Careers and Employability

About us

The Careers and Employability Service supports all Huddersfield students and graduates to achieve their career potential. We work in coordination with the Students' Union, employers and other external stakeholders to inspire global professionals. We put students at the centre and treat each person as an individual and are committed to an inclusive, holistic, humanistic and client centred approach.

We are a member of the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS), and work in accordance with the AGCAS code of ethics. Importantly, we utilise a partnership approach to employability working closely with academics and professional services staff in Schools and elsewhere including School based Placement Units, as well as the Enterprise Team, the 3M Buckley Innovation Centre along with the Students' Union.

We value the contribution of Wellbeing and Disability, who are also under the umbrella of Student Services. Equally, we value employers, alumni and other external organisations and actively seek their input and involvement.

The Careers and Employability Service consists of three small, but highly dedicated teams:

• Business Partnership Team
• Careers and Guidance
• Global Professional Award

Our Head of Service is Claire Aydogan. To find out more about who is in our team, go to our meet the team page.

Our services for students and graduates are explained here in our Careers Statement of Service document and the services to support Schools are set out in our Service Offer. 

The University’s Careers Centre is located in Student Central, opposite Starbucks, while our staff offices are in Sir John Ramsden Court.

Contact us - If you know who you want to speak to, you’re welcome to go direct to anyone in the team. If you’re unsure who to contact, you can use our centralised inbox.

Work with us

There are many different ways in which you can work with us to support the employability of our students and graduates.  We have listed some below, however, if you have an idea of how we could work together, please get in touch.

Academics

As an academic you have a key role in helping to embed employability in the curriculum as part of our collaborative approach to working with academic partners.  We have lots of ideas on how to do this and specially designed resources which your Schools Careers Consultant can tell you about. You are also especially well placed to encourage students to use the Career Service (for example through posting messages on BrightSpace) and to alert finalists to the Graduate Outcomes Survey, as well as our graduate support package. You might also want to get involved in projects or offer to join your School Enterprise and Employability Group (SEEG).

Personal Tutors

Personal Tutors are in a unique position to point students to the careers support that’s available. Examples of this include our internal job board which advertises over 12,000 opportunities every year, our CV checker, guidance appointments) and our popular ‘How To…’ central workshops. The Careers home page is a natural place for students to start. As a Personal Tutor you can also help to create a safe space for tutees to surface questions and concerns about employability which they can pursue with our qualified staff.

Placement Units

Placement Years and other forms of work experience (including those led by the Enterprise Team) are a very valuable component of the curriculum which the Careers and Employability Service is committed to supporting. Staff in Placements Units can draw on our job seeking resources to help students apply for work experience; team up with your Careers Consultant for co-delivery of employability sessions; point students to internships advertised through the JobShop; and take a joined-up approach to employer engagement with the Business Partnership Team through the Work Integrated Learning Forum (WILF).

 

Other staff and organisations

Non-academic staff

Employability is a whole University responsibility. So, we welcome the opportunity to work with staff across the piece where there is scope for collaboration. For example, we work with: Planning to analyse Graduate Outcomes results, IT to enhance our systems, Training to upskill staff, Disability to run things like the Disabled Students Induction or the Workability event, Wellbeing to promote resilience resources, Estates to organise Careers Fairs, School administrators to communicate with students and HR to promote student vacancies.

Students' Union

The Students' Union (SU) are key partners who provide vital insight into student concerns. SU led insights helps inform our work and through including SU student engagement data in School Enterprise and Employability Plans (SEEPs) we can share Students' Union priorities with Schools.  We closely collaborate with the SU to reach out to the student body, for example by co-locating our PT jobs fair with the SU Freshers’ Fair.

External organisations

We are always interested to hear from employers, employer representatives, alumni, charities and other external organisations that have a shared interest in student employability. For example, we organise employer/alumni panels for students as part of their degree, bring employers on to campus to promote their company and vacancies, invite alumni onto School Enterprise and Employability Groups (SEEGs), work with Third Sector Leaders (TSL) Kirklees to promote volunteering and find mentors in the local community.

