Careers and enterprise service: The glue of higher education

Many students in the UK go to university in pursuit of a graduate level job or career, but with the focus on academia, university careers services are often forgotten. This is a missed opportunity as they play a key role in improving outcomes for students and can be accessed up to three years after graduation.

The degree awarding gap is very much still in existence in higher education but integrated working across departments and students, and use of our school’s partnership teams and externals, such as employers, can help address this problem.

Increasing diversity in the workforce

In the drive towards increased levels of diversity within the workforce, I draw from experience. I managed  public sector graduate leadership and post graduate programmes, in which I was the Equality Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) lead tasked with improving cohort diversity. I consult with employers on the best way to engage with students and/ or graduates, which could be in the curriculum, workshops, networking, or recruiting or engaging on one of our programmes.

Examples of this include:

• Encouraging employers to rescind the 2:1 entry criterion and ensuring those attending our events are relatable to our student body and our statement of intent.
• Advising on and promoting positive action programmes are popular with our students.

It’s important to build trust with stakeholders so they can be honest and create a non-judgemental environment to establish who is underrepresented in the organisation on a granular level in order to create a plan on how to increase representation of these groups.

Our work at Queen Mary

All students and graduates including care experienced, carers, and a high percentage of those with protected characteristics are helped to fulfil their potential at Queen Mary.

In 2021, we were named the country’s top university for social mobility in a report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies in partnership with the Sutton Trust and Department for Education. This success is part of our ongoing journey. We are working on a submission to the Racial Equality Charter and undertaking a comprehensive internal audit to identify and address the barriers faced by Black, Asian and minority ethnic staff and students. We are also providing a framework for action and improvement.

Data shows that Black students at Queen Mary have the highest rates of progression to employment / further study in 2019/2020 (latest year available) compared with other ethnic groups.  84.4% *(Graduate outcomes survey¹).

We hope the impact of the above statistics will be a 2-pronged phenomena; to increase outcomes in the employability market or further study and to open the door to an enhanced level of diversity of academic staff. This in turn may have a snowball effect of enriching experiences within universities.  We would hope that these outcomes encourage more black people into academia due to improved experience and outcomes, and this therefore being a framework for action and improvement.

What helps us enact this change?

Working with a strong vision, values and strategy the careers services can mitigate some barriers faced by students and graduates. Internal research shows us that the earlier the engagement with the careers service the better the outcomes. We therefore  try to engage, signpost and invite students via many avenues, both in curriculum and out.

Furthermore, participating in the Racial Equality Action group, The Professional Services EDI steering group and the Careers EDI committee ensures cooperation and coordination in the pursuit of improvements.

This is an example of cross organisational collaboration that is an effective strategy in order to enact change and to achieve goals faster.

Queen Mary Careers and Enterprise are committed to open the doors of opportunity to all our students, by ensuring our careers events are spaces of representation, inclusivity, and a celebration of difference. We will continue to mould our services and directorates to ensure we are working for and responding to our students’ needs, and supporting them in their next steps. To put this into context please see below home students statistics:

• 92% of Queen Mary students are from state schools
• 50% are of Asian ethnicity
• 10% are of Black Heritage
• 49% are the first in their family to go into higher education and
• 6% of our students declare a disability.

As a sector we still have more work to do.

If you are working in this space, please do get in touch with us: Leo.robertson@qmul.ac.uk

1. The Graduate Outcomes survey is the biggest UK annual social survey and captures the perspectives and current status of graduates. All graduates who completed a course will be asked to take part in the survey 15 months after they finish their studies. The survey aims to help current and future students gain an insight into career destinations and development.