt, University of Dundee Room G1 In a rapidly evolving graduate labour market, employers are increasingly looking for evidence of creativity, innovative thinking and enterprising skillsets in order to stand out. Allied to this we have seen advances in entrepreneurial ambition and desire for graduates to start their own business. At the same time, these changes come amidst government policies across the UK which have seen an increase in students attending university from non-traditional backgrounds, many of whom are disadvantaged in facing these challenges.

We have taken an innovative approach to facing these challenges by partnering with the university’s Centre of Entrepreneurship

to design and deliver credit-bearing modules which address employability, enterprise and entrepreneurship. Moreover, this innovative, collaborative approach to EEE education emphasizes the fact these elements are not mutually exclusive; benefitting those who seek to become entrepreneurs, but perhaps more significantly, highlighting the importance of enterprise skills and entrepreneurial mindset in wider student employability.

Currently delivered to Engineering and Law students, two programmes which have seen a rise in the number of students from Scotland’s most deprived areas, students gain not only an understanding of key employability issues but, through a group project to develop and pitch a new business idea, actively develop enterprise skillsets through practical activity. By embedding within the curriculum, we have enabled a greater reach for EEE across both traditional and non-traditional backgrounds; developing the self-confidence and self-awareness of enterprising individuals by enhancing key skills such as creativity, idea generation, teamwork, presentation skills and commercial awareness.

E8: Does Experience Work? Exploring the value of student work experience in the graduate labour market Presenters: Stephanie Lieber and Kate Foster, UpReach and University of Exeter Room G2 Utilising joined up & consistent messaging at the different stages of engagement with WP students, pre-18 into University continuing post University, sets the stage to broadening horizons (a necessary first step) which then supports ambition & builds employability skill sets, which translates to graduate outcome success as well as equipping them for success in a changing job market.

To support students in identifying their ambitions and what they need to succeed helps to create engagement with the hard to reach students. We use various platforms/tools (REALrating, getEmployable, engagement portals) in conjunction with our University partners to support the students in their development process at each stage of engagement (“aspire”, “Rise”, “Ambassador” programmes).

Our key areas of focus to help them Connect the Dots to success include.... * Define: graduate employability framework (GEF) - present employability as key elements in order to measure it * Assess: getEmployable – set a baseline assessment to create an action plan * Target: map each activity to a GEF category to identify relevant intervention - students self-select or target students with low levels in specific GEF category * Measure: Engagement dashboard - measure student engagement in each activity, and use to further target interventions * Impact: measure increase in employability through reassessment against each category, adds additional and more timely evidence of impact of activities * Analysis and Evaluation: use data to explore which interventions were most effective in boosting employability and achieving outcomes, further analysis when offered to multiple cohorts with diverse backgrounds (various indicators)

FRIDAY PM 13:45–15:00 F1: “The oldest trick in the book” – Three innovative ways University of Bristol engage students in the Career planning process including intensive targeted support for our widening participation cohort Presenters: Clare Matthews and Jenny Livesey, University of Bristol Room D1 The Career Planning cycle has to be up there as one of the ‘oldest tricks in the book’ when it comes to helping students to think through career decisions. Yet with a changing job market and so many conflicting demands on students’ time, engaging students with the idea of career planning is more important than ever to help them aspire and succeed.

But how do we persuade students of that? Here we discuss three innovative ways that we have tailored our delivery of this valuable tool to build ambition, reslience and entrepreneurial spirit in our students and graduates: 1) A workshop on offer to all students entitled ‘Confused about your career’ 2) A webinar designed to reach graduates: ‘Get clear on your Career’

3) Career Boost - A four week course for ‘widening participation students’ to help them secure career related experience, leading them through the Career planning cycle week by week.

We will include some short interactive activities from the sessions.

F2: Power in Numbers: the value of peer support for mature students Presenter: Fitzroy Andrew, University of East London Room D2 Belonging to peer groups is a fundamental element of student experience, and of being a successful student.

This workshop reports on headline findings from a project exploring how peer support works best for mature students, who make up a valued and substantial part of UEL’s overall student population. We were interested in the needs that mature students sought to address through peer support, and in the arrangements they made to address those needs. We were also interested in how this happens at three different stages of the student journey: induction, progression, and graduation.