Services for Employers

The Employee Partnership Team within the Careers and Employability Service is responsible for sourcing and maintaining relationships with businesses of all sizes from across all sectors. We connect businesses to our students and graduates to help them find all forms of employment and development opportunities. We also support staff in connecting with employers and understanding the graduate labour market. Our work encompasses:

• Part-time jobs
• Internships
• Graduate jobs
• Graduate schemes 
• Volunteering 
• Other forms of work experience 

We advertise these opportunities through a variety of activities including: 

• JobShop - all students and graduates have access to the JobShop and with 37,985 views in the past year - it's a great place for employers to advertise their vacancies. Over 3000 organisations are registered with the JobShop and an average of 1000 jobs are advertised every month
• Careers Fairs - we host the online Mega Fair in term 1, delivered in collaboration with 4 other regional HEIs. 2023’s event hosted 18 Times Top 100 employers, including PwC, KPMG and IBM, plus 12 large, well-known employers from our region, including Cummins and West Yorkshire Police.
• We also support staff through providing regular LMI Digests and other reports on trends in the graduate labour market

Please note that Placements that are part of a student’s course are handled separately by School Placement Units. We co-operate closely with Placement Units through the Work Integrated Learning Forum (WILF) and can put you in touch with relevant contacts.

 

If you have employers you would like to recommend to the University, we’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch If you’d like to ask an employer to take part in your work, or if you want to receive job opportunities to share with your students and graduates.

Recruiting a student or graduate

The Business Partnership Team based in the Careers & Employability Service help businesses to employ University of Huddersfield students and graduates through a number of ways. We advertise employment opportunities through the JobShop, the University’s online jobs board. if you know any businesses who are considering employing students or graduates, please send their details to employers@hud.ac.uk.

We help businesses identify the most suitable option outlined below:

 

Extra-curricular opportunities for current students

Part-time jobs - are you looking for assistance to help you with a just few hours or days a week? Employing a student can bring a much-needed pair of hands at peak times. part-time jobs are in huge demand from our students as they look to financially support themselves during their studies. students can help with admin, customer service or support work but can also bring their expertise related to their degree. for example, social media, graphic design, photography or web support. 

Volunteering – students can offer community organisations and charities a wealth of skills and attributes whilst gaining that much needed work experience. volunteering is encouraged by the university as we hope our students engage with their community and demonstrate their charitable nature. 

Summer internships – many of our students look for short-term opportunities through their summer vacation (June to mid-September) to develop their skills and enhance their longer-term employability prospects. you may have a specific project which requires a certain skill-set, or you might need an extra pair of hands through a busy period, either way, the fixed-term appointment of an intern could help your business. Internships are a great way to identify future talent and if the internship goes well, the student can work part-time when they return to their studies.

 

Opportunities that are part of a student’s degree 

Placements – otherwise known as ‘sandwich years’ or the ‘year in industry’. placements are advertised through each academic school. contact your school placement unit for assistance. If you are not sure which placement unit to contact, we can point you in the right direction. 

Student projects – our students can undertake specific assignments or challenges, within the context of their degree, which will benefit your business. we invite businesses to put forward small projects, or briefs, which we can offer to students as research opportunities for their coursework/dissertation. Such application of knowledge enriches the student experience and builds on their academic understanding, thus increasing their confidence and career prospects. 

Employing graduates 

Employing graduates is a great way of filling junior vacancies in your business - they bring new ideas, a fresh perspective and they are available to work for you permanently as they have finished their degree. this employment can be done in two primary ways:

Graduate schemes – if you already have an established graduate scheme, small or large, we can help advertise this to our final year students and raise awareness amongst the student body.

Graduate internships – we understand many businesses will need to trial graduate recruitment before they commit to a permanent job. In this case, graduate internships are a great way of trialling graduates before offering a permanent role. if you are looking for someone who already has work experience. Graduate internships are also great if you have a shorter-term project which requires a specific skill set or a particularly busy period that you require extra help with. we have various funding options to support businesses recruiting our graduates. Internships are a great way of finding future talent.

 

Promoting your organisation to our students and graduates

For businesses who would like to meet our students, we host employer events throughout the academic year. during the COVID-19 pandemic we are hosting these options virtually:

Careers fairs – the perfect time and place to promote internships, graduate jobs, and graduate schemes to students from across all courses at the University. a general fair is held each year and is typically scheduled for October. We also host part-time jobs fairs, work abroad fairs, volunteering fairs and sector specific fairs.

Employer presentations – gain visibility and meet students to introduce your organisation and opportunities to Huddersfield students - arrange a workshop, q&a session, mock assessment centre, applications support or more to a targeted group of students.

Employer site visits – a site visit offers students the opportunity to connect with top professionals in the industry, get first-hand personal experience of the company, and direct exposure to their planned career. the insight that students can gain from these opportunities help them develop a greater understanding of the industry.

