Addressing Perceptions of ‘Employability’ within a Healthcare Programme at
Cardiff University - Keren Williamson, Cardiff University
Introduction
As educators, we reflect on
our teaching almost as
‘second nature’ but occasionally something happens
that stops us in our tracks
and makes us consider
whether we may have
‘missed’ something important. Such was the case
recently when I heard that
some of my final year students had been unsuccessful in gaining employment
within local hospitals. This
made me consider what the
successful applicants offered that my students had
not and what was it that
made the successful applicants more employable.
This caused me to reflect
on
‘employability’,
old
school ‘transferable skills’
perhaps but certainly the
modern ‘buzz word’ and
definitely on the radar for
higher education within
Wales. But what exactly is
it? Is it sneakily and cleverly
embedded within our radiography programmes or is
it simply presumed to be
there, perhaps within clinical education? Clearly if it
was in there somewhere, it
seemed to be hidden from
those radiography services
managers who selected
new graduates for employment.
This raised even
more questions - what exactly are they looking for? I
currently lead a final year
Healthcare
Management
module within the diagnostic radiography and radiotherapy programmes at
Cardiff University which
aims to prepare new graduate radiographers for professional practice; however,
I began to reflect on whether I should be paying more
attention to helping students
understand
and
demonstrate the skills they
need in order to become
‘employable’.
To understand ‘employability’ from
the perspectives of key
stakeholders, I designed a
project that surveyed managers from various Local
Health Boards and explored the students’ own
perceptions of employability. As well as addressing
these stakeholders’ needs
and expectations,
Skills Development
Having identified the ‘Top
5’ attributes of employability that service managers
looked for in new graduates, opportunities were
offered for students to engage with skills training
sessions run by the Students’ Union Skills Development Service.
These sessions were:
Preparation for presentations- Building confidence
in presenting self
Team working- Understanding team roles and
responsibilities
Organisational skills and
time management- Prioritising, record keeping and
self-motivation
Problem solving- Strategies for decision making
Dealing with difficult people- Working effectively
with others, skills for negotiation
Sessions were interactive
and lasted for 2 hours. On
completion, students were
presented with a Certificate
of Professional Development, signed by the Vice
Chancellor and endorsed
by
Price
Waterhouse
Cooper (pwc), for inclusion
within their portfolio.
Outcomes
Participants were asked to
evaluate the sessions and
for the majority, the sessions were considered to
have been of value with
comments such as ‘all sessions had something that
you could take away with
you’ and ‘It helped me to
gain and improve upon
skills that an employer considers to be important’
However, one recurring recommendation for improvement was that the sessions
should be spread over the
three years of the degree
programmes rather than
concentrating on skills development in the final year
– ‘would be more beneficial
if offered earlier - before we
start applying for jobs’.
And so…
The skills development programme will now be offered
as part of the first and final
year Professional and Personal Development modules
for all Allied Health programmes within the School
of Healthcare Sciences at
Cardiff University. In year
one, students will concentrate on developing their
presentation skills along with
team working and dealing
with difficult people. They
will revisit skills development
in year 3 and undertake
training sessions for organisational skills and problem
solving.