The Learning Matters Podcast captures insights into, experiences of, and conversations around education at the University of Sussex. The podcast is hosted by Prof Wendy Garnham and Dr Heather Taylor. It is recorded monthly, and each month is centred around a particular theme. The theme of our sixth episode is ‘embedding employability into the curriculum’, and we will hear from Emily Huns (Head of Careers, Employability & Entrepreneurship).

Recording

Listen to the recording of Episode 6

Transcript

Wendy Garnham:  

Welcome to the Learning Matters Podcast from the University of Sussex, where we capture insights, experiences, and conversations around education at our institution and beyond. Our theme for this episode is employability and our guest today is Emily Huns, Head of Careers, Employability, and Entrepreneurship. Our names are Wendy Garnham and Heather Taylor and we are your presenters today. Welcome everyone. 

Heather Taylor:  

Hello. 

Emily Huns:  

Hello. 

Wendy Garnham:  

Emily, could you tell us a bit about your role as Head of Careers, Employability, and Entrepreneurship at the University? 

Emily Huns:  

I can. So really nice to be here to start off with. My role is to drive activity that empowers and enables our students to be ready for next steps after graduation. So that’s whether those next steps are a job or postgraduate study or something else. And the scope of that activity is really very wide. I manage the university’s careers and entrepreneurship team. There are around 30 of us. And to give you some examples of what we do, we work really closely with faculty colleagues to consider with them how they might adapt their curriculum to enhance employability learning. But we run a big programme of extracurricular support as well. So for example, we run a high scale programme of employer led activity, things like 600 work experience opportunities, a vacancy site, recruitment fairs, alumni networking events. We run a programme of support for students who are seeking a placement year. And we support around 800 students every year to create their own work experience by starting maybe a creative project or a social enterprise or business. So really wide scope working with students from their arrival through to 3 years after graduation and very closely with staff as well. 

Simon Overton:  

Here’s a producer question. Can you expand a little bit? You said creating their own work experience opportunities. What does that mean? 

Emily Huns:  

Yeah. Well, actually one of the things that graduate recruiters prize most highly is initiative and a proactive approach. So one of the things we do, I think really well at Sussex is to give students the opportunity to be entrepreneurial. They may indeed rather than wish to do an internship, prefer to start their own project. There may be something they want to do in the community. They may already be running, you know, a new sports team. They may already be looking at solving a problem out there in the world which they could potentially turn into a profit-making business. So actually giving them the tools to generate, to design, to explore, to test, and to get something new out there in the world is one of the best ways actually to impress employers. And of course, they may go on to found themselves a business and become an employer themselves, or they may take those entrepreneurial skills into somebody else’s business. So either way they win. 

Simon Overton:  

Do you have some examples of students that have done that that you can share? 

Emily Huns: 

 I do. I do. So at the very least, 30 plus students every year register new businesses having been part of the programme. So examples off the top of my head, one of our students identified a growing problem of drink spiking in clubs and pubs and has designed a new product for people to put over their glass to kind of protect it. We had somebody, an engineering student who’s designed an app to boost mobile connectivity. So just two examples. But really everything and anything in this country and other countries as well. Social enterprises, a lot of that. With a lot with environmental themes too. So solution provision really. 

Heather Taylor:  

Why is embedding employability within the higher education curriculum so important? 

Emily Huns (04:19): 

One word answer to that is inclusiveness. Because we all know that today’s student is really time poor. It’s expensive being a student and cost of living is high. So most students in the country are working. A lot of our students have other responsibilities in their lives as well. We cannot expect all of our students to have the time to, outside of the curriculum, seek the work experience that they all now need in order to get a graduate job, full stop. That work experience can come in all shapes and sizes, as I’ve mentioned, you know, they could be creating their own work experience, could be doing internship, they could do part-time work that’s very challenging, they could be doing volunteering, which showcases their skills. But they do all need to do something, probably several things. If we’re not putting some of that learning into the curriculum, some of that applied learning, some of that perhaps connectivity to employers, or at the very least instructing students what they need to do to become employable, then we are letting our students down. So in the curriculum is the only place it’s safe to ensure then that all students have the basic level of skills development and experience alongside their subject knowledge. By the way, while we’re talking about inclusiveness, all of our 600 CareerLab work experiences are paid at the living wage or above. 

Wendy Garnham:  

That leads us really nicely onto the next question, which is what does employability look like when it is effectively embedded into a curriculum? 

