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Employability
DEVELOPING EMPLOYABILITY
Turning On The Careers Light
Page 1/4
www.developingemployability.edu.au | [email protected]
Last edited: May 30, 2017 10:31 AM | REV A
Developing Employability is led by Professor Dawn Bennett, Curtin University, Australia.
The work is supported by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training.
Turning On The Careers Light
This is a crazy workshop and it explains why I keep a purple feather boa and a Viking helmet in the office!
I have run this workshop with students in the arts, educations and the sciences, and it has terrific results
every time. This is a wonderful workshop to run at the start of the academic year.
Perhaps the most important attribute for graduates is a willingness and ability to keep learning. This takes
time to develop, but we can kick-start it with activities such as this one. The message for students is to
think outside the square, to recognise that success means to be intrinsically satisfied with what you do,
and to open every door by engaging with all their courses, career counselling sessions, work experience
opportunities, etc.
Before the workshop, for which you need a couple of hours, ask students to look up the word ‘doctor’,
‘artist’, ‘engineer’ etc. in a dictionary. Use this as a springboard for an initial discussion. (Music students
will have looked up the word ‘musician’ in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and will have found that it isn’t
there.) Use the dictionary definitions as a prompt to talk about how students would define a professional
for themselves.
If you are planning well ahead, consider integrating elements of ‘Role of an engineer’ into a previous class.
Both this and the dictionary definitions work well as a quick, online quiz with the students’ input displayed
on the screen, using a program such as ‘Hotseat’.
RESOURCES FOR THIS ACTIVITY
Archive box, bags or packs containing an assortment of items. For example,
• Feather boa
• Viking helmet
• Sample contract
• First aid kit or band aid
• Blank business plan, business card, calculator, organiser
• Passport application form
• Grant application
• Marketing materials
• Telephone
• Teddy bear
Employabili
ty
TOOLKIT
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. You can view a copy of the licence here.
DEVELOPING EMPLOYABILITY
Finding Your Mission
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www.developingemployability.edu.au | [email protected]
Last edited: April 28, 2017 | REV A
Developing Employability is led by Professor Dawn Bennett, Curtin University, Australia.
The work is supported by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training.
Finding Your Mission
Whether we think about the following questions on our own, in discussion with others, or even in written
form, they are important philosophical questions. They are important because the answers have profound
practical implications for the career choices we make, and the amount of satisfaction we are likely to gain
within those careers. It is important to revisit questions such as these regularly throughout the career
lifespan.
1. What do you want to achieve in your career?
2. How do you want to connect with others through your work?
3. How can your work be of value to the community?
4. Have you been inspired by examples of work becoming a force for change?
5. If so, reflect on the meaning they might have for your own career.
6. What is your mission? In other words, what do you most value? How do you want to contribute to
making the world a better place?
HEADSTONE ACTIVITY
A fun (though macabre) way to think about this is to think about how you
would like to be remembered.
What would you like your obituary to say?
What would you like someone to say at your funeral?
What would you like to see written on your headstone?
Employability
TOOLKIT
This resources was contributed by Angela Beeching (Manhattan School of Music) and Dawn Bennett (Curtin University)
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. You can view a copy of the licence here.
DEVELOPING EMPLOYABILITY
Career Action PlanPage 1/3
www.developingemployability.edu.au | [email protected]
Last edited: May 3, 2017 | REV A
Developing Employability is led by Professor Dawn Bennett, Curtin University, Australia.
The work is supported by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training.
Career Action PlanIn this activity you will consider:• Why it is useful to create a career plan
• What your values are• What career/s align with your values
• How to start planning your career
WHY CREATE A CAREER ACTION PLAN?
Creating a career action plan can help you achieve both short-term and long-term goals. It enables you
to clarify where you are going and what steps you need to take in order to get there. It is something that
you may wish to re-visit on a regular basis as the context changes around you and new opportunities and
interests arise.BUT I DON’T KNOW WHAT I WANT TO DO!
There is no need to worry if you don’t yet have a clear idea of what you want to do – lots of people are
in the same situation. In fact, it is common to have four different careers! Use this exercise to try and
help work out what you might be interested in, and how you might get there. Remember that the most
important part of employability is “ability”, and this is something we work on throughout our careers.
WHAT ARE YOUR VALUES?Most people are happiest when they are in a career that fits with their values. We all have things that we
love doing and that are really important to us, and things that we really dislike or that go against what we
believe in. These are different for every person. For example, some people love doing things that involve lots
of interaction with others, whereas other people prefer peace and quiet.
In the box below brainstorm things that are important to you, and those you want to avoid.
Important to me:
I want to avoid:
EmployabilityTOOLKIT
Employability is the ability to find, create and sustain work and learning across
lengthening working lives and multiple work settings.
Employability development
involves the cognitive and social
development of learners as
individuals, professionals and social
citizens.
Employability is not a job. It
does not come with the graduation
certificate. It requires work throughout
the career lifecycle.
Help build the sector’s capacity to prepare graduates who are active and intentional in their work and learning. Visit the developing employability educator site at www.developingemployability.edu.au for free educator resources and community network.
For more information, email us at [email protected]
Developing employABILITY is led by Professor Dawn Bennett, Curtin University, Australia. The work is supported by the Australian Government Department of Education and Training.
