Conducting an Employability Audit

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Conducting an Employability Audit

• Sharon Gedye Brian Chalkley
• LTSN-GEES

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Aims / Purpose

• To consider why we need to deliver
  employability
• To think about why we may want to audit our
  programme
• To introduce a programme audit
• To reflect on the audit and its outcomes

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Why do we need to deliver enhanced employability?

• Employability is a government priority (economic
  success, WP)
• Used in performance indicators - league tables
• Increasingly used in quality assurance/review
• Because we want our graduates to be successful

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Employability Delivery

• There is much existing good practice in
  delivering employability.
• However, it is usually delivered
• at a module level
• by enthusiasts only
• In an ad hoc, piecemeal way
• But employability
• Is a programme issue (all modules, all staff)
• should be planned and coherent

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Why do we need to audit?

• establishes how and where employability-related
  learning is incorporated into curricula.
• offers reassurance to colleagues as to how much
  is being done already
• identifies any gaps in provision
• provides a programme overview important in a
  modularised programme

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Why do we need to audit? - continued

• a means of initiating discussion of the issue
• encourages strategic thinking
• raises awareness of the issue - sector,
  institutional and departmental requirements/aims
  can be highlighted
• encourages re-design of the curriculum and its
  delivery with employability in mind

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How to Carry out an Employability Audit

• Based on a system developed by LTSN Biosciences
  Subject Centre
• Electronic version http//bio.ltsn.ac.uk/issues/
  employability/
• Welcome feedback
• Happy for you to modify to meet your needs

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Audit Contents

1. Your graduates employment record
2. Relationships with employers
3. Does your curriculum promote employability?
4. General

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The Task

• Work in pairs
• One of you, who is familiar with a programme,
  responds to the questions.
• The other poses the questions, scores and records
  the answers.
• You have 25 minutes.

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Using the Employability Audit

• Score each item on the basis of satisfaction with
  programme provision
• 0 not considered 1 weakly 2 adequately 3
  strongly.
• For each item with a score less than 2
• What could be done to improve the score?
• Do resource or other constraints make any of
  these proposals unrealistic?
• Then identify
• Which two changes could be made that would be
  most improve employability provision for the
  course?
• Can a realistic action plan be formulated to
  introduce these two changes and others into the
  course before the next intake of students?

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A. Your Graduates Employment Record

• Has graduate employment destination data been
  circulated to academic staff within the last 2
  years?
• Are current students aware of the types of
  employment your graduates enter?
• Has your department carried out its own surveys
  (in order to provide more useful data than the
  First Destination Survey)?

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B. Relationships with Employers

• Do you know what employers perceive to be the
  strengths and weaknesses of your graduates?
• Do students meet relevant professionals /
  employers as part of their course?
• Do you have good communications with the main
  employers of your graduates, both nationally and
  locally?
• Do employers visit your department to give talks
  about employment opportunities and requirements?
• Do employers attend any student presentations?

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C. Does your curriculum promote employability?

• Are employers and former students involved in the
  design of your curricula?
• Do you have an employability policy?
• Do you have an effective skills map?
• Do you have a system of personal development
  planning (PDP)?
• Do your students develop commercial and
  organisational awareness?

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C. Does your curriculum promote employability?
(Contd)

• Do recent graduates visit to talk about their
  career paths?
• Are guest lecturers encouraged to reveal own
  career paths?
• Are students explicitly taught career management
  skills?
• Does your curriculum give all your students the
  option to engage in a work placement or work
  based learning?

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D. General

• Is there an effective relationship between the
  course team and your Careers Service?
• Are students explicitly guided in the course to
  make contact with the Careers Service?
• Do staff generally have access to full
  information about a student's in-course AND
  extra-curricula performance (e.g. student's CV)
  when writing references?
• Are your students encouraged to take part in,
  value and record extra-curricula
  activities/responsibilities?
• Have you considered employability in the context
  of widening participation?

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• Discussion what kinds of changes are needed in
  your curricula?
• Audit Evaluation What was most useful? What
  might need changing?

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Other Audits

• Audit of skills and attribute development
• Yorke, M. and Knight, P. (2003). The
  Undergraduate Curriculum and Employability.
  Enhancing Student Employability Co-ordination
  Team (ESECT) Perspectives series of
  employability briefing papers
• http//www.ltsn.ac.uk/genericcentre/index.asp
  follow links for employability gt information
  and resources gt employability resources