The workshop is of relevance for any institution with an interest in understanding the needs of mature students, who occupy a particular space in the midst of changing labour market dynamics - especially where they return to full-time education after a considerable break. This is central to the ethos and practice of ‘widening participation’, and of relevance to how HE institutions enable people in this group to adapt to what can be a very different world of work from that which they first entered. Enabling mature students’ capacity to actively seek out and create peer support networks is a potentially valuable and low-cost tool to utilise in this direction

F3: Employers care too. Innovative approaches to increasing diversity through employer engagement Presenter: Lucy Everett, AGCAS Employer Engagement Task Group Room E1 “Almost all employers (96%) are prioritising diversity, with the majority (68%) giving a high priority to at least one diversity issue. Diversity is valued for a range of reasons, but most importantly because employers believe that it will give them access to the best talent.” 2018 ISE Student recruitment survey.

As Careers Services we want to support students from non-traditional backgrounds to increase aspirations and access the wealth of opportunities open to them. And employers care too; they want to diversity their talent pools, so how can we work together to make best use of this collective energy?

This workshop aims to showcase how Employer Engagement teams across the UK are working collaboratively with employers, and in many cases, academics and the wider Careers & Employability service too, to help address this challenge.

Case studies from a variety of institutions will be used to demonstrate innovative practice, for example: Employer delivery in the curriculum Mentoring programmes Alumni panels Quiet hours and different marketing strategies at careers fairs Work placements/work shadowing Virtual careers fairs Career readiness data NB. This list may change depending on workshops form individual institutions.

We will then discuss challenges, learnings, and issues from these case studies and arising from the group’s experiences to explore the value that these initiatives can add.

We hope that participants will come away with ideas and energy to experiment in their own institutions.

Learning outcomes – Participants to this workshop will: • Understand the employer perspective on the topic of social mobility, and diversity more broadly, and how that can add value to the work we do with students • Consider and critically reflect on new ways of engaging employers which help develop student’s aspirations, confidence and skills.

• Increase professional confidence through peer-to-peer sharing of innovation, expertise and best practice.

F4: Design Thinking: Innovate your careers delivery Presenter: Maddy Woodman and Jack Tame, University of Reading Room E2 Design Thinking is a top innovation skill for the future of work. Its human-centred method focuses all its attention on the audience and really puts Careers Practitioners in their students’ shoes. This allows us to deeply understand what students want from Careers delivery and how to effectively engage them. It is particularly effective when designing for a diverse cohort, understanding learning needs and tackling specific barriers.

Effective training requires really understanding the audience, making something memorable and sparking curiosity - enabling people to be open-minded and make positive movement forward. Design Thinking process will allow Careers Practitioners design and deliver effective and engaging sessions.

At Henley Business School, Design Thinking has been the catalyst for many successful projects, including our flagship programme – Success Studio (the alternative self-improvement movement). The process helped us to design a series of masterclasses that teaches classic Careers topics through innovative mediums such as “presentation skills” through stand-up comedy, “tackling barriers” through LEGO Serious Play, and “entrepreneurship” through a hands-on Side Hustle workshop.

99% of attendees (over 120 people) said they would take action on their careers as a result of Success Studio, and 69% reported an increase in confidence in one or more areas.

Imagine the impact a programme like this could have on students, let alone those from non-traditional backgrounds.

Together let’s explore the Design Thinking process and see how you can apply it to your practice to help equip your students for the world of work, no matter their backgrounds or barriers.

F5: Enterprise Education for Designer Makers – not just a shop Presenter: Richard Sant, University of the Arts London Room F1 25% of art and design graduates are self-employed within six months of leaving university and many more go on to launch their own business or freelance practice during their career.

UAL launched not just a shop in September 2017 to develop students’ entrepreneurial spirit and ensure that they are prepared for self-employment both in terms of their resilience and their ability to make a sustainable living. Based in Central London (and online), not just a shop sells artwork and design products made exclusively by UAL students and graduates to the public.

Integrated into this, our enterprise education programme of events and workshops provides students and graduates with support to launch and run their own businesses, using the shop as an enterprise studio learning environment.

