Career Weaver is also a very flexible tool, with no set ‘path’ to follow. It is deliberately non-directive and built to encourage users to explore; to log in and simply start to play, and uncover the exercises that intuitively appeal to them. While users don’t have to complete every exercise to uncover valuable and actionable insights, the different exercises can reveal complementary ideas that reinforce each other, or prompt reflections to challenge
Career Weaver:
current thinking and assumptions.
As careers advisers, our experience tells us that a single insight
SUPPORTING ONLINE
can be enough for some people to generate direction and momentum, while others need more time and input to build a
CAREER REFLECTION
more holistic understanding of their personal foundations. We feel that Career Weaver supports both styles, which has been reflected in students’ feedback.
HUGH NICHOLSON-LAILEY, Careers Adviser at the University of Oxford, outlines how the creation of a novel web-based application is helping
REVEALING A PATTERN Career Weaver’s reflective exercises also embrace elements of action planning; it supports goal setting and the development and self-evaluation of a user’s best examples, which they can use in
students reflect, identify and articulate their personal career drivers.
applications to demonstrate skills and contributions. Lastly, for students who want to work to ‘an endpoint’, the Reveal my Pattern exercise walks users through the process of crafting a personal branding statement or elevator pitch from the insights and
Soon after the country went into the first lockdown, Oxford
reflections they have captured.
University Careers Service (OUCS) launched Career Weaver, an online application for self-led career reflection and discovery of users’ core career drivers. It is a flexible, intuitive tool that helps students identify and articulate clearly what they love, what they are good at and why they do it.
Most exercises need only a few minutes’ work before the student is adding their own thoughts, reflections and insights, and we recommend Career Weaver is used over a number of visits. In the first year, we have seen 1,600 active users make over 4,000 visits to Career Weaver. More than half of these visits are long
PROGRAMME FOUNDATION The idea to create a platform offering students a suite of simple and quick exercises to stimulate careers reflection was sparked by
enough to complete at least one exercise, whilst one in eight have been longer than 30 minutes, suggesting a much deeper engagement across several exercises.
a 'values sort' exercise included in Ignite, a career confidence programme developed by OUCS for schools and colleges. A
LOCKDOWN LAUNCH
successful bid to the Oxford University IT Innovation funded the development work.
It was a lucky coincidence that this new, online, mobile-friendly self-assessment and reflection tool was available for students at
We started by translating existing paper-based tools into gameplay concepts, which we tested and developed through workshops and focus groups. Many of the OUCS careers
the start of lockdown. Careers advisers were quick to recommend Career Weaver to students working remotely, being familiar with its underpinning concepts and having helped with its design.
advisory team contributed to this work, providing a user interface and collecting and collating feedback from students to inform the UX work. Our testing went beyond undergraduates and Master's students to include PhDs, and both research and administrative staff.
Initially conceived for use in advisory sessions with students, Career Weaver is now integrated into OUCS employability programmes, and required as pre-work for some skills programmes to promote discussion and learning. We have also extended access to alumni and university staff, acknowledging Career Weaver’s potential to support on-going self-evaluation,
FOLLOWING THE THREADS
career thinking and personal development for everyone.
Designed to be accessible and intuitive, Career Weaver offers a variety of exercises to help everyone uncover, explore and articulate their personal career drivers. The dozen exercises employ a variety of methods of play to embrace differing work
hugh.lailey@careers.ox.ac.uk
styles, sustain interest, and give users the structure and language
Connect with Hugh on LinkedIn
necessary for independent reflection on values, preferences, strengths, skills and motivations.
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