Systems thinking report

Kim Smith has been working with us since the end of January on, amongst other things, our systems thinking project. Below is the Prezi she used at our team meeting yesterday to explain some of the findings and the key learning points.

Our systems thinking journey so far hasn't been straight forward (as I've expressed in a couple of previous posts, e.g. this one) but I think we are getting there (slowly). We are now focusing on a narrower aspect of what we do, so rather than looking at the whole system (the purpose of which we defined as 'help me get the graduate job or further study that I want') we are now focusing on the support we offer students in applying for jobs or study ('help me get to the next stage of the application process').

More to follow, but progress...

Employability Partnership Agreement

I'm working on the Employabilty Partnership Agreements that we plan to develop with each academic department over the summer ready for the start of the academic year. The idea is to present the student profile and destinations data, review activity in the previous year, in particular levels of student engagement with the Service (thanks to Target Connect), then activity for the coming and finally an action plan detailing timings, responsibilities, resources etc.

Clearly the agreements will develop as we discuss them with departments (and each will be slightly different, depending on the needs/context), but the screenshot below gives you an overview of my current thinking on the structure. What have I missed?

NACE 2013 conference

In 10 days' time I have the privilege of going to the US with Bob Athwal to the National Association of Colleges and Employers conference in Florida. There isn't really an equivalent organisation in the UK as NACE is a combination of both employers (here represented by the AGR) and university careers services (here represented by AGCAS).

NACE describe their mission as:

The National Association of Colleges and Employers connects campus recruiting and career services professionals, and provides best practices, trends, research, professional development, and conferences.

In addition to going to the conference,  Bob and I will also be visiting our counterparts in NYU and University of Pennsylvania. I'm really looking forward to seeing how careers services are set up in the US and sharing ideas. It's a real privilege to go and I'm determined to make the most of the learning. It may even get me back into blogging...