This workshop will provide AGCAS delegates with an update on developments in not just a shop since the strategic innovation award last year. It will also review how the project has addressed inequality of opportunity for designer makers, particularly for those students where financial barriers may impede their ability to set up after graduation.

The interactive part of the workshop will give attendees a taster of ‘Enterprise object based learning”

F6: Equipping non-traditional students for success through programmes of enhanced careers support Presenters: Penny Longman and Ladan Mirzadeh Hong, King’s College London and UCL Room F2 This workshop is designed for all careers professionals with an interest in social mobility. It has a particular focus on settings where WP students are in a minority amongst those with greater economic and social capital and where retention, attainment and progression for that student group are relatively new priorities for the institution. However, the themes addressed will be applicable to a wide range of settings. They are therefore relevant for anyone keen to explore innovative ideas for enhancing the career management skills of students from non-traditional backgrounds.

The workshop will cover • Non-traditional students and the changing job market • Using qualitative and quantitative data to identify priorities tailored to the institutional setting and to evaluate impact • Shaping a programme which enhances careers provision for target student groups • The case for targeted interventions • Developing an intensive programme of support • Joining the dots across the institution Penny Longman from UCL will discuss the development and delivery of UCL’s Careers Extra. Ladan Hong from King’s will present King’s Careers+ and its innovative Global Internship programme. The workshop will include facilitated discussion of issues facing non-traditional students in participants’ different institutions and sharing of initiatives already in place. Themes and ideas arising from these discussions will then be used to stimulate ideas for future developments at participants’ home institutions.

F7: From participation to progression: how to create, develop and deliver a successful social mobility programme Presenter: Naomi Oosman-Watts and Gemma Bolam, Newcastle University Room G1 Our ncl+ Career Insights Award is a year-long programme of activities and events, aimed at advancing the graduate outcomes of under-represented students. During the programme, students build contacts by working with regional and national employers, including a range of global companies and SMEs. They take part in a business consultancy project, which supports the development of key employability skills and they attend employer insight visits to London or Manchester, gaining insights into the graduate recruitment process. This year’s programme also included a visit to Amsterdam to take part in an enterprise and innovation challenge.

The programme launched in 2015 with 30 students, and due to the success of the Award we have been able to expand, offering places to over 100 students in 2018/19.

Our interactive workshop will cover the operational and strategic aspects of planning and delivering our Award, including our key learnings. We will explore how the programme is successfully supported by a number of different business functions within the University, how it is funded and how we have leveraged support from different areas within the university to secure funding, staffing and continued growth.

We will share with delegates how we have engaged with regional, national and global employers, working in partnership to develop activities and events that will increase awareness of opportunities and develop our students confidence in applying for and securing roles. Delegates will learn about how we evaluate the impact of our programme, and how feedback from students has influenced the design of the Award.

F8: Unleashing Ambition: Supporting Disabled students to become job-ready Presenters: Helen Cooke and Emma Knox, MyPlus Room G2 14% of students in UK universities have a disability and this number is set to increase * Disabled graduates at all qualification levels are less likely to have obtained full-time employment than non-disabled graduates**. This presents a challenge for Universities who are tasked with ensuring that all students are ready for work.

The reasons that disabled students find it challenging to find full-time employment are many and varied and include, but are not limited to: • Lacking the confidence to apply to employers, believing that their disability will rule them out of the running • No knowing how to positively position their disability • Fear of disclosing a disability to an employer which prevents them from gaining support they require to successfully navigate the recruitment process • Comparing themselves to their non-disabled counterparts and seeing themselves as ‘lesser’, ‘weaker’ or ‘lacking’ in some way • Not immersing themselves in student life instead believing that academic achievement alone will make them employable • Not knowing where and how to access information to help them succeed The workshop will: • Highlight the current challenges faced by disabled students seeking employment • Build disability confidence among delegates in order that they can support this significant minority going forward by: • Enabling them to get the most out of their time at university • Helping them to position their disability positively with employers • Guiding them on how to write their ‘openness’ statement for use with employers • Providing them with tailored careers advice • Challenging their assumptions of what is possible Delegates will be provided with tangible resources to take away and use with students to guide and their future career. * Data provided by HESA ** AGCAS: What happens Next? – a report on the first destinations of disabled graduates