Shirley Jenner, GDI employability lead (2019-2024), reports on a recent employability initiative where international postgraduate taught (PGT) students worked to strengthen career support provision in the Global Development Institute. The project was designed to explore two over-arching questions:
What career aspirations do our students bring when they come to study at the University of Manchester? How can students fulfil those dreams?
Our first steps took place in Jan 2023, with a survey-based student consultation that provided important insights into students’ future ambitions. By 2024, student employability champions were being piloted across the School of Environment, Education and Development (SEED). Here is the story of some of the things we discovered and how students championed career success with and for their peers.
What career aspirations do our international students bring when they come to study at UoM?
The history of internationally mobile students in the UK is well-documented, with research from industry organisations such as Universities UK attributing the popularity of UK institutions to their high quality of education and the belief that the UK educational experience will lead to improved job prospects.
Internal research surveys within SEED revealed a huge diversity and complexity of student career aspirations. In the Global Development Institute, our students seek work in other international development institutions, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), the charity sector, central and local government, thinktanks, consultancies, social enterprises, and in international business. Most postgraduates needed help to know how to move forward and to garner the right knowledge, skills and experience for a strong CV.
Supporting students in their next steps
The study environment for international postgraduate taught students is complex, challenging, and yet full of opportunities for them to develop rewarding careers in their chosen field.
We developed an analytical framework drawing on systems theory, incorporating issues related to an HEI context and culture. This helped us create a better understanding of the external and internal barriers to career progression and an appreciation of the latent potential and resources embedded both within the curriculum and within the international student community.
We found three main areas of challenge faced by international students navigating careers: background post-study visa context, time/work-life-study pressures, and navigating institutional processes and support systems.
Ongoing policy contestation and precarious visa arrangements have added to the sense of post-study career uncertainty. A strand of debate has been concerned that international students are being underserved by student support services.
Barriers to international postgraduates
Our survey findings highlighted lower levels of PGT engagement with university career services.
International postgraduate study is demanding on time and energy. A significant number may also need to secure some form of paid work to help fund their studies or have other responsibilities. Some of our PGTs have already studied abroad, but many are new to the UK, facing socio-cultural and linguistic differences as well as the usual need to make friends and find their feet in a new city.
Viewed through the lens of Paulo Freire, we saw the impact that past institutional priorities and a corporate and UK-centric graduate narrative has had on student support service provision. In particular, this explains the ways in which some groups of international students seem less well resourced, less visible, and have fewer channels for their voices to be heard.
GDI’s response to the survey
Through the Spring and Summer of 2023, GDI responded to the survey findings through our action-learning approach. This involved UoM providing support (and some funding) to create some new systems of communication with and between students with a pivotal role for student champions.
These employability champion roles have been a key innovation. Seven GDI champions were appointed in April 2023. Over a four-month period they consulted with their peers to understand their needs and audited the career service resources. Having identified gaps in provision, they worked to provide what was missing, frequently in innovative ways. Here were three key areas of their work so far:
Creating spaces for student voices to be heard
Student champions received training in how to consult peers, including training in using and applying an adapted Open Space format, participatory technique that allows students to create, change and adapt agendas.
Both the 2023 and 2024 champions gathered between 50-100 students to discuss seeking work in the UK, internationally, or in specific types of global development organisations.
These sessions gave opportunities for students to voice their perceptions of challenges they face, and to identify the resource available to them.
Examples of student voices include three of this year’s employability champions on GDI’s blog:
The importance of signposting
The employability champions then responded to these sessions by signposting peers to resources that could further help them work through their challenges, including both existing career services and other context-specific resources.
A really significant element of this process was transferring knowledge and insights to the career service and to identify demands for support with visa and cross-cultural recruitment practices that were not being met.
Peer-to-peer knowledge sharing
The champions also created opportunities for student with experience of work and associated job-hunting skills to share their experiences with peers. They also developed wider networking skills to learn how to connect with alumni.
Our SEED survey has highlighted that up to 12% of our students have over 2 years prior experience in a field directly associated with their current study, and that 80% of them are willing to share this with peers. Champions convened small face-to-face group discussions and engaged with peer-to-peer mentoring activities.
Looking forward
We have learnt a lot through the survey and our subsequent actions. Our evaluations show a real positive learning impact for the students who participated, the champions, and staff. We trust that this is just the beginning of a journey where student voices are heard, and where GDI continues to be a launch-pad for impactful careers.
If you would like to know more about the Employability Champion Project, our research, or our evaluation of its impact, please do get in touch with Shirley Jenner at: shirley.jenner@manchester.ac.uk
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Note: This article gives the views of the author/academic featured and does not represent the views of the Global Development Institute as a whole
Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash