Edge Hill University and Enterprise Rent-A-Car's winning partnership
The partnership between Edge Hill University and Enterprise Rent-A-Car (ERAC) has developed over ten years and is grounded in the excellent relationships that exist between the employer and the institution's Careers Centre. Beginning with one-off visits by the employer to careers events, this has now progressed to the integration of ERAC into the curriculum across diverse academic disciplines including sport, geography and business.
More specifically, ERAC has helped the business department to redevelop some of its key modules, by working closely with the PDP team to highlight the importance to students of developing their employability skills from the first year onwards, and provide particular support to those taking sandwich placements. Geography students, meanwhile, benefit from an insight provided by ERAC into how assessment centres work.
The employer has also been a key collaborator with the Careers Centre in the design and development of the 20-credit ILM-endorsed Edge Hill Employability Programme, open to all students. In addition, ERAC delivers one of the workshops and assesses the students' final panel presentations, thus providing a hard-edged commercial context to this award.
More recently, Edge Hill University has developed employability workshops for recent graduates and ERAC has co-delivered these alongside careers staff in order to boost the employment chances of those entering the graduate job market.
Evidence of effectiveness and success
All involved in this partnership – Careers Centre staff, academic staff and the employer – feel that the positive impact can be seen in the number of students who benefit from the 'real-life' perspective provided by the employer and develop skills and commercial awareness as a result. Moreover, the employer has also acknowledged the impact of the collaboration on the long-term success of its graduate training programme, its internships and its overall company brand.
• Winner - AGCAS 2011 Award for Excellence: Employer Award for Careers Service Partnership
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Tags: Edge Hill Enterprise Rent-A-Car employability job market pdp graduate employment University case studies employer
Created on: 17 November 2011
Last updated: 06 January 2012