SEMTA Science Report - sector needs to recruit 50,000 people between now and 2016

Semta, the Sector Skills Council for science, engineering and manufacturing technologies, in its UK Science Industries (Bioscience) Report has projected a net requirement of 50,000 people to cover employment growth and retirement within this sector in the UK.

Current sting in the tale: The report also found that 31% of graduates, postgraduates and doctorates hired in the last 12 months were recruited from overseas. To read the full report see: http://bit.ly/dS3TRJ

For further commentary about overseas competition for graduate jobs in the UK see my blog on 21 June and the following report - Brown, P., Ashton, D., Lauder, H (2010) Skills are not enough: the globallisation of knowledge and the future UK economy, PRAXIS No4, March 2010, UKCES (UK Commission for Employment and Skills.http://bit.ly/bH7EyX

Reflections on the Open Day

Despite an All-Staff Email last week, more targeted follow-up emails this week and the offer of coffee and mince pies, we still only had small numbers of staff to our open day. We have some excellent resources both for students and staff to use, but raising awareness of these materials does not work with a university-wide global approach, despite the potential benefits of economies of scale. Comments and ideas would be most welcome.

Coffee (Tea) Mince Pies - Open Day in the Career Development Centre Tuesday 14th December 11am - 3pm

Join us for a chat, a coffee (tea) and mince pie and a look at the new PDP resources, on-line tools and other opportunities we have available to enhance the student experience of PDP at every level.



Examples of what will be available:

• Meet your Link Careers Adviser




• Fully resourced teaching and learning materials for staff to use within PDP modules




• On-Line tools




• Latest Graduate Vacancies and placement opportunities




• Meet the staff from the Student Employment Agency, Employer Mentoring Scheme, University of Derby Award and Information Team.

We hope you can make it, if not drop me an email at b.haywood@derby.ac.uk

Is the CV a thing of the past?

A colleague, Peter Wiltshier, kindly forwarded me the following article which talks about a company that has abandoned the CV in its recruitment process.
Rather than asking applicants for a traditional CV they are asked to demonstrate their relevant experience by providing links to their Blog, Twitter profile, Linkedin and two other social sites. In addition applicants are asked to outline in 140 characters or less why they are the person the company needs to hire.

http://linkd.in/eavIVo

Employment News

Labour Market Information: if you want to keep up to date with employment news sign up to our blogspot http://cdc-lmi.blogspot.com/

Graduate Jobs: it is really important to get the message to our students that despite the current economic difficulties, there are graduate level jobs out there!
Encourage students to check our graduate jobs page, it is updated every day. http://www.der.prospects.ac.uk/casa/servlet/casa.jobseeker.JSVacServlet?mode=menu

What not to do when applying for jobs: many graduates adopt the scatter-gun approach to finding a job - i.e. posting the same CV on 100s of job sites - in reality this rarely works.

The key is to make sure that applications are targeted, well researched and a good match with the graduate's strengths, values and motivations - this does take time and effort. Remind students that there is on-line as well as one-to-one support available to help them - to book an appointment with a Career Adviser http://www.derby.ac.uk/careers/careersadvice.

Derby Graduates 3-year promise: it is also important to remind final year students and alumni that career development help and support is available to our students for up to 3 years after they graduate.





.

PDP and the importance of self-knowledge

Many students will be engaging in Personal Development Planning (PDP) and reflecting on knowledge of self as a crucial part of that process. However, this type of activity can be quite difficult and where on-line tools can be quite effective, not only in their outcomes, but also the thinking processes some of the tools take you through. They can take no longer to complete than drinking a cup of coffee.

Why are these tools valuable?

• Employers tell us that they want to really get to know graduate candidates, and expect applicants to articulate 'who they are', including their strengths and weaknesses. Tools such as the ones below can help provide students with the insight and language to do that well.
• Knowledge of self is a crucial part of the career decision making process, to ensure the career path chosen is the right one.
• Finding the right career can mean you are happier and more successful.

Our students can access a number of these tools (Adult Directions and Profiling for Success) through our Career Development Website:

Adult Directions and Profiling for Success
http://www.derby.ac.uk/careers/planning-your-career/self-assessment-and-career-planning

In the Career Development Centre we also have ProMicad - a great tool that gives detailed feedback on your values and motivators - unfortunately there isn't an on line version, but students can be encouraged to call into the CDC in the lower ground floor of the Library, where a member of staff will show them how to access the tool.

Other On-line tools can be found at the following addresses:

Prospects Planner - http://bit.ly/eGEq9V (website: www.prospects.ac.uk)

Target Jobs Careers Report - http://targetjobs.co.uk/careers-report

English & Media Degrees - ideas for PDP Modules

The Centre for Career Management Skills (CCMS) at the University of Reading has published New directions in career studies: “English and Media degrees. Ideas for modules that explore career, identity and subject”.
"This offers four articles that illustrate ways of embedding career studies in the subject curriculum. The career studies approach advocates treating the concept of 'career' as the object of academic enquiry”. (McCash, P 2008 Career Studies Handbook, Higher Education Academy, York) David Stanbury, CCMS Director, July 2010:

1. Researching the media and cultural industries, Dr Daniel Ashton and Dr Mimi Thebo of Bath Spa University
2. Careers and Literature, Dr J Morton, University of Greenwich
3. Motivation and Me, Dr Bella Adams and Dr Joanna Price, Liverpool John Moores University
4. E4E: Employability for English, Dr Anna Hunter and Dr Helen Day, University of Central Lancashire.

