Careers Centre

‘Good’ placement support: allowing students to combine academic and professional achievements

Nalayini Thambar and Clair SouterAssistant Directors

Commercial Awareness

Careers Centre

Outline

The Careers Centre and its institutional role What our students have told us about their

placement experience The Leeds response The Careers Centre placement module – modelling

good practice The student experience

Careers Centre

Our Services and Activities

Information, Advice and Guidance Drop-in service, individual guidance, central

workshops

Faculty Activities Work extensively with schools and departments, we

are a teaching department ourselves and have our own placement module

Services to Business On-campus graduate recruitment activity, Internship

creation and management, Business Start-up Support

Careers Centre

Our institutional role Professional leadership of the university’s employability

strategy Interface between the university and the graduate

employment market Contribution to the university placements and

internships provision through The creation of exclusive opportunities for Leeds

students (100 in 11/12) Our own placement module to broaden access to

industrial placement years (more shortly!) Being “The principal source of support and advice on

Placement Learning for Schools/Faculties” at Leeds

Careers Centre

‘Good’ industrial placement support – key messages

Support when it is needed Regular contact from the university The possibility of links between their placement and

dissertation where appropriate Advice when making final year choices A visit(or) which represents the university well Help as a returner – establishing networks, getting back

into the mode of study

!! Students distinguish between institutional support and the unmistakeable value of their placement

!! Students know what other institutions are doing

Careers Centre

The Leeds approach

Sharing of good practice at the placement tutors’ forum

The establishment of pre, post and ‘on’ placement minimum standards that will apply across the institution

Broadening the industrial placement option to non traditional subjects; departments can adopt the Careers Centre placement module as their own (Music) or their students can transfer to us for their year’s placement (Philosophy, Psychology, History)

Building good placement support practices into the delivery of the Careers Centre module

Careers Centre

Our placement module

“CSER8000” – an industrial placement year module where the Careers Centre is the parent department

Students can take up to 3 placements, combining paid, voluntary, UK and internationally based opportunities

We help students find their placements, brief them before they start and have a minimum of a monthly review while they are on placement

On their return they deliver a presentation on their year and we support them as they re-integrate into their academic department

Careers Centre

THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE

Careers Centre

Concluding comments At Leeds our approach to ‘allowing students to combine

academic and professional achievement’ currently focuses on:

Setting minimum standards for pre, ‘on’ and post-placement support which have been directly informed by the student experience

Making a placement year available to all students regardless of degree discipline