The modern university careers service
What sort of careers service do you want? One size doesn't fit all. Catherine Klimeš, Head of Careers and Employability at the University of Northampton, outlines what careers services can offer their vice chancellors in a diverse and fast-changing sector.
Award winning, income generating, socially enterprising and entrepreneurial ... Not usually words you might ascribe to your university careers service? Take a closer look and you will quickly discover a world of networked, globalised professionals, aficionado's of YouTube, skilled in the intricacies of apps, blogs and TweetDeck, equally at home on Facebook and LinkedIn as in information centres and libraries.
Dig yet deeper, and you will find services delivering constant, stratified, diversified, and personalised provision. The purpose of which? To enable today's students to emerge from their studies 'tooled-up' and ready to find their niche in an increasingly globalised, graduate community.
Teeming with talent
Well-briefed vice chancellors already know their services are teeming with talent, drawn from a diverse range of employment sectors, well-placed to help transform their university into an institution ready to welcome Generation Z, whilst also ensuring such students happily coexist alongside Gen X, Y, the Silver Surfers and the ever-vibrant Baby Boomers.
Other vice chancellors might value their services as proven 'relationship managers', operating as effective conduits for cross-faculty collaboration, as joint bidding partners for projects or research proposals, as well as part of the multi-disciplinary, virtualized, classroom delivery teams.
Others may value their in-depth knowledge and experience of working with externals. In their role as globalised employer lead generators, or whilst 'empowering' clients to navigate their way through the avalanche of information and multitude of opportunities open to them, in a meaningful and personalised way - the careers consultancy model providing an effective method to support this kind of tailored, targeted and focused delivery.
In this Olympic year, where everything is to play for, we're certainly ready for the challenges ahead.
Are you ready for the fast lane?
Tags: Northampton million+ careers services graduate employment University Sector
Created on: 24 January 2012
Last updated: 27 February 2012