• Spring 2011
  • Welcome
  • Boot Camp for Accounting Vacationers!
  • From Deakin to Deloitte
  • Educating for Career Readiness Symposium 2011
  • Successful Students: Results of employer focus group
  • The Australian Higher Education Graduation Statement
• Summer 2011
  • Welcome
  • TAC Graduate Program
  • Low SES work placement program
  • Social media and employment issues
  • Employers visit Deakin in record numbers
  • Beyond graduate survey findings
  • Online interview simulation
  • Employers assess graduate competencies
• Winter 2010
  • Welcome
  • International work experience
  • Deakin at Your Doorstep
  • Enhancing student employability
  • The Fair Work Act 2009
  • Graduate Attributes: the employer's perspective
  • Valuing the skills of PhDs
• Summer 2010
  • Welcome
  • Transitioning
  • Supporting IBL
  • International traineeships
  • Career week
  • Career fairs
  • First point of contact
• Autumn 2009
  • Welcome
  • Careers in the curriculum
  • Work integrated learning
  • International students
  • Internship interview
  • Duke of Edinburgh award
  • New look Jobshop
  • Recruiting students with disability
  • Alumni in profile

Educating for Career Readiness Symposium 2011

On 10 June Careers and Employment hosted the inaugural Educating for Career Readiness Symposium. The Vice Chancellor, Professor Jane den Hollander, opened the event. Her remarks were strongly supportive of the work around Career Development Learning (CDL) being undertaken across the university. Dr Peter McIlveen, Associate Dean (Academic) from the University of Southern Queensland was an outstanding keynote speaker who argued convincingly for CDL and provided sound theory and excellent evidence to support its effectiveness. The rest of the day included:

• A Good Practice Showcase featuring academics who described the excellent work currently being done in faculties
• Careers and Employment displays which highlighted many initiatives to develop students’ employability
• Discussions between Faculty staff and employer representatives to achieve a shared understanding about students and career readiness
• A harvesting of ideas and suggestions

Key messages of the day were:

• Career Development Learning is best achieved by embedding it into curricula and those programs should begin at first year level and be developed over a whole course
• Students need to understand the importance of career planning and to be able to articulate their skills and attributes
• Students need to be helped to understand the work environment they are going into and to have realistic expectations
• The importance of preparing high-quality applications and of good interview performance
• Internships should be offered Faculty-wide and there should be increased opportunities to bring students and employers together
• There should be increased industry-academic links

Employer feedback:

"This was a fantastic initiative and we are very encouraged by the enthusiasm and openness of the academic team. Thanks again for allowing us to be involved."  

"Thank you for having (us) along! It was a really valuable session and we gained a lot of insight into how the university setting works for employers, and it was great to meet everyone."

"Thank you for inviting me to attend the forum. Walking away from it has confirmed to me what I am passionate about...".

Careers and Employment feedback:

"...the significant outcome was the importance of developing and using the faculty/industry relationship to advocate career education and development".

Please go to Careers in the Curriculum website to find the Virtual Showbag containing links to presentations and references.