Useful Careers and Employability Information

If you are are leading a module relating to employability or work based learning, or if part of your role is to provide pastoral support to students individually, you may find the following resources useful.

Remember that the Careers and Employment Centre's primary role is to assist students and graduates to develop their employability and career planning skills, and we would be pleased to recommend or compile specific sources of information for your students.

Sources of occupational and sector information

Careers Library Online - provides information on typical career options, work experience, job hunting related to various academic subjects at the University of Wolverhampton.
Prospects' occupational profiles - information about various graduate occupations including entry requirements, vacancy sources, salary information and typical employers.
Next Step job profiles - information about graduate and non graduate occupations.
Prospects' industry insights and Target Jobs - information about various employment sectors including industry overviews, typical employers and future trends.
Our Careers Information Room houses free, take away sector magazines, employer directories, and a wealth of information on specific occupation.

Career options related to academic disciplines

Tools to develop self awareness and reflect upon experiences

Prospects' 'what jobs would suit me' - quiz aimed at students and graduates, asking them to rate their skills and motivations before providing a list of graduate jobs that match their ratings.
Next Steps - quiz asking users to rate their skills and providing a list of rolls matching their choices.
Windmills Online - career planning site with interactive quizzes on skills, values, work life balance and more.
After English - website prompting individuals to reflect upon their past experiences to help them plan their career. Aimed at English students and graduates, but appropriate for all student studying non vocational subjects.
If I had only known - handbook aimed at students, explaining what employers want and advising them on how to get the most of university to improve their employability.

We are developing Brand You, an interactive, online resource which will assist students to develop their self awareness, to research what employers in their chosen career area seek and to build their ability to articulate their strengths when job hunting.

Skills students develop through their academic course

Student Employability Profiles produced by the Higher Education Academy, these break down the skills students from various academic disciplines develop through their course.
Prospects' 'options with your subject' - provides similar information, plus information about the most popular careers related to each academic area.

Employability guides

The Higher Education Academy's Learning and Employability Series is a compilation of publications which define employability and which provide insight into topics such as employability in the curriculum, work based learning, enterprise and widening participation. See series 1 and series 2.

The HEA publish a wide range of other resources relating to employability.

Labour market intelligence

Our graduate labour market page aimed at students and graduates, this provides a national picture of trends in the graduate labour market.
Our annual Destinations of Leavers to Higher Education (DLHE) report provides information about the employment and further study destinations of University of Wolverhampton graduates. Detailed information relating to specific courses can be provided upon request.
What Do Graduates Do? HECSU 2011 report, providing national information about the career destinations of 2009/10 graduates, 6 months after leaving.
Destinations of Leavers - Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) 2009 report, outlining the findings from a longitudinal study of graduate destinations 3.5 years after leaving university.
Graduate Market Trends - quarterly news from the Higher Education Careers Service Unit (HECSU)on issues affecting the graduate labour market.
HECSU - a range of other research papers relating to graduate employment, including the Future Track Survey, which tracks students' career progression over a 6 year period before, during and after their university experience.
What do PhDs do? - Vitae analysis of doctoral students' first career destinations.

Employers' views on employability and skills

Prospects' What do employers want? A list of skills in demand and information about the value of a degree.

The Council for Industry and Higher Education's (CIHE) employability and skills page. Links to a number of useful publications including:

Graduate Employability: What do employers think and want? - 2008 survey of 250 employers. Information about what employers want in graduate recruits by size of organisation.
Talent Fishing: What Businesses want from Postgraduates - 2010 survey about how employers view postgraduates.

The Confederation of British Industries' (CBI) employability page. Links to:

Building for Growth: business priorities for education and skills - 2011 survey of 566 employers. Respondants represent businesses of all sizes and sectors.
Working towards your future: making the most of your time at university - a guide on what employers look for in potential employees, aimed at students.
Future fit: preparing graduates for the world of work - 2009 report outlining how employers define employability based on a survey of 581 organisations.

Employer competancies

It is very useful to analyse the competancies employers use in recruitment. The graduate recruiters below define what they look for in graduates and reflect what, generally, employers seek.