Department of Employability Changemaker Scheme October 2016 – June 2017
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Contents Backround ................................................................................................................. 3 Project 1 - Final Years Careers Engagement ........................................................ 4 (Holly Farmer and Christopher Jones)
Project 2 - Female Students & Entrepreneurship .................................................. 5 (Sarah Budge)
Project 3 - Impact of SEPs ....................................................................................... 6 (Denis Brzozowski)
Project 4 - Graduate Recruitment Consultancy Business Development ............ 8 (Edward Wilcock)
Project 5 - Engaging with Course Representatives .............................................. 9 (Sarah Budge)
Project 6 - Engaging with the Students Union and Student Societies ............... 11 (Christopher Jones)
Project 7 - Enterprise Showcase 2017 ................................................................. 13 (Denis Brzozowski)
Project 8 - Volunteering Team, Photography and Feedback ............................. 13 (Holly Farmer)
Photographs from Project 8 .................................................................................. 14 Project 9 - Benchmarking Best Practice ............................................................... 15 (Sarah Budge)
Project 10 - Survey of Science Faculty Academic Perceptions .......................... 17 (Edward Wilcock)
Project 11 - Data Migration .................................................................................... 19 (Edward Wilcock)
Project 12 - CCI Students and Purple Door Engagements.................................. 19 (Denis Brzozowski)
Project 13 - International Student Project ........................................................... 20 (Sarah Budge & Holly Farmer )
Project 14 – Graduate Recruitment Consultancy Support .................................. 21 (Sarah Budge)
Project 14 – Conclusion and Next Steps .............................................................. 22 Appendix ................................................................................................................. 23
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Background The Student Changemaker scheme was a pilot programme for 5 students to work on behalf of the University and the Department of Employability (7 hours per week each) to support our ambition of offering career-enhancing activities to all students at the University of Portsmouth and to explore how we could improve our services and reach a wider audience. The Student Changemakers have been working closely with Purple Door to support marketing, events and communications. An additional element of the role has been the developmental projects undertaken to help create a more impactful offering. The Changemakers were recruited in September 2016 and began working for the Department of Employability in October 2016. The successful students were:
Holly Farmer Level 6 BSc Criminology with Psychology
Sarah Budge Level 7 MSc Biomedicine
Denis Brzozowski Level 5 (on a Self-Employment Placement Year) BSc (Hons) Digital Media
Edward Wilcock Level 6 BSc Environmental Science
Christopher Jones Level 5 BSc (Hons) Software Engineering
Each student was allocated a mentor from within the department and one member of the department took on the role of Line Manager for all five.
Between the five Changemakers there were 14 projects undertaken for the Department of Employability. This report outlines the work undertaken by the Changemakers in chronological order and where relevant the outcomes and recommendations.
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Project 1 - Final Years Careers Engagement Holly Farmer and Christopher Jones Rationale
To understand barriers to final year students when engaging with Purple Door services and with application processes in general
Objectives
To increase traffic (sign ups to services) and have more graduate applications completed prior to graduation
Key findings
Surveyed 74 final year students across the university
63% said they had used Purple Door and 37% had never used Purple Door.
48% of respondents said they had used MPD and 52% had not. They rated the MyPurpleDoor platform as 3.85 / 5 for ease of use and effectiveness.
When asked what the main platform is that they use to search for jobs 11 % said MyPurpleDoor. Prospects and target jobs were used more frequently.
When asked what services they knew were offered by Purple Door 53 people said CV advice, 3 knew we offered PG study options and only 2 knew about start up support.
Themes which arose included students feeling fearful / anxious about next steps and they feel they are too busy to be applying for graduate jobs just yet at this point in the academic year.
95% of those students who use PD services would recommend it to a friend.
Recommendations
A regular Part-time jobs newsletter.
Message to students should be very clear as to how hard it is to gain graduate level employment.
More could be done to cater for international students’ needs.
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Project 2 - Female Students & Entrepreneurship at University of Portsmouth Sarah Budge Rationale
Nest has observed a significant difference in the number of female students engaging with the services compared to male students.
Objectives
To explore the reasons why female students engage less with entrepreneurship and enterprise compared to their male counterparts? To address the gender imbalance in student and graduate entrepreneurship and startup activity.