Emily Huns (06:08):  

Well, this is a great question and something that my team and I’ve been working on supporting the university with for a number of years. Because of course, there’s some elements of choice in that, but we also need to be really data led and make sure that what we’re advising really does work. So I think I would probably want to start with a really important principle about embedding in the curriculum, is that anything that we embed needs to enhance subject learning and the sorts of skills that they would be developing anyway, perhaps, within the subject. So enhance, not dilute subject. That’s really important. But in terms of what it looks like, I think there are five or more things I’d probably want to say here, and I’ll probably sort of kick myself and realize I’ve dropped a couple out afterwards. We have a new academic framework coming in imminently at the university, will outline things really clearly for our faculty colleagues. But I think that we need to embed recognition of value. So what I mean by that is that learning outcomes should be explicit, where there are employability skills that are being learned through a module or a course, learning outcomes should state that explicitly. And that is because it is one of the ways that students can recognise the value of what they’re learning on a course. And it’s only through recognising it that they can sell it on to future employers. And when we talk to lots of our students, they don’t realise what great stuff they’re getting. And that’s actually quite a, you know, a common barrier. It’s there, but it’s hidden to their eyes. So that’s really important. And then of course, it’s not enough just to put them in learning outcomes, but our teaching staff need to be able to talk about those things and help students to reflect on those aspects. That’s one thing.  

I think the second thing is the opportunity throughout the curriculum to apply subject knowledge and skills to real world scenarios. Preferably, those real world scenarios are provided live by employers and external organisations because that really brings it to life for students. So they might, for example, be collaborating in a group on a live challenge faced by a local employer. Or an employer on this side of the world. It’s something real where they can work collaboratively, find solutions, pitch back their solutions and recognise then the change that they’ve created for that external organisation. Essentially that sort of thing is a de facto work experience in the curriculum which they can then use in order to apply for extracurricular opportunities too, which is nice for them. So that’s the second thing.  

I think where feasible, building in even more sort of obvious work experience is obviously great. At Sussex, we give almost all of our undergraduates the opportunity to do a 40-week placement year between year 2 and year 3 or year 4. So in the year 3. But there are also courses with shorter periods of work experience built in. So if feasible, that’s good. Actually, at Sussex, we consider entrepreneurial skills to be part of employability, the employability skill set, because we hope that we are making our students ready for a global job market. And increasingly we see that managed risk taking and creative thinking and complex problem solving and the sorts of things that were traditionally sort of sitting in the entrepreneurial skill set now are important for everybody to develop. So that’s an aspect.  

And then there is something around career management. So students graduate hopefully with a skill set, subject knowledge and a set of experiences. Put all those things into their suitcase and they have employability assets. But that’s no good if they don’t know how to deploy them to get a job or next step opportunity. So this is what we call career management skills. And that’s things like understanding their options, exploring those options and broadening them out if necessary and then navigating. So finding the vacancies that will interest them and being successful in their applications. 

Wendy Garnham (11:17):  

Sounds as if there’s quite a big role to play for assessment and designing assessments to really emphasise some of those skills and abilities and really giving opportunities, I guess. 

Emily Huns:  

You’re absolutely right, yes. And authenticity and assessment is as a lovely vehicle for embedding employability indeed 

Wendy Garnham:  

Absolutely. Yeah. I think that’s one of the things that I think is increasingly coming through in terms of the story of employability, is just being able to give students the opportunity to demonstrate skills and really then sort of making it clear that that’s the sort of thing that, you know, they can showcase. 

Emily Huns:  

Absolutely. Yeah. Where it’s appropriate to the discipline, actually giving them an opportunity to be assessed on something that is very authentic that they in a format that maybe they will use as a graduate in the job market is a really important aspect of it. 

Wendy Garnham: 

Very valuable. 

Heather Taylor (12:15):  

How can lecturers collaborate with your team to embed employability into their curriculum? 

Emily Huns:  

Well, we welcome that. Clearly, it is our faculty colleagues who lead on curriculum review and development. So all they really need to do is to ask. And we have a team of careers consultants. Each consultant is linked to each of our academic schools. If they approach their careers consultant, the consultant will meet with them and can talk through what might be possible, what perhaps their vision is, share practice from across the university and the sector, and support them in getting something off the ground. It may be a series of small tweaks, it may be quite a revolutionary addition to a module, it may even be a new module, but there’s always enhancements that we can make together. 

Wendy Garnham:  

And so I know earlier you mentioned the university’s got a new academic framework imminent. How does the work of you and your team support the university’s new academic framework? 

Emily Huns:  

Well, we fed into it in the first instance to work with colleagues in faculty on what the blueprint for employability at Sussex should and could be. And I’m really excited about its launch, because it’s a milestone in terms of having that blueprint in writing and official, and we will obviously be using it really when we’re talking with faculty colleagues who are asking, right, you know, what does employability in the curriculum look like? What could it look like? What could we do? 

Heather Taylor:  

So I actually think you probably answered this final question a little bit earlier when producer Simon gave you those extra questions on the spot. But in case we missed anything, in addition to embedding employability, what other career support does the university provide for students? 

