ENTERPRISE AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP
AT THE HEART OF DESIGNING THE CHALLENGE WAS THE NEED
TO SUPPORT STUDENTS WHO WISH TO
rising to the CHALLENGE OF START-UP
Abigail Brown, Careers Consultant at the University of Liverpool in London, and Hayley Jones, Student Enterprise Adviser at Loughborough University London, partnered with the start-up Seedrs to develop an entrepreneurship challenge as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week, designed to provide a fun and engaging way for students to develop core skills.
T
here has been a lot of media coverage in recent years that graduates lack the skills needed to succeed in the workplace. Furthermore, a study by LinkedIn found millennials can expect to have four job changes by the time they are 32. Our role in supporting students to develop transferable skills has become even more critical for today’s job market.
REAL-LIFE CHALLENGE
After connecting through the London satellite campus careers network, we explored how we could collaborate on an activity that would enable students to work in teams on a real-life business challenge whilst developing core skills needed for the workplace. From this, the RAP (Research, Analyse and Present) Challenge was born. At the heart of designing the RAP Challenge was the need to support students who wish to create or run a start-up venture. We hoped that through this challenge, in combination with our holistic approach to embedding employability into the curriculum, students would have the experience and confidence to articulate their skills to employers.
CREATE OR RUN A START-UP VENTURE
There were a number of things that made the RAP challenge effective. • Genuine need: From the university point of view, we wanted to give students an opportunity to develop their skills. From the employer perspective, they had a genuine business need they were hoping to meet. Tessa Bryant, Head of PR at Seedrs, took a proactive approach and met with colleagues to identify a current business challenge the organisation was facing. Right from the beginning we wanted the students to work on something meaningful and know that their solution could make a real difference to business. • Time: The challenge took place over two weeks, with students brought together for two days. The first day consisted of introducing the challenge, selecting teams and running activities around team building and communication. The second day was the final, where the teams shared their solutions with a judging panel and a winning team was selected. Employers were actively involved over both days: introducing the question, being a part of the judging panel and providing invaluable feedback to each team. • Communication: Students worked in multidisciplinary teams, with students from diverse backgrounds across two universities. This sometimes presented challenges. However, we remained in regular contact, which enabled us to identify challenges quite quickly and support students to resolve them.
MEASURING CHANGE We provided opportunities throughout the challenge for students to reflect on their skills. Teams attended workshops to develop knowledge and receive feedback. Students also completed a ‘before and after’ skills audit to measure change and reflected on one or two things they could do over the next six months to foster further growth. Finally, students took part in group peer-to-peer feedback. As well as supporting students to develop the core RAP skills, the challenge presented a great opportunity to develop other skills such as team work, problem solving and commercial awareness, helping to make a new generation of graduates more employable than ever.
Abigail.brown@liverpool.ac.uk /in/abigailobrown H.Jones@lboro.ac.uk /in/hayley-jones
PHOENIX FEBRUARY 2020
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