This document discusses different approaches to enhancing student employability in academic programs. It describes a credit-bearing module approach taken in a chemistry program where students study employability skills like developing CVs, cover letters, and presentation skills. It also outlines a "Professional Development Spine" for mechanical engineering that embeds skills training within the degree program. Key elements include staged learning outcomes, areas for skills exploration, enhancement and evidence of capabilities. The document encourages helping students articulate their skills through activities like perfect candidate profiles, reflections, and portfolio building. It emphasizes the importance of students seeing the relevance of employability training and developing responsibility for their own learning and career development.

1. Enhancing Employability:
Techniques and Approaches
for Your Programmes
Dr Julie Hyde, Department of Chemistry (@DrJulieHyde)
Dr Gary Wood, Faculty of Engineering (@GC_Wood)
Professor Katherine Linehan, Department of Biomedical Science

2. Activity 1: Your initial thoughts about
employability
● What does ‘employability’ mean to you?
● Positive?
● Negative?
● Go to www.menti.com
● Enter the code XX XX XX
● Give us three words or short phrases that describe employability for you.

3. Activity 2: Defining employability in your
context
● Gingerbread man represents a graduate of your discipline
● At your table, discuss what it means to be employable – what skills and
qualities should a graduate in your discipline have?
● Write skills and qualities that are relevant to your discipline onto the
gingerbread man
● Underline or highlight skills that are useful to students as well as graduates
● 12 minutes.

4. Models of delivering
employability

5. Module approach (credit bearing)
The reason for a Module for Industry Students
● Students were not able to clearly identify employability skills through their
degree
● Application process – students could not articulate their skills
● Students wanted credit for their employability skills
Outcomes
● New Module at Level 1
● “Employability and Workplace Preparation and Practices”
● This was introduced after research and discussions nationally with other
Chemistry Year in Placement providers.

6. Developing the Module
From 2016/2017
● New module was introduced that developed skills about “What is Industry”
● Introduction to “Employability” and types of Chemical Industrial Companies
● Large companies – GSK, Bayer, Dow, Pfizer, Cytec, Novartis, Syngenta,
Unilever, JM, RB
● SMEs – Diamond, Y. Process Tech, through RSC and personal contacts
● Through delivery, Team Work was carried out to investigate Industrial
Companies
● Seminars supported “Industry in Action”.

7. Student activities (1)
● Industrial Companies
● Large Group Team work
○ Students investigate a given large company and a SME
○ Joint presentation
● Small Group Team Work
● Students prepare short recruitment videos about their company
● Reflections – each student writes about their video
● Meetings – each student will Chair and be Secretary to produce
minutes for their team.

8. Student activities (2)
● Module work:
○ Prepare a “CV”
○ Prepare a “Letter” of application
○ Design a “Poster”
● Working with the Careers Service:
○ Applications & assessment centres
○ Interview techniques
● Dedicated industry seminars:
○ Writing reflections
● Safety and Professional Practices integrated throughout.

9. Module Assessment & Evidence
● Assessment
○ Peer marking presentations
○ Assessment of videos / posters / reflections
○ Competency Assessment of other requirements
● Evidence through Badges
○ Are allocated to show evidence of achieving 11 employability skills during
the module. Students can add to their “LinkedIn Profile”
○ An initiative introduced to help students build up their personal profile

10. Module well received & Finally
● Students enjoyed the module
● Placements were gained quicker as a result of studying the module
● Summer placements were also gained
● Finally
○ Chemistry moving to the PLA approach
○ L1 integrated approach with defined employability skills
○ Free standing module included in L2
○ Integrated in L3.

11. A Skills Spine
● Mechanical Engineering MEng (a four year programme)
● 4-year Professional Development Spine:
○ Delivers skills training embedded and contextualised within degree:
■ Students need to see its relevance, and that it’s helping them
■ Cannot take up too much credit space
○ Flexible to students’ needs and stage of development, rather than ‘one size
fits all’
○ Supports students to take responsibility for their own learning and
development, and instills a commitment to CPD.

12. Professional Development Spine
● Underpinned by 5 key learning outcomes, with staged definitions for each
year:
○ Identify effective channels and communicate proficiently with technical and non-technical audiences, as
member of a team and individually.
○ Collaborate effectively and build and work in teams to deliver outputs and share skills and expertise.
○ Demonstrate individual effectiveness and self-awareness, articulating and evidencing strengths and
weaknesses, demonstrating self-motivation and commitment to own development, and operate as an
enquiring, engaged learner and professional.
○ Confidently locate, manage and utilise information, navigating and using both formal and informal
sources, including technical and academic literature.
○ Be enterprising, recognising and seizing opportunities to turn ideas into action to make a positive
difference, through planning and managing a programme of work.

13. Staged
Learning
Outcomes:
Professional
Capabilities

14. Professional Development Spine
● 3 areas of activity:
○ Explore – audit, reflection, information finding
○ Enhance – building skills, with increasing levels of autonomy/choice
○ Evidence – demonstrate capability against criteria

15. Professional
Development
Spine

16. Professional Development Spine
● Increasing levels of autonomy as we build students’ self-awareness:
○ Years 1 & 2
■ skills delivered through explicit training embedded into the integrative projects
■ assessed where they are embedded, and recorded in a reflective portfolio
○ Year 3
■ guided student choice in skills development
■ recorded and assessed through portfolio
○ Year 4 – 15 credit module Preparation for Practice
■ professional responsibilities training
■ 100-hours of individual professional development aligned with aspirations
■ recorded and assessed through portfolio, and forward-looking reflection.

17. Preparation for Practice Description
Preparation for Practice is a core module to support your transition into early-career
graduate life. You will:
● explore your professional responsibilities and values, and evidence them in your
portfolio, alongside your strengths;
● learn to identify, prioritise, and respond to your areas for development in a
professional context; and
● evidence commitment to your professional development by undertaking an
independent development activity, such as skills training, experience, or career
development work.
The aim is for you to leave with a strong profile as an engineering graduate, and a clear
sense of how to work towards your next professional goal.

18. Activity 3: Pros and cons of approaches
● At your table
● On flipchart
● Capture pros and cons of each of the two approaches
● Consider how and why they would work/not work in your own context.

19. Articulating Employability
● It is important for students to be able to articulate their skills
● Recognise different terminology used by employers
● Give examples of their where and how they have used different skills.

20. How can you help students articulate their
skills?
● Perfect candidate activity
● Reflections
○ Requires reflective tools (see www.sheffield.ac.uk/enterprise-education/orb)
● Portfolio building
○ Pebblepad, Google Docs, offline, etc.
● Badges.

21. Finally...
● What will you do next to take forward your thinking from today’s workshop?
● Write it down on your postcard
● Address the postcard to yourself
● We will post it to you at Easter, so you have a reminder and can check your
progress.

22. Thank you for joining us
today.
Dr Julie Hyde, julie.hyde@sheffield.ac.uk | @DrJulieHyde
Dr Gary Wood, g.c.wood@sheffield.ac.uk | @GC_Wood