Emily Huns (14:23):  

Right. Well, we did talk about our extracurricular program and I would say in summary, we provide a really quite a wide range of activity, almost a menu for students to pick from. So we appreciate that every student has a different set of starting points and a different set of constraints, opportunities, interests. So our menu is broad and hopefully reflects that set of interests. We run something called CareerLab. CareerLab is around a thousand opportunities for students to develop skills and experience and connect to employers. I talked briefly about the 600 work experience opportunities that sit within that, but maybe to focus in a bit more on that – so we run conventional internships with local employers. We also run a strand of our internship activity with employers outside the UK. And for these opportunities, students work remotely, which is nice and flexible and works really well for students whatever their circumstances and backgrounds. It’s also a way of developing this world readiness that we talk about a lot at Sussex, knowing that a lot of our students will work globally. Indeed, everyone to some extent now works in that way.  

Another strand of work experience under CareerLab is our student consultancy, which has been expanding a lot in recent years. This is where students gather in multidisciplinary groups around a live brief put by a real organisation, either in our region or elsewhere. Very commonly, it has an environmental focus. We’re asking students in a supported way to tackle that problem and put their solutions back to the business. And very commonly, actually, business does then adopt the recommendations. So for example, we have had a team of students providing some recommendations to the Ridgeview wine estate on how to make the byproducts of their processes recyclable and reusable. Those solutions have been taken up, we understand, by the organization. But students are working for a real range of businesses and charities.  

I think the final thing to mention is that we give access to digital accelerators. Digital skills are such a big thing, students often need a bit of learning around that. Recruiters talk about it a lot. So we do give students access to digital accelerators under CareerLab as well. And then we’ve talked about the entrepreneurship programme and that opportunity to create their own work experience. 

Wendy Garnham (17:28):  

It sounds as though whatever the time available is that students have, there’s something that you can find for them to really boost their employability. I think just one of the things that I’m really aware of, certainly with the students I teach, is that time management is one of the biggest hurdles. Trying to organise their independent study time and, you know, attending all their sort of taught sessions and then finding the time outside of that for employability is something that’s very difficult. But I guess if we’re embedding it more, it sort of, you know, one, becomes more integrated, but it does sound as though, you know, whatever the time restriction is, there’s something they could do to add to their value as a future employee. 

Emily Huns:  

Absolutely. I would agree with that. That’s what we’re aiming for. And I think that what you say there, Wendy, also flags how important it is early on in the curriculum to grab students’ attention and explain how important it is to do what they can with the time they do have. We have modules, for example, that bring panels of employers in early on to talk really authentically about options with that degree subject, and how those alumni have built experiences just little by little over the course of their degree that’s helped them then to get a great job. So working early in the curriculum, developing the experience and applied learning in the curriculum, making sure students reflect on the skills that they are absolutely developing through the curriculum, and encouraging them to pick the bits of the menu of support that work for them. Yeah, that’s what we’re aiming for. 

Wendy Garnham:  

Yeah, and I think it’s more as well, there’s some more emphasis on us as tutors to really emphasise why we’re doing certain things in the way that we’re doing them in terms of the employability agenda, you know, how it will sort of feed into their future employment experiences, I guess. 

Emily Huns (19:44):  

One thing I forgot to mention actually is that one of the strands of the CareerLab Work Experience scheme is our Junior Research Associate opportunity where our undergraduates join research teams in the university and work on live research. It’s obviously a fantastic way of developing skills, but also of getting an insight into the life of an academic. 

Heather Taylor:  

How do you work with employers? 

Emily Huns:  

Lots of different ways, and in more and more creative ways actually to support the embedding agenda at Sussex. So it is a very important part of our role that, where appropriate, we are inviting the employer voice onto campus to share with us the skills that they are struggling to find in graduates. And that is our cohort of local employers here in Sussex, but further afield of course as well, and particularly where sectors speak to Sussex disciplines. So for example, we’ve had a group of employers on campus recently to feed into curriculum evolution in a particular subject area. That was a really nice dialogue. We asked the employers questions, they responded. They challenged us, they agreed with some of the ideas that we were mooting. And we’ve come away clearer about some of the ways that we evolved the curriculum, and with some other things to think about. So that’s one of the ways we work with employers.  

More obviously, I guess, we work with employers in terms of bringing them into the curriculum, directly to speak to students. We’ve talked about our student consultancy model, for example, where maybe even as early as the first year, employers push a very live challenge to student groups and they work through that, and maybe even are assessed on their pitches of solutions back to the employer. Outside of the curriculum, they are joining us for recruitment fairs, they’re coming to networking events to connect up with students, and they’re actually very generous in terms of their time hosting interns and hosting student consultant teams, you know, to help us to scale and scale and scale the number of work experience opportunities that we’re able to provide. 

Heather Taylor:  

I would like to thank Emily and thank you everyone for listening. Goodbye.  

This has been the Learning Matters podcast from the University of Sussex, created by Sarah Watson, Wendy Garnham, and Heather Taylor, and produced by Simon Overton. For more episodes, as well as articles, blogs, case studies, and infographics, please visit the Learning Matters Forum.