'What makes for an employable graduate?' The first of 5 presentations from guest speakers at Digital Leaders North East's annual review, delivered by Michael Ryding, of Digital City, Teesside.

1. APRIL
What makes for an employable
graduate?
Michael Ryding
Director of DigitalCity, Teesside

2. CHALLENGES FROM THE SALON
• Why are graduates not ‘industry-ready’?
• How is the curriculum aligned with business needs?
• Why are there so few skilled digital graduates?

3. KEY DISCUSSION POINTS FROM THE SALON
• What does industry ready mean?
• Does it mean ‘trained-up’?
• Does it mean team working skills?
• Does it mean realistic expectations?
• How to align the curriculum
• Industry panels?
• Placements?
• Internships?
• Addressing the skills shortage
• Wrong skills
• Pipeline

4. SOLUTIONS FROM THE SALON
• We need to start long before the graduate stage and
support secondary schools with industry visits, skills
enhancement and digital clubs
• We need to make industry placements a compulsory
part of degrees
• We need to get involved with curriculum development
• We need to consider other forms of qualifications

5. WHAT HAPPENED NEXT
• Created a new talent event and reworked one other
• Became involved in Higher Apprenticeships
• Continued working with secondary school teachers
• Fed into new course development in specific subjects
• Added Internships to our Computing masters degrees