About me
Job title: Employability & Enterprise Learning Development Consultant
Degree: PhD Medieval History (University of Birmingham – I did my undergraduate and maters’ degrees here too!)
Having done my undergraduate degree in Medieval & Modern History at Birmingham I spent some time away working in financial services. I returned to Birmingham to do a Masters degree and PhD, and have worked at the University since then.
Briefly describe your current role
My role focuses on supporting academics to integrate employability and enterprise into their teaching, modules, programmes. This sometimes means working with an academic to develop employability-focused activities for their modules which they deliver, and at other times means that I do ‘guest sessions’ in modules on employability-related topics. In recent years I’ve spent a lot of time developing digital education courses for students to complete within their degrees.
One of the things that I love about my job is how varied it is: I get to work within disciplines in all five of our colleges, and means that I’m able to meet very diverse groups of students who have really varied career interests.
What is the biggest mistake you have made since graduating and what did you learn from it?
It can be tempting to focus on the here and now, and on doing a great job of delivering the activities that need to be done right now. This is something that I’ve often done in my career, and isn’t a mistake as such because it is important to do the best job you can at whatever you’re working on at the moment! But I’ve learned that its also very important to take a balanced approach – that is, to make time to take a step back and reflect on what you might like your future professional life to look like. This helps you to both identify and take advantage of opportunities that will support your personal and professional development.
What is the best piece of advice you have been given?
Always treat (or behave towards) others at work – and in life generally – the way that you would like them to treat you.
What have you learned since graduating that could be helpful to other graduates?
The importance of curiosity. By ‘curiosity’ I mean being interested and engaged in, and curious about, whatever you’re working on. This can really help you to spot opportunities for the future, make links between superficially disconnected things, and take a well-informed approach to what you do. This has been very important recently in relation to Generative AI, where being curious about what Generative AI might mean for the labour market, for recruitment, and for teaching and learning in Higher Education, has helped me to think about how I might most effectively support academics to integrate employability into their teaching in the future.
Can you recommend us something
Thinking about Generative AI, its important to take a critical and ethical approach to your use of Generative AI, and to be aware of both the advantages limitations (including biases) of Generative AI tools.
I’d recommend having a look at the most recent World Economic Forum [WEF] Future of Jobs report, and the top 10 skills that the WEF predicts will be on the rise in the future. Many of these skills – for example analytical thinking, curiosity, and systems thinking (i.e. being able to make connections between different areas of knowledge) – will be essential for us if we’re going to make skilled and ethical use of Generative AI.
Brilliant. Curiosity is an important tool. It’s easy to judge. It takes more effort to be curious, but pays off at the end. Mistakes don’t have to go wasted – they are are learning opportunities. All the best.