Career Management Skills

1
Career Management Skills

• Chris Hughes
• MLP, Careers Employability Division
• The University of Manchester

2
Aims of this session

• To understand why this module is running
• To identify the key career management skills and
  why they are important
• To give a taste of the programme
• To explain the assessment
• To give you an insight into the community and
  business projects
• To allocate projects

3
What will you get out of it?

• Competitive edge
• Find out what employers look for and how to prove
  to them youve got it!
• Preparation for job selection process
• Find out how the job market really works
• Examine and develop key skills both to find work
  and to manage your own career
• Enhance your CV

4
How does the module work?

• Focus on career management skills
• Focus on you
• Small group work
• Outside employer involvement - varied
• Team project key element

5
Module Commitments

• You
• - attend 2 hr compulsory session
• - spend 2 hrs a week on project
• -be on time
• -get involved
• Me
• - make sessions interesting
• - give you support

6
Module Assessment

• CV and Covering letter 20
• Group Presentation 20
• Business Report 35
• Individual Report 25

7
Peer Assessment

• How this will work in practice
• Course tutors will award an overall team mark
• Team members will rate the contribution of
  themselves and their colleagues
• Ratings will be used as a guide to adjust the
  team mark for each individual team member

8
The Current Job Market

• 1 in 10 grads with large blue chips
• More people working for smaller companies (60 of
  workforce)
• More graduates self-employed. 12 of workforce
  self-employed
• No more jobs for life
• More people gaining degrees (1 in 3)
• Need to manage your own career

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How this affects YOU

• Likely to have several jobs - portfolio careers,
  life long learning
• Less job security - more temporary contracts
• Employers
• need people who can hit the ground running
• Students
• need to differentiate yourself from the rest
• Degree not a guarantee of a good job
• What else can you offer? Skills

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National Employers Skills Survey
http//www.english.heacademy.ac.uk/explore/public
ations/occasional.php

• Self reliance skills
• Self-awareness
• Pro-activity
• Self-promotion
• Networking
• Planning Action
• Foreign language

• People skills
• Team-working
• Interpersonal skills
• Oral communication
• Leadership
• Customer orientation

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National Employers Skills Survey

• General skills
• Problem-solving
• Flexibility
• Business acumen
• IT/computer literacy
• Numeracy
• Commitment

• Specialist skills
• Specific occupational skills
• Technical skills

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QAA Generic skillshttp//www.qaa.ac.uk/academicin
frastructure/benchmark/default.asp

• Written and oral communication
• Time management and management of own study
• Team-work
• Working independently
• Abstracting, synthesising and organising
  information and evidence
• Planning and executing project work
• Cultural sensitivity and awareness
• IT
• Problem-solving
• Constructing and managing arguments

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Destination Statistics 2005-2006
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The context graduate destinations

• English
• UK employment 55.2 Further Study 19.8
• Modern Langs
• UK emp 49.9 Overseas emp 18.3 Further
  Study 22.1

• History
• UK employment 52.1 Further study 22.1
• Business
• UK employment 68.3 Further study 6.5

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Humanities Graduates

• 60 of jobs vacancies are for graduates of any
  degree discipline
• Humanities students apply for jobs later than
  other students
• Many humanities graduates take longer to discover
  what they want to do or want to enter careers
  with fewer opps.
• Often have a stepping stone approach to careers
• Many arts grads go into IT, Management and
  Consultancy,
• Humanities graduates can and do compete
  effectively

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Possible Career Areas

• Teaching
• Publishing
• Marketing
• IT
• Public Relations
• Journalism
• Civil Service
• Arts Admin
• Retail Management
• Finance
• Charity fundraising

• Advertising
• Museum work
• Conference organiser
• Personnel Officer
• Sales
• Management consultant
• TEFL
• Speech therapy

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Some specific examples

• TEFL teaching
• PGCE
• Law Conversion
• Residential social work
• Publishing editorial assistant
• Finance trainee
• Marketing and sales
• TV runner
• Accountancy trainee

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Course Materials Online

• http//www.studentnet.manchester.ac.uk/careers/imp
  roveyourjobprospects/careermanagementskills/humani
  ties

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Careers Service

• Ground Floor, Crawford House, Booth Street East
• Open 9-5
• 1 to 1 guidance 30 mins appointments
• Quick Query 15 mins appointments
• IT resources
• Talks/Fairs/Employer Presentations
• www.studentnet.manchester.ac.uk/careers

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What makes a good project

• Teams of 4 or 5
• Challenging but achievable
• Clearly identifiable outcomes
• Obviously put lots of effort in
• Used time available well
• Take ownership of the project
• Demonstrate problem solving skills, creativity
  and initiative
• Good Business Report

21
Things to think about at your first meeting

• Who will contact the employer?
• When (and where) can you all meet
• Who will take minutes
• What strengths/experiences do you have
• What can you realistically achieve

22
Advice from last semesters students

• Do as much as you can at the beginning of the
  project as youll definitely run out of time at
  the end
• Produce minutes as you go along rather than
  making them up at the end!
• Make sure you know where you are going!
• Dont waste time being overly polite to each
  other you need to get on with the project
  arguments can help get things moving

23
Advice from last semesters students

• Project contacts can be difficult to get hold of
  so phone them ASAP to arrange a meeting
• Dont rely on email, use phone contact as well
• Arrange a definite meeting time and place and
  make sure every one attends
• Get everyone to write down major course work
  hand-ins, field work etc. before you start so
  that you can work around this
• Be realistic about what you are going to achieve
  or your team will feel demotivated

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Effective Meetings

• Decide how often you need to meet and where
• Rotate chair and secretary roles?
• Have an agenda and an agreed end time
• Review action points from previous meeting
• Record action points and who is responsible

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Safety on projects

• Whilst conducting work off campus, important to
  consider safety for
• Yourself
• Your Group
• Your Host Organisation
• Members of public/people at your event
• Read your safety info pack
• Contact your tutor if you have any problems