Key findings Surveyed 102 students (1st and 2nd yr.) – 44% male 56% female.
Females only make up 30% of participants of our workshops – apart from the Social Enterprise programme where the figures change to 55% females.
Nest incubation space (located on Floor 2 Innovation Space) – only 10% registered users/ hot-deskers are females.
Traits higher in males were confidence, risk takers and seeing themselves as natural leaders – 49% males feared failure compared to 63% females.
people said CV advice, 3 knew we offered PG study options and only 2 knew about start up support.
Themes which arose included students feeling fearful / anxious about next steps and they feel they are too busy to be applying for graduate jobs just yet at this point in the academic year.
95% of those students who use PD services would recommend it to a friend.
Recommendations
Taking this research a step further and holding some focus groups to explore more details.
Developing a female only programme.
Greater focus on skill building e.g. confidence building, networking, risk-taking.
More successful female case studies and role models
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Project 3 - Impact of SEPs Denis Brzozowski Rationale
What is the value of the Self-Employment Placement in terms of student career and degree classification – is it worth it?
Objectives
To create an evidence base to encourage more academics and more students to engage in SEPs.
Key findings Surveyed graduates from 2012 - 2016 and those students who completed a SEP last year and are currently in their final year. We are re-visiting some of the hard data but findings included:
100% answered yes when asked whether the SEP helped them get to where they are today.
90% of final yrs. said they feel it has had a positive impact on their final year of study.
Comparison charts of the degree performance of SEP students vs the UK average are included on the following page.
Recommendations
Follow up with a comparison of degree classification outcomes of SEP students versus non-placement students.
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Following on from this report the findings were compared to the national degree outcomes for UK undergraduate students in general and as diagrams 1 & 2 show, there is a much higher number of first class and upper second class degree amongst the SEP students. This is simply an indication of the impact and in order to make this more robust further research would be required.
Diagram 1
Diagram 2
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Project 4 - Graduate Recruitment Consultancy Business Development Edward Wilcock Rationale
To increase relevant opportunities for graduates in the local SME market.
Objectives
Increase the numbers of employer warm leads in specific sectors.
Outputs
53 additional businesses have been sourced/engaged with resulting in 8 job roles.
From these, 2 candidates have been successfully recruited into graduate roles.
Recommendations
Create standard templates to ensure data collection is consistent.
Create a database of useful websites and key words for future business development work
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Project 5 - Engaging with Course Representatives to promote Purple Door Services
Sarah Budge Rationale
The Department of Employability does not currently work closely with students in ambassadorial and representative roles.
Objectives
To identify all student roles and student to student communication channels. Provide recommendations on how these channels could be used to promote and improve Purple Door services.
Key findings Roles include:
Course Representatives Executive Chair
Their main activities revolve around training, advising and working with course representatives as well as ensuring their issue are heard. In office for 1 academic year.
Online voting and results take place in May
Faculty Representatives
Their role is to communicate with course representatives within their faculty, liaise with all student representatives to find solutions to promote the student voice and address students’ issues.
A deputy representative is also appointed to each faculty
Online voting and results take place at the start of each academic year
Course Representatives
One or more appointed annually
Term in office varies from one year to the whole duration of an individual's course
Can be elected by students or staff, usually at the start of the academic year.
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Key findings (continued) Student Ambassadors
These roles are managed by the Recruitment & Outreach team
Their purpose is to work with young people in the community to raise awareness of Higher Education
Approximately over 70 ambassadors are recruited each year
Ambassadors are also available to answer queries with regards to HE financing and applications
Student Mentors
Some courses have a voluntary mentoring system allowing 2nd/3rd year students to mentor peers on the same course in lower years
‘Have Your Say’ This is the process by which students can submit and discuss ideas to improve/change the student experience. Submitted ideas can be found at: https://www.upsu.net/student-voice/have-your-say
Recommendations
Hold regular meetings with faculty representatives to communicate Purple Door events and gain feedback on PD events.
Start running workshops for course representatives to attend at PD. These would aim to inform course reps of the services PD offer, they could also be tailored for specific year groups. Course reps would then feedback this information to their cohort. This could form part of the initial training which is offered to course reps every year.
