“I’d like to wish all our staff and students a very happy and healthy New Year. Providing award-winning careers support and advice to over 24,000 students has presented extra challenges in 2020. From very early on, staff in the Careers Service recognised the importance of continuing to support our students and graduates with all aspects of career planning and decision making. That meant embracing digital platforms and moving all our activity online.
The response from our staff and students was to adapt quickly and immediately engage with our new mode of delivery. I’m pleased to say we have discovered some unexpected benefits that we hope will have a lasting effect from this point forward. We have found that we have been able to reach a wider audience and deliver support asynchronously, with students able to re-watch skills sessions and employer presentations in their own time. As a result of this flexibility, our digital uptake has increased.
Behind the scenes, staff have worked extremely hard to source software and a range of digital platforms that have enabled us to diversify our delivery, offer relevant content and engagement opportunities online, and ultimately transform the student experience.
I am extremely proud of what we have achieved together. There are, of course, many elements of this past year that we will want to leave behind, but it has also sharpened our focus on how we deliver our service.
As we prepare to launch a new semester, we are encouraged by the enormous scope of possibilities and we are focussed on offering a more flexible and accessible Careers Service in the future.”
Happy New Year from all the staff in Careers, Employability and Skills!