CAREER STORIES
Developing employABILITY
Career stories -
Developing your personal brand
student.d
evelopingemployability.e
du.au | contact@
developingemployability.e
du.au
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Sue’s story
“As a performer, y
ou can’t just g
o on a
stage and play anym
ore; it’s n
ot about
that ... You can’t b
e narrow minded and
just focus on your discipline. That’s
not
what employers want anym
ore in any
field.”
Sue* graduated with an honours degree in Music
Performance in 2006. Her main instrument is
clarinet,* but sh
e also plays a number of other
instruments.
Sue is currently the manager of a
regional orchestra, a positio
n she has held for
several years. She also performs both in the
orchestra and in a number of ensembles.
In her management role, Sue manages all activities
of the orchestra
from arranging the logistic
s of
performances, recruiting guest artists, carrying
out marketing and communication activ
ities and
coordinating events. She acknowledges:
“I was n
ever expecting to be in a
management role of an orchestra
, I
think I was expecting to do a lot m
ore
teaching and a lot more playin
g, but I
guess it w
as a personal si
tuation that
took me away from that and then I h
ad
to find other work, ju
st by chance.”
Employab
ility
CAREER STORIES
* Details changed to protect a
nonymity of research
participant
This career st
ory comes fr
om a music
graduate who made her high-level
communication skills the basis
of a
successf
ul career in management.
The account is
a great resource
for
exploring future work possibiliti
es
within and outside your disci
pline.
When reading the career story,
reflect
on what you have learnt in your
degree and how this can help you
develop your own personal brand.
At the back of th
e resource
, you will
find more information as well as
sample questions on learning from
biographies and career stories.
Developing your
personal brand
STUDENT RESOURCES
student.developingemployability.edu.au | [email protected]
Developing employABILITY
What is employability?
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The word employability is a compound word made from the words employ and ability.
Look at how the two words might be defined in a dictionary:
employ [ɪmˈplɔɪ, ɛmˈplɔɪ] verb
1. To pay someone in exchange for work.
“The firm announced it would employ more university graduates.”
Synonyms: commission, engage, enlist, hire
2. To make use of.
“The man employed the strategy to ensure his success.”
Synonyms: apply, engage, operate, use, utilise
ability [ə-ˈbi-lə-tē] noun
1. The means or skill to accomplish a task.
“Sarah used her ability to create a brand new design that resolved her problem.”
Synonyms: capability, capacity, competence, facility, faculty
2. A natural or acquired proficiency in a certain field of endeavour.
“Graduate work tends to go to the people who can articulate and demonstrate their abilities.”
Synonyms: aptitude, capability, expertise, genius, proficiency, prowess, skill, talent
Employabilit
y
What is employability?STUDENT RESOURCES
STUDENT RESOURCES
student.developingemployability.edu.au | [email protected]
Developing employABILITY
How to balance life and work
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In this activity you will consider:
• Your priorities in life (what is important to you)
• How priorities vary at different life stages
• Your preferred relationship with work
• What you would like to include in your future work, and what you want to avoid
Consider your overall priorities
1. What are your priorities? What things are most important for you to do or accomplish?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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2. With respect to family, health, finances, intellectual, social, professional, and leisure time etc., why
are these things important?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
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____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Employability
How to balance life
and work
STUDENT RESOURCES
STUDENT RESOURCES
student.developingemployability.edu.au | [email protected]
Developing employABILITY What is your career vision?
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How we think about our careers is an important part of professional development and can help us work
out what we really want to do. Figure 1 (below) encourages us to think about career as a multifaceted concept rather than a single
full time job. ‘Objective facets’ of career include: (1) the time spent on different activities; and (2) the
proportion of income generated from these activities (recognising that these may well be different).
‘Subjective facets’ include: (3) how a person identifies themselves (how they see themselves); and (4)
their vision for the future.
Employability
What’s your career vision?
STUDENT RESOURCES
Vision Identity
Time Money
Objective
Subjective How other people see us
How we see ourselves
Figure 1: Conceptualising ‘career’ (Mills, 2004)
Take a moment to consider these four elements in relation to your future life and career. You may like to
use the following questions as a guide, or as discussion points to discuss with friends.
STUDENT RESOURCES
student.developingemployability.edu.au | [email protected]
Developing employABILITY
Are you an entrepreneur?
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In this activity you will consider: • Why entrepreneurs are becoming more and more common
• What an entrepreneur is• What qualities an entrepreneur needs to demonstrate
• What entrepreneurial skills you have alreadyBeing an entrepreneur
With many major businesses and large government departments downsizing, there is a trend towards
people working from home and setting up their own businesses. To cope with this changing nature of
work, it is increasingly important to be enterprising and flexible.
What do you know about the changing nature of work? What impact is it having in the industries you
would like to enter when you finish your studies? What implication is this likely to have on your work in
the future? Discuss this with your peers and mentors.
What is an entrepreneur?How would you define an entrepreneur? Write down a definition and then discuss it with others. It might
help to think about a real-life entrepreneur or watch a couple of these 10-minute TED-Ed talks here and
here.
An entrepreneur is...
Employability
Are you an entrepreneur?
STUDENT RESOURCES
EmployABILITY self-assessment tool
Students create their own personalised employABILITY profile using an online self-assessment tool.
Personalised employABILITY profile
Students can use their personalised profile to enhance their employability and have more control over their development.
Student employABILITY resources
Students can access employABILITY resources as and when they need them. Associated educator resources are hosted on the educator site.
Free self-assessment tool for students now available at student.developingemployability.edu.au
Engage your students in employability!
Visit the student website at www.student.developingemployability.edu.au
or email [email protected]