During workshops/training faculty/course reps could be asked whether they would like to be part of a mailing list. This mailing list would get monthly emails updating them on the current events occurring at Purple Door which they could then pass on to their respective cohort.
Contact academic societies to establish whether they would be interested in attending PD workshops based around career enhancing activities and recruitment services relevant to them.
Increase social media interaction between the course representative and PD pages on the likes of Twitter and Facebook to advocate the relationship between PD and students.
Identify which courses have student mentors and determine whether they would be interested in receiving training/ attending workshops about Purple Door services.
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Project 6 - Engaging with the Students Union and Student Societies
Christopher Jones Rationale
The Department of Employability does not currently work closely with the SU & societies.
Objectives
To identify all relevant societies, presidents & SABs and potential communication channels. Provide recommendations on how these channels could be used to promote and improve Purple Door services.
Key findings Roles include:
Sabbatical Officers - Elected annually by the students to make ‘positive change to student life and are paid roles. They are aligned with the Union's strategic aims. Areas of responsibility are:
President
Vice President Education & Democracy
Vice President Activities
Vice President Welfare & Community
Vice President Sports
Student Officers – elected annually to represent specialist interests (e.g. part-time students/ European students). Volunteer for approx. 2 – 4 hours per week.
Faculty Reps – representatives for the faculties
Course Reps – first point of contact should any course related issues arise.
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Key findings (continued) There are also various advisory services offered by the Union with trained advisors on hand all year round:
Academic Advice – this will deal with issues regarding course & assessment complaints,, appeals against marks or plagiarism accusations and issues around withdrawal of University services.
Health & Wellbeing – this service deals with issues involving mental health, sexual health, drugs & alcohol, social issues and bullying and personal issues. There are drop-in centres as well as bookable appointments.
Housing – provides advice on availability and options, bill payments, how to choose accommodation and relevant information such as TV licences.
Mediation – enables students to benefit from support of a trained mediator when difficult conversations are required.
Finance – due to be introduced through the Union with on-line resources and 1:1 advice available
The Union also advertises opportunities to get involved in extracurricular activities such as sports clubs, community / volunteering and skills training. The committee hub provides support for committee teams e.g. documentation, transport. Student Societies are split into groups such as volunteering or academic. A full list can be found at https://membership.upsu.net/
Recommendations
Purple Door could be involved with the new finance service at the Union to promote the need for part-time jobs.
Create a clear communication channel between Sabbs and Purple Door particularly with the Sabb Officer for Activities.
Involve the student societies with Purple Door e.g. Volunteering.
Encourage the Union to advertise Purple Door services more effectively.
Regularly check the ‘Have your say’ webpage for student suggestions linked to Purple Door to reflect on student feedback.
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Project 7 - Enterprise Showcase 2017
Denis Brzozowski Throughout February and March Denis supported the nest team with a variety of film and case study work in preparation for the annual Enterprise Showcase. The case studies were converted into A1 posters to be on display at the Showcase and on Floor 2 of the Innovation Space. Denis also created the Enterprise Showcase booklet. Unfortunately due to University marketing guidelines we were unable to use the original version he created and this had to be changed substantially resulting in the final version seen here: Enterprise Showcase Booklet 2017 ( https://drive.google.com/a/port.ac.uk/file/d/0B8r8_hfBh0z-ZlB5enJrRTFMUms/view?usp=sharing )
In addition to this, Denis also produced a separate booklet detailing ‘Startups to Watch’: Startups to Watch 2017 ( https://issuu.com/nestportsmouth/docs/startups-to-watch-booklet )
Project 8 – Volunteering Team, Photography and Feedback
Holly Farmer Hollys’ role was to collect qualitative feedback from current volunteering students and from charitable partners in order to improve the promotional activity of the Volunteering team. Over a 6 week period she recorded interviews, took photographs and transcribed the feedback with 16 student volunteers and 8 charity representatives. These were incorporated into a video montage which was subsequently shown to 145 people at the 2017 ‘Celebrating Volunteering Awards’. The feedback and photographic content will be used in future promotional talks across the university, on our external facing website and on our social media. As a result of Holly's work the Volunteering team now have access to a wide range of feedback from various sectors, course and faculties which will allow them to target their marketing more effectively. The following page is a small selection of the photographic content; please contact the Recruitment team for access to the full set of resources.