See the full article: http://bit.ly/i3AmaN

PDP and the Employability Challenge

Including experiential action-learning within our Personal Development Planning (PDP) curriculum is crucial if PDP is to contribute effectively to the employability of our under graduates - do you agree?

To promote the debate I would recommend The Employability Challenge Report (UKCES, 2009) to you. http://www.ukces.org.uk/tags/employability-challenge-full-report

UKCES looked at over 200 organisations before writing the report, which explores the challenge of providing employability learning within the chapter on programme design.

Free copies of both the report and a range of case studies are free while stocks last, but they can also be downloaded using the link above.

Let me know what you think?

Skills are not enough:

The report below gives an interesting global perspective on the increased competition our graduates will face. It raises fundamental questions as to what impact graduate globalisation will have on Governement policy for HE and our graduates.

"The globalisation of high skills. Within a decade there has been a doubling of university enrolments around the world, reaching close to 63million by 2005. This is leading to a massive increase in the global supply of highly educated workers, able to compete on prive as well as knowledge (Brown et al, 2008). China now has more people in higher education than the United states" (p.10)

"We are now facing the prospect of competing with increasing numbers of high skilled workers on significantly lower wage rates. Returns to education will not therefore provide the guarantee of higher income that the government is looking for to resolve issues of distributional justice."(p.26)

Example: "In an interview with a leading international law firm in the City of London we were told how they off-shored the preparatory work in the development of high profile cases to the Philippines, where lawyers who would cost £125,000 a year in London are paid a fraction of that price." (p.16)

The publication PRAXIS is the UK Commission for Employment and Skills' series of policy think pieces.

Brown, P., Ashton, D., Lauder, H (2010) Skills are not enough: the globallisation of knowledge and the future UK economy, PRAXIS No4, March 2010, UKCES (UK Commission for Employment and Skills.
http://www.ukces.org.uk/publications/praxis-4
Food for thought?

PDP Top 10 Tips

Hi All
I ran a workshop as part of the Programme Leaders Fora on Friday 18th June. I introduced a new activity to explore the non obvious considerations for developing the PDP curriculum which generated some excellent discussion. I was joined by two colleagues, Elizabeth Claridge and Judie Taylor who introduced the participants to activities they had introduced as part of their PDP curriculum. Elizabeth Claridge talked about the introduction of a Coaching Model for students on the Education Studies Programme. Judie Taylor talked about her approach to PDP and in particular the work she has been doing with Jo Sibson, introducing MBTI, Career Planning, Portfolio Working, Social Enterprise and Bid Writing and Tendering.

Note: If you and your teams are struggling with the PDP curriculum, contact myself or your Link Careers Adviser or myself and we can work with you. (Tel: 01332 591316 / b.haywood@derby.ac.uk)

Bev

Engaging learners in critical reflection

I have posted an interesting case study on the project website: http://www.derby.ac.uk/experience/supporting-pdp-project, about the benefits of using an assessed blog and the positive outcomes enjoyed by students and staff.

An assessed blog on a text of the week was introduced, a blog was written by one student, but commented on by all students before weekly tutorials or seminars. The aim of the blog was to develop critical and reflective ability, commentators were asked to avoid simple agree/disagree responses, but instead to pose questions, point out omissions, correct false premises or challenge preconceived ideas.
Benefits for staff: Not only did tutorials get faster but staff were able to gauge whether students fully understood the topic set for the week.

Benefits for students were:

• blogging increased student confidence and ownership of learning;
• those students who dislike open discussion, for example, are now able to think about their responses before challenging others on a blog;
• better prepared for tutorials and seminars;
• blogs provided a record of discussions that can act as an aid for revision;
• there was greater ownership of their learning;
• the quality of discussion on the blogs was high;
• provided opportunities for more competent students to raise the performance of weaker students;
• the process of blogging encouraged more reticent students to post comments and even challenge more dominant group members.

If you want to read the full report you can find it via this link, on page 24: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/publications/effectivepracticedigitalage.pdf

The project has a website http://www.derby.ac.uk/experience/supporting-pdp-project.

Welcome to my blog

Hi, Welcome to my blog for the Supporting PDP Project.

The key aims of the project are:

To support staff involved in:

• developing and delivering the PDP curriculum, and
• supporting students with Personal Development Planning (PDP)

I hope to use the blog as a way of letting you know what is happening in the project, updating you on the resources as they are developed, and flag up other useful sources of information, reports, case studies and projects.

Feedback and comments would be most welcome.