Empowering bioscience students to develop employability skills through

volunteering – narrative voices of partnership

Dr Sheila Cunningham

Ms. Orkide Tunch

Dr Deeba Gallacher

Annual HEA Conference 3-4 July 2013

• Desire for students to have greater opportunities to develop employability skills. • Acknowledgment of limited placement opportunities and therefore alternatives needed.• To help student to have some real life experience within the health related area, developing skills ‘in practice’.

Drivers

Exploratory research questions

• what the term ‘employability’ means for biomedical students. • the benefits of undertaking volunteering activities.

Volunteering – as what?

Partnership model

•Beyond getting a job but how you get a job.•What you have to offer to employers.•Beyond academic (what you can do and how can do it).•Meeting employers expectations (language, appearance, appropriate behaviour).•Having the evidence for this.

What does employability mean?

•Values function - to express or act on important values, such as humanitarianism and helping the less fortunate.•Enhancement function - seeking to grow and develop psychologically through involvement in volunteering.•Career function - the goal of gaining career-related experience through volunteering.•Social function - allows the person to strengthen one’s social relationships.•Protective function - uses volunteering to reduce negative feelings, such as guilt, or to address personal problems. •Understanding function - seeking to learn more about the world and/or exercise skills that are often unused.

•Clary and Synder (1999), Hustinx et al (2010)

Motivations for volunteering (extra curricular)

Marrow.....

•a chance to develop existing skills or to gain new ones •the experience of a working environment •the opportunity to learn more about yourself and your capabilities, and gain more self-confidence •the chance to develop personal networks and contacts • the opportunity to enhance your employability skills •an insight into your chosen career area • intrinsic satisfaction of contributing to something worthwhile •material for your CV and future job applications – articulating concrete examples for employers

Students view: Benefits of volunteering

Recognising achievements

Overcoming obstacles

Personal gains and growth

Feeling of worth

Persuading and motivating others

Benefits of volunteering

‘Volunteering is an innovative, self-fulfilling and simple way of improving and developing skills necessary for a professional career as well as day to day life. The knowledge gained as a volunteer is beyond that of a classroom. Skills such as communication, presentation and teamwork are some of the main requirements I have come across throughout my years as a volunteer’ (Student TJ)

‘Marrow has allowed us to talk to people who we wouldn’t normally talk to. Our course is quite segmented and everyone has their own friendship groups and they do their own things, we don’t do things together. Marrow is one place where we have been able to come together which has worked out well.’ (student CA)

‘…it is a self-satisfying experience that anyone would enjoy! (Student J)

Partnership model

•Students accept responsibility for developing employability skills but do not know how to evidence these.•Students engage with volunteering activities for a variety of reasons.•One project (Marrow) was embraced as utilizing their knowledge, skills and imagined futures.

Conclusions so far