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(A selection of photographs from Project 8)
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Project 9 – Benchmarking Best Practice in Employability and Enterprise Services Sarah Budge Rationale
Our students give great feedback for Purple Door services but how do we compare to similar Alliance HEIs?
Objectives
To explore what other HEIs offer in terms of E&E services to their students and graduates.
Key findings A Summary of Strengths and Weaknesses Identified in the Employability and Enterprise Services at the University of Portsmouth: Employability Services Strengths
Service Portsmouth hosts a great range of online resources to help students with a range of topics; e.g. CV guides.
Weakness
Although relatively easy to navigate in comparison to other E&E websites, the Purple door website does seem out dated. Furthermore, it seemed to lack content such as a meet the team section and case studies of previous students.
Portsmouth’s E&E services are offered for 5 years after graduation - longer than most Universities (except those who offered services for life). In comparison to other Universities Portsmouth lacks the employability themed The Purple Door website has a lot of workshops. Other universities have online information on it with regards to volunteering workshops (webinars, workshops for female and other Career Enhancing Activities. students, graduate workshops etc). The unique branding of Portsmouth E&E services as Purple door stands out from the rest of the University services.
Alumni platform (still in development).
Recruitment team.
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Key findings (continued) Enterprise services Strengths
Weakness
Although many other Universities had an incubation space available to students not all were free like nest.
Portsmouth could perhaps host more competitions, run by the University themselves, throughout the year.
The nest website is easy to navigate and has all the information required for potential users. It also has a variety of resources available to students and graduates.
Other universities offered more grant/ funding opportunities from the University themselves.
Nest offers a comprehensive schedule of workshops on several subjects which help students to build on their enterprise skills.
Nest hosts an annual showcase allowing students to display their work and network, as well as giving awards.
Portsmouth was one of few to offer students the chance to complete a self-employment placement (SEP) More detailed results can be found in the full report—please see Appendix
Recommendations
Include a ‘meet the team’ section on the PD website to allow students to identify who they need to speak to regarding certain queries.
Increase the number of employment and enterprise case studies on the websites to motivate current students*.
Run more workshop style events on topics such as CV writing, interview preparation assessment centres. External companies could be brought in to support these.
Update and modernise the Purple Door website.
Offer an ‘award’ for completing a set number of volunteering/work experience hours to encourage more students to undertake career enhancing activities.
Develop a consistent method for students to leave feedback.
Create online information packs for academic staff outlining all the Purple Door services.
Investigate the creation of a tool which summarises the key career enhancing activities, employability and enterprise skills which would be user friendly and engaging.
*University of ST Andrews has a particularly good case studies library: https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/careers/jobs-and-work-experience/case-studies/graduate/ 16
Project 10 – Survey of Science Faculty Academic Perceptions of Purple Door Edward Wilcock Rationale
PD offers a wide range of services to students in Science but has very little timetabled influence meaning students must be provided with information about PD predominantly by their faculty personnel.
Objectives
To explore how much staff in the Science faculty know about PD services and the format of information distribution within the faculty.
Key findings
Diagram 3
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Key findings
The previous graph (Figure 10a) shows that not every service is known by the Science academics and therefore suggests that some of the services offered aren’t conveyed to all students.
Out of 450 surveys sent out 46 responses were received.
73.91% of staff were unaware that they could create a staff MyPurpleDoor account.
Approximately 36% of staff believed that Purple Door supports graduates for 3 years (rather than the reality of 5 years).
Some staff are unclear what is meant by a ‘career enhancing activity’. 60% of staff distribute information to students via Moodle.
56% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that Purple Door had a positive impact on their students. 70% of respondents indicated that they would prefer to receive information from Purple Door via email rather than Moodle, social media or other channels. 52% of respondents said that they would be happy for a Purple Door representative to contact them to talk in more depth Recommendations
Follow up with respondents to rectify misconceptions.
Ensure that academic staff have clear information available about Purple Door and MyPurpleDoor.
Explore the use of alternative communication channels e.g. student reps.
Diagram 4
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Project 11 - Data Migration Christopher Jones Chris supported the Department with some data cleansing and data migration work on MyPurpleDoor in order to maximise client retention and future cross-selling opportunities. Information previously held by individuals is now accessible via MyPurpleDoor and the impact of this work will be clear over the coming months when inviting organisations to events such as the Graduate Fair.
