How can Careers Consultants support you at Arden?

The role of a higher education (HE) careers consultant (CC) is a multi-faceted and valuable one (along with the vast array of other job roles in university careers teams). It is a fairly well-established role in pretty much every university I have come across in the UK (and beyond the UK, in varying guises). But this question around what careers consultants do, has been posed to me a few times recently by graduates and university colleagues, especially working in a new established university and careers team at Arden University.

Sometimes it’s worth going back to basics…so for any academics, professional services staff, students and graduates, below provides what is hopefully a useful and succinct overview. This is certainly not an exhaustive list, and roles and responsibilities may vary across institutions. CCs roles are also ever changing and adapting to meet the needs of career development work in HE:

• CCs have typically undergone training within the career development field, equipping them with knowledge and skills such as coaching or career guidance. This is to enable supporting students and graduates on a one-to-one basis, and to provide tailored and impartial support on anything from ‘I have no idea what to do after my degree’, through to ‘I need some advice on how to prepare for a job interview I have next week’. You wouldn’t want to see a therapeutic counsellor who’d had no training in their approach, so it shouldn’t be any different for a careers professional. Many CCs even obtain additional qualifications to enhance their work e.g. counselling training. The value of career guidance skills is further explained in this article?here.
• Linked to above, many CCs retrain as careers professionals and may come with a whole heap of life and career experience themselves; recruitment and HR, teaching, science and engineering to name but a few! All of this adds value to their work with students and graduates.
• CCs develop vast knowledge of study, training, employment routes, recruitment processes, and labour market intelligence for different career sectors and subject areas, in order to support students and graduates, and to inform their work with academics. Some CCs specialise in terms of the focus of their roles e.g. graduates/alumni, embedding careers into the curriculum, equality and diversity in careers work.
• CCs usually work closely with internal employer engagement professionals in their own teams (as we now do at Arden) to build relationships with alumni and other professionals as way to provide a platform for students and graduates to engage with employers and the workplace (careers events, careers fairs, guest talks, employer input into modules etc).
• CCs typically work closely with academics to collaborate on a range of careers initiatives targeted at students and graduates; promoting the careers service, identifying and responding to the careers related issues and challenges of students through developing a range of activities to enhance students’ confidence and skills to move successfully into roles or further study following graduation.
• CCs typically deliver a range of careers education through workshops and group sessions, and so develop their teaching and learning skills. This is where many CCs bridge professional services and academia in their roles in higher education. Some careers professionals are academics themselves. Many, such as myself, have completed masters and/or HE teaching qualifications, and may have worked in academic roles as lecturers.
• Some CC roles may involve working collaboratively with academics to deliver careers education through or alongside the curriculum. This could be to support students to ‘unpick’ what they are learning from their studies and how they can use this to articulate their strengths and attributes to employers. Or this could involve supporting module creation to ‘weave in’ careers education into the delivery of the subject itself.
• Many CCs now focus specifically on supporting the career development of graduates as they transition out of university and into the workplace after they have completed their qualifications at university (like my role at Arden, as Alumni Careers Consultant). As above, this may involve one to one careers support and group career education delivery.
• Increasingly, higher education careers professionals are conducting research to inform and enhance practice across the higher education sector, and publishing through the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS), the Career Development Institute (CDI), and?the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling (NICEC)

How to access careers support at Arden:

If you are a student or graduate you can access Arden's new online careers platform called Arden Futures. As students and alumni, you will have access to a dashboard where you can book a careers chat with a careers consultant, search and register for careers workshops and employer events, search for jobs and access career development learning pathways (short self-learning courses to support your career planning).

To gain access to Arden Futures:

Students - click on the 'careers portal' in I-Learn

Alumni - please go to https://futures.arden.ac.uk/ and register to gain access to the system

Arden University Careers Team contacts:

Students –?[email protected]

Graduates –?[email protected]

Employers –?[email protected]

*Careers-related roles in higher education vary in terms of job title and responsibilities (consultant, adviser, coach) and depending on the institution.

Written by Sarah Warburton - Alumni Careers Consultant at Arden University