Mentoring – becoming a mentor to one of our students is a great way to support students hoping to join your industry or sector. you can provide insights into your sector, share your career journey, help students to network and offer advice and guidance when applying for jobs. Mentoring can also help to develop your own skills, by working with students on a one-to-one basis, you’ll improve your communication, leadership and coaching skills.

Sponsorship – get your name in front of our students by sponsoring a publication or event. 

Video content – provide a short video promoting your company / sector. 

 

To discuss any of the above in further detail, please email the Business Partnership Team at employers@hud.ac.uk.

Helping you help your students

Helping you help your students with their employability is a key part of our partnership approach. You can find all of our resources for staff to use with students in the Employability & Enterprise SharePoint site which we manage with the Enterprise Team.

This is a Uni-wide SP site meaning all tutors and professional support staff should have automatic access.

Here you will find sector leading resources covering everything from:

• The Huddersfield Graduate Attributes.
• Careers Timelines (what students should do when).
• Classroom activities for boosting students confidence, and making career decisions.
• Ideas for PAT sessions.
• Employability and Personal Development Planning (PDP) lessons plans and indicative programme ideas.
• Information about the local, national and global labour market.
• Aspirational videos - part of the This Student Can Project.
• Advice on how the Pedagogy of Compassion and Cooperation can enhance the impact of your employability sessions and subject teaching.

You can also find:

• Advice and guidance on addressing employability as part of Course Validation and Subject Review.
• Contextual information about the Graduate Outcomes Survey and the Career Readiness Survey.
• Project updates and dissemination resources for the Lightcast, the labour market insight tool.

If you would like to know more about how you might use our resources, please talk to your Careers Consultant in the first instance. 

Graduate Outcomes

The Graduate Outcomes (GO) survey is the biggest UK annual social survey and captures the perspectives and current status of recent graduates.

All graduates who completed a higher education course in the UK after August 2017 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.

How staff can contribute

The Graduate Outcomes survey needs to meet ambitious response rate targets to ensure we have sufficiently detailed data that is usable for a range of information and regulatory purposes. Each member of staff has a role to play. You can help by telling your Final Year students to look out for the GO survey and by assisting the Careers and Employability Service in phoning graduates a few weeks before the Survey to encourage them to complete it.

The University has a number of different communication tools available to colleagues to help promote the survey – the toolkit can be found on the university Graduate Outcomes Sharepoint site or contact Joy Nixon for more information

To promote our graduate support package, please click here.

Click here to see the dedicated webpage for alumni.

Why is GO so important?

Data from the GO survey is used by the Office for Students (OfS) as a measure of the effectiveness of our Access and Participation Plan (APP) and is a key part of the TEF metrics. The results are used by various league table compilers including the Times Good University Guide.

Is GO the same as DLHE?

The GO survey replaced the Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey as the official means of measuring the employment and study outcomes of HE students at UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in 2017.

Although GO shares features in common with DLHE, the timing, methodology and process are markedly different. Most notably, instead of recording what respondents are doing 6 months after leaving university, GO records activity 15 months after graduation. GO therefore represents significant discontinuity in the collection and measurement of graduate outcomes information. Consequently, GO results cannot be equated with DLHE results. This is reinforced by HESA who are releasing the first set of results as ‘experimental’ statistics in 2020. These differences are explained further here.

What is asked in the survey?

There are a number of core questions that all graduates are being asked. These range from questions about current status to whether they think they are on track in their career.

Who will complete the survey?

Graduates are grouped into four cohorts based on the end date of their course. Depending on when their course ended, they receive their survey invitation around 15 months later. For example, if their course ended in August to October 2018, they receive the survey in December 2019.

How will the results be used?

Graduate Outcomes data will be used for a range of information and regulatory purposes. GO data informs School Enterprise and Employability Plans (SEEPS). The data is used in accordance with the privacy notice (read more about privacy)

Find out more here.

Course validation and subject review

From August 2020 course validation and subject review processes will include some changes to further strengthen the way that employability and graduate attributes are embedded in the curriculum. These changes have been approved by UTLC and are a part of the normal Registry processes.

For an explanation of these changes (and how they work in practice) please see the PowerPoint Guide in the UniShare Employability Resources site. Please click the documents button on the menu to see all available resources.

All of the resources from Careers and Employability Service to support course validation and subject review are stored in the same UniShare Employability Resources as well. If you have questions about any aspect of these processes, in the first instance, please talk your school's Careers Consultant.