ROI and data Data revolution


Careers Registration - a data revolution


From an institutional point of view, employability ultimately amounts to the capability of students/graduates to make and execute well-informed plans for the future. However, to assess development of employability, we need a comprehensive understanding of starting points and progress, according to Bob Gilworth, Director of The Careers Group, University of London.


Planning — preparing for a chosen career path by gaining relevant skills and experience; ranging from just about to get started, through to reflecting on experience gained; Competing — presenting oneself in the graduate marketplace; ranging from getting all the application material in place, through various stages of the process to getting feedback and fine- tuning.


S All this


data is linked to the student record system enabling multi-factor analysis at all levels,


from individual student progress to differences between faculties.


ince 2012, a number of universities have started to acquire crucial new information about employability


progress through a mechanism known as Careers Registration.


In Careers Registration, universities gather information directly from all students (not just the highly engaged) about their career readiness and work experience. They do this by embedding the data capture within on-line enrolment as students register and re-register for every year of their course.


The students’ career readiness responses are


typically analysed into three main categories:


Deciding — making choices about the options to pursue: ranging from not having started through to having a number of concrete ideas;


24 Graduate Recruiter | www.agr.org.uk


In the work experience section, students are usually presented with a comprehensive list of the ways in which they might have obtained some work experience and asked to tick as many as apply. There is a statement which allows students to indicate that they have no work experience at all at the point of registration.


All this data is linked to the student record system enabling multi-factor analysis at all levels, from individual student progress to differences between faculties. This data enables informed, evidence-based discussion with academic departments, leading to the smarter allocation of scarce resources to where they will make the most impact.


The data from participating institutions tend to show that informed career choice is a major issue. It is quite typical for nearly half of final year undergraduate students to be still in the Decide phase (described above). Add in student fears about getting a graduate job and the “spray and pray” approach to job applications, which is wasteful and de-motivating for students and


employers alike, is an almost inevitable consequence. On the basis of this hard evidence, a reasonable person would conclude that, whilst skills development remains important, informed choice and careers guidance are key issues.


Careers services are constantly striving to deliver interventions that are designed to foster awareness and intelligent consideration of possible options together with higher degrees of self-awareness, which will ultimately produce better choices and more focused and authentic applications. The detailed evidence provided by Careers Registration enables careers services to investigate the relative impact and effectiveness of these interventions in producing students who are able to make informed career choices. From an employer/market perspective, informed career choice makes the market work more efficiently. Having the data helps us (careers services) to help you, in this respect.


You might find that your offers of skills sessions or industry insight are being more specifically targeted. The institution may use the data to direct these interventions to where they might make the most difference. This could involve attempting to engage the less engaged rather than preaching to the semi-converted. This will help employers to think about how they deploy their scarce resources. My experience is that of a spirit of partnership and mutual benefit in lifting the level of career-readiness across the board.


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