Editorial Comment:

Focus of the Study

The Career Management Initiative was introduced to help graduates maximise their chances of success in the employment market. A Steering Group was established including representatives from the faculties, careers guidance staff and employers.

The Teaching Quality Assessment demonstrated that students had gained valuable transferable skills as well as subject knowledge through their degree course, but many were not aware that they had done so and were therefore not in a position to make best use of these skills in their subsequent careers.

There was therefore a clear rationale for the introduction of the Career Management Initiative to raise skills awareness, awareness of opportunities, and to help to develop job searching skills including those related to the application and selection process.

35 final year social sciences students participated in the pilot. The pilot consisted of 4 workshop sessions held on Wednesday afternoons throughout the first semester during the 1996/97 academic year. The students then took part in a video-recorded discussion at the end of May 1997.

Key Findings

The video discussion and self reports completed by the students revealed that student awareness of the career opportunities available to them had broadened and that they had grown in confidence. Students also demonstrated enhanced awareness of their skills and abilities and most importantly what they had to offer a potential employer. Having the opportunity to experience a real interview situation was also regarded as invaluable, as students felt assured that they would know how to interpret job adverts and get across the information that the employer was looking for in the future.

The timing of the module is essential so as not to conflict with the other demands of the final year. Students felt that in future the workshops should be run in the second semester of the second year, running into the first semester of the final year.