University of Bristol Careers Service website - employer survey

If you've seen our Careers Service website you'll know that it needs some work (understatement). I've been wanting to get to it since starting at the end of January (and blogged some initial thoughts about it here). Well, finally the project is underway (with help from pureusability.co.uk/) and we are starting with a survey of users of the site. If you are an employer who uses (or would use) our site, then I'd love to hear your thoughts/comments. There are 12 questions and it should only take you about 5 minutes but your feedback will be invaluable in shaping the new site. At the end of the survey there's also the opportunity to opt into being involved in some more in depth research (for which you will receive Amazon vouchers). So if you can help please complete the survey (and please, RT, repost etc.) Closing date is Tuesday 29 July. Thanks!

Careers website survey - if you're a University of Bristol student or graduate I need your help!

If you've seen our Careers Service website you'll know that it needs some work (understatement). I've been wanting to get to it since starting at the end of January (and blogged some initial thoughts about it here). Well, finally the project is underway (with help from pureusability.co.uk/) and we are starting with a survey of users of the site. An employer survey will follow but we're starting with students and recent graduates of University of Bristol. There are 14 questions and it should only take you about 5 minutes but your feedback will be invaluable in shaping the new site. At the end of the survey there's also the opportunity to opt into being involved in some more in depth research (for which you will receive Amazon vouchers). So if you can help please complete the survey (and please, RT, repost etc.) Thanks!

The Great Gatsby

In April 2014 the Gatsby Foundation published a report called Good Career Guidance (thanks to Tristram Hooley, who was involved in the research, for giving me the heads up). The blurb on the website says:

We commissioned Sir John Holman to research what pragmatic actions could be taken to improve career guidance in secondary schools. Sir John developed eight benchmarks that identify different dimensions of good career guidance, and made ten recommendations for improving the career guidance system.

So clearly the focus is secondary schools but there's a lot in it that's of relevance to HEIs too. The guts of the report are the 8 benchmarks for providing good careers guidance, which are as follows:

1. A stable careers programme
2. Learning from career and labour market information
3. Addressing the needs of each pupil
4. Linking curriculum learning to careers
5. Encounters with employers and employees
6. Experiences of workplaces
7. Encounters with further and higher education
8. Personal guidance

All of which are relevant to HE. 

It's a well researched and well written report. I'd be interested to know your thoughts, especially if you are using in (or intend to use it) in a HE context. 

Slides from #AGR14 University Consortium plenary - Joined up journeys