3 Early Interventions to Support Disadvantaged Students’ Employability
Higher education is often seen as a way to unlock social mobility. The opportunities to gain further knowledge and the skills-building experience of a university degree is a well-trodden route to enhancing employment opportunities, and students are generally more likely to enter highly skilled employment on graduating.
Yet, as reports and research constantly remind us, disadvantaged students have less favourable graduate outcomes than their more advantaged peers, suggesting that getting these students through the door is only half the battle. For example, in the financial year 2018-19, graduates who had been eligible for free school meals were less likely to be in sustained employment one year after graduating (86.3% compared to 89.1% of graduates who were not eligible for FSM) and had lower median salaries than their more advantaged peers (£24,800 copared to £27,700).
Reflecting on these differential outcomes for disadvantaged students, UCAS Chief Executive Clare Marchant believes that interventions to mitigate this need to start early. Students from disadvantaged or underrepresented backgrounds may be less likely to have access to relevant networks, information or opportunities than their more advantaged peers, and gaps in attainment may also have a knock-on effect on their graduate outcomes. A recent report by the Greater London Council argues that, by providing information about employability support early on in the student journey, HEIs can plug some of those ‘information gaps’ for disadvantaged students.
So, what would ‘starting early’ really look like? In this blog article, we offer 3 practical recommendations that will serve to engage disadvantaged students in careers discussions early on in their university experience. Several of the recommendations include closer collaboration with widening participation (WP) and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) practitioners to ensure your careers guidance is relevant and accessible for students from all backgrounds.
Engage students in careers discussions before enrolment
Providing information, guidance and advice (IAG) should be the pillar of your early interventions.
Students from low socioeconomic backgrounds may not be able to fall on the examples or networks of their guardians to understand and enter a ‘high skilled’ or ‘professional’ role. Signposting the support available to them to help them think through their career options can help to build their social capital – and, ultimately, their work-readiness when graduation comes around.
Discussing potential career paths and signposting to employability services at induction is one approach, but you might take it further than this. Staffordshire University invited offer holders to a Careers and Employability live chat, which got students thinking about their career journeys even before arrival. An intervention such as this could serve to encourage disadvantage students to focus on employability from the start, offsetting some of the advantage held by their peers with role models or first-hand experience of professional or highly skilled roles. Similarly, Newcastle University’s Careers Services delivers sessions during pre-entry summer schools as part of access initiatives to raise awareness of the support available, encouraging new entrants to engage with the service as soon as they enrol.
Enrolment is also a ripe moment for engaging widening participation students. The University of Westminster’s Careers Registration project seeks to engage students early on with a focus on underrepresented groups. As part of the programme, all new entrants are surveyed and asked to answer a series of employability questions. The university then uses the data to identify career thinking patterns, measure the development of soft skills and design work experiences across different subjects and cohorts.
Importantly, the Careers Registration project is built into Westminster’s Access and Participation Plan as part of their efforts to bolster the employability of underrepresented groups. Working closely with colleagues across widening access and participation will enable you to identify key moments and areas in which you can engage underrepresented groups, such as enrolment.
Make employability support accessible
You should also seek to ensure that you are offering support in a hybrid model. Underrepresented groups are generally able to spend less time on campus. For example, those with a disability, caring responsibilities or a part-time job may struggle to attend in-person events. So, providing the option to attend virtually makes careers events and guidance more accessible to these students.
As careers fairs are likely to be the first interaction a student may have with your employability services, making the experience accessible is fundamental. You might consider:
Delivering a virtual careers fair. This could include a chat function, virtual booths, digital brochures and pre-recorded webinars.
Designating timeframes for students with different needs to access the careers fair. De Montfort host ‘Low Sensory Hours’ at its annual Fresher’s Fair, which could be adapted in a careers scenario with enhanced guidance for employers.
The University of Westminster runs a wholly virtual careers fair, which features employers across a wide range of industries and the opportunity for students to seek counsel from careers advisors via a virtual booth.
Think about how you can link your careers fair can engage students on a subject basis. Many new students will arrive without a clear idea of the career they want to pursue, so specific resource packs based on subject, for example, might help new students to make connections between their degree and their professional future.
You should also focus your efforts on making your careers guidance and advice in general more accessible as a way to break down barriers presented by low engagement.
In your Access and Participation plan, seek to identify barriers to engagement with careers service and to work experience opportunities, developing targeted interventions for underrepresented groups. City, University of London did so, and now reserve the majority of places on their GradVantage, Industry Insights and Micro-Placement schemes for WP students.
Run events that specifically mention and seek to support underrepresented groups. Many universities choose to run mentoring or ambassador schemes for WP students.
Engage with external organisations who support graduates from underrepresented groups. Goldsmiths, for example, fosters partnerships with the Civil Service Diversity Internship Programme, Creative Access and the Taylor-Bennett Foundation.
Explore the principles of universal design (UD) and how they can help structure employability interventions and support for underrepresented groups. The University of Washington has published a useful guide on this.
Embed employability into the curriculum, so that students who are time poor have opportunities to engage. For guidance, see Advance HE’s extensive resources.
By providing a range of hybrid options from the outset, disadvantaged students may be more likely to engage with your services and even transition to in-person sessions in the future.
Embed the employability agenda into outreach work
Research has consistently shown that the attainment gap between disadvantaged students and their more advantaged peers starts early, and is persistent. If attainment at school has knock-on effects for achievement and progression at university, then it also has the potential to evoke differential graduate outcomes. For example, the degree awarding gap – which sees BAME students, on average, graduate with lower grades than their white peers – means these graduates are less likely to access high skilled employment and postgraduate study.
Outreach initiatives are an important part of the work to raise attainment in schools and widen access to higher education. Including a degree of careers and employability in this outreach work can help young people to understand the benefits of getting a degree as a way to grow the professional opportunities available to them.
So, how can you embed the employability agenda into your institution’s outreach work?
First, you should make employability a central tenant of discussions on student experience and the HE offer. There are plenty of examples of this across the sector, including:
As part of its student recruitment and outreach activities, Aston University offers advice and guidance on ‘Becoming an Employable Graduate’.
City, University of London direct pupils to blog articles on a range of topics, including how to make the most of your careers service and an introduction to the work of the employability department.
Oxford Brookes’ Transition Mentoring programme puts young people in touch with mentors who can support them with their future studies and career options.
Embedding employability into your outreach agenda will demand close collaboration with widening participation and access teams. Set up channels of communication early and agree on a set of shared goals or targets to make sure your objectives align. Intervening early can not only address attainment gaps – which, importantly, have a knock-on effect on graduate outcomes – but also serve to start conversations about employability prior to enrolment, so students start thinking early about their careers.