Project 12 – CCI Students and Purple Door Engagements Denis Brzozowski Rationale
The Creative Careers Team within the faculty support students with similar services to Purple Door. Some will use their in-house service and some will sue Purple Door.
Objectives
To build on the use of Purple Door by encouraging more (L4) students from the whole faculty to use Purple Door services.
Key findings
13 responses from students (all L4)
92% said that they had started thinking about their longer term career plans
When asked who would they turn to when it comes to planning their future career 54% said Purple Door and 7% said the Creative Careers Centre
31 % have already used Purple Door services
67% of respondents do not use Purple Door Social Media channels
Recommendations
Follow up with respondents to rectify misconceptions.
Ensure that academic staff have clear information available about Purple Door and MyPurpleDoor.
Explore the use of alternative communication channels e.g. student reps.
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Project 13 – International Student Project Sarah Budge & Holly Farmer Rationale
To gain feedback from international and EU students regarding their expectations and experience of employability support.
Objectives
To explore the barriers they have faced to gaining work experience and part -time jobs; their expectations of employability support; the services and support they would like the University to provide; their feedback on support received via focus groups.
Key findings
International students choose to study in the UK because a degree from the UK is more highly valued than many other countries.
International students choose to study at Portsmouth due to a variety of factors including cost & location of University in the City Centre.
All of the international students spoken to had used Purple Door at some stage.
There is a lack of clarity around how students need to obtain a National Insurance number before getting a part-time job.
University staff appear to lack knowledge around visa restrictions and this can cause frustration for the students.
Few students had been told about Purple Door services by their academics. Recommendations
International / EU students could be sent a welcome booklet before they arrive. This would include information such as; a guide to the process and directions to the NI office in Southampton, preparing your CV for the UK jobs market and information regarding visa restrictions.
Improve promotion of Purple Door services and include information videos on you tube and case studies of student experiences.
Careers Advisers could be trained to give CV advice according to the home country of each student (or the countries from where we have the highest volume of students).
Ensure that all student facing Purple Door staff have knowledge of the international qualifications; this could be through the creation of a guide and would help staff to help students applying for jobs in the UK.
Increase awareness of the visa restrictions placed on EU/International students among Purple Door staff including what students must do to stay on working in the UK after graduation.
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Project 14 – Graduate Recruitment Consultancy Support Sarah Budge Sarah’s’ contract was extended for one month to allow her to support the Graduate Recruitment Consultancy. During this time Sarah undertook a data cleanse of all 2017 graduates registered for the service, clarified their current situations and needs and then referred appropriately across the Department. Sarah also managed advertisements on MyPurpleDoor listing roles, dealing with amendments, extensions and republishing. In addition to this work Sarah was able to conduct some research into the Engineering and Civil Engineering sector to explore which companies are recruiting and how we can work with them.
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Conclusion The five Changemakers have been a valuable asset to the Department. Not only have they added support to our many events, embedded themselves firmly in the culture of the department, presented at the Away Day and been panel members at the Employability & Enterprise Conference, but they have been able to provide the important student perspective on what we do and how we do it. As their contracts came to an end they delivered one final presentation to the department. They were unanimous in voicing how much they have enjoyed and learnt from the experience. Among the many Employability and Enterprise skills they have gained they particularly value the learning around time-management, networking, presenting and self-confidence. The Changemakers have enabled the Department to gather some valuable data from our key audiences. This data will be used not only to improve our services but to target our offering more effectively. The more students we can support and advise, the more students are likely to benefit from career enhancing activities and subsequently are more likely to acquire the Hallmarks of a Portsmouth graduate as set out in the University of Portsmouth Education Strategy.
Next Steps Although this was a successful pilot project the scheme will not run again next year due to funding limitations. The relevant teams will now follow up the recommendations with a view to creating an impact where relevant.
- Lynda Povey Enterprise Advisor
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Appendix The full reports of all Projects (with the exceptions of Projects 7, 8 and 11) can be found on the network drive at: K:\Central\Employability\Changemakers\Final project Reports
The full reports are mostly in word document or PDF format; note that Project 1 is a zip (compressed) folder containing a number of questionnaire responses along with the report.
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