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This article explores the significance of careers in higher education, discussing the role of career guidance, curriculum, and employability modules, and how they shape students' future prospects. It also highlights the need for redefining the concept of career and its connection to the purpose of higher education.
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Why careers should be at the heart of higher education Tristram HooleY Aarhus University, 9th May 2019
Graduate career handbook • Available from https://trotman.co.uk/our-books/youre-hired-graduate-career-handbook/ • Supplementary guide for higher education staff https://trotman.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/YH-Graduate-Career-Handbook-Supplementary-Booklet-1-1.pdf
Employability: A review of the literature • A survey of recent work on employability in higher education.
Exercise: What is career? • Find someone (or two or three people) with a different professional role from you. • Discuss how you understand the term ‘career’. • Come up with some key terms and definitions.
The challenge of definitions • Key terminology in this space is complex and contestable. • There are cultural elements to this, but there are also political elements. • How you define language shapes how you see the world. • Language is a site of struggle about reality.
The core message of the Graduate handbook “Career is not just something that happens to you after you graduate. Your career has already been happening and it is continuing to happen all around you, even when you aren’t thinking about it at all. Building your career is not just about finding a job, it is actually about deciding who you are and what kind of life you want to lead. (p.1)”
Career is the individual’s journey through life, learning and work
Career is lifewide and lifelong Lifewide Lifelong
Exercise: What is the purpose of higher education for Students • Discuss in groups. • Where are the tension between career and the vision that you have for higher education? • Does thinking about/defining career differently help with this?
Defining career guidance “Career guidance supports individuals and groups to discover more about work, leisure and learning and to consider their place in the world and plan for their futures… Career guidance can take a wide range of forms and draws on diverse theoretical traditions. But at its heart it is a purposeful learning opportunity which supports individuals and groups to consider and reconsider work, leisure and learning in the light of new information and experiences and to take both individual and collective action as a result of this.”
Exercise: Who’s Job is it? • Discuss who provides career learning and career guidance to higher education students? • Whose job is it? • What are the different things that different people do?
Curriculum • The totality of the (formal) student experiences that occur in the educational process. • This is typically driven by the subject, but there are also implicit and generic elements. • Supplemented by co-curricular and extra-curricular elements
Sample workshops • I just don’t know what to do with myself • Making the most of your degree • Are you experienced? • It’s not what you know, it’s who you know • Look before you leap • Should I stay or should I go? • Successful applications and interviews • Help me! • The importance of plan B • Starting work • If at first you don’t succeed…
e.g. Workshop 1 • At the end of this workshop students will be able to: • articulate some of their current strengths, likes and values • demonstrate their understanding of the role that reflection plays in career development and recruitment • describe how they will use self- awareness and reflection as part of their career planning. • Pre-workshop – read a chapter and complete a reflective exercise. • Post-workshop – Submit a 300 word reflection.
Careers Modules • Stand alone modules which are taken as part of the curriculum. • There are different options when it comes to assessment. • Portfolio submission • Recruitment processes such as mock assessment centre, video interview, application etc. • Research report • Essay • Have you done any thing like this in the past? • Who would need to be involved for this to be successful?
Example • By the end of this module students will: • be able to articulate their strengths, weaknesses, interests and values and use this self- knowledge to support their career development • describe how the learning that they have undertaken at university will support their future career and how they can present their skills and knowledge to potential employers • demonstrate an awareness of common transition routes and recruitment approaches and be able to produce key artefacts that support this transition (CVs, application forms, online profiles, etc.) • demonstrate knowledge of the labour market and articulate how they might operate within it. • The module will cover • Self- reflection and self- knowledge • The relevance of higher education to future careers • The value of work experience • Understanding networking • Conducting career research • The value of postgraduate study • Managing recruitment processes • Accessing help with your career • Career planning and dealing with change • Starting work • Resilience and changing direction.
Mapping the subject curriculum • What are the aims of the curriculum? • Where do these overlap with career learning aims? • How is the teaching organised? • What opportunities are their to introduce new content? • How is the assessment organised? • Can any connections with career be added here?
Co-design Example: Work and Well-Being: Literary and Sociological Approaches to Labour, Health and Happiness • Focused on exploring theories and representations of career. • Designed as an inter-disciplinary module engaged with career learning. • Particularly drawing attention to discourses around ‘graduate employability’ and the role of higher education in this system. • Encouraging students to build a critique of the processes in which they are engaged. (Assessed by an essay). • But also to reflect on their own journey within this contradictory and compromised system. (Assessed by a reflective journal).
Are student destinations the university’s problem? • What about convincing people to stay on and do postgraduate studies. • If yes – when do they become and cease to be your problem? • Would this change if it became a performance metric for your department/university?
References • Artess, J., Hooley, T. and Mellors-Bourne, R. (2017). Employability: A Review of the Literature 2012-2016. York: Higher Education Academy. • Hooley, T. & Grant, K. (2017). You’re hired! Graduate career handbook. Bath: Trotman. • Hooley, T., Sultana, R.G. & Thomsen, R. (2018). Career guidance for social justice: Contesting neoliberalism. London: Routledge. • Law, B. (2012). The uses of narrative: Three scene storyboarding – learning for living, http://www.hihohiho.com/storyboarding/sbL4L.pdf . • Rooney, S. & Rawlinson, M. (2016). Narrowing participation? Contesting the dominant discourse of employability in contemporary higher education. Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling, 36, 20-29.
In summary • Career is a complex concept that can support or challenge conventional notions of the purpose of higher education. • There are a range of established career guidance approaches that can be adopted to support students career learning. • The curriculum is a key site for career learning, but one which requires inter-professional working. • Ultimately universities have to decide how much career fits with their vision. • Delivering meaningful and impactful career learning is likely to require changes in the way things are done.
Contact Tristram Hooley t.hooley@derby.ac.uk Twitter: @pigironjoe Blog: https://adventuresincareerdevelopment.wordpress.com
