1.
Careers services don’t need to be the best, so they don’t invest heavily in technology to provide you with the best tools. Students choose universities based on their courses, campuses and opportunity for experiences. I’ve never heard anyone say “I chose Leicester over Leeds because their careers service is better”. You will pay £27,000+ for a university education regardless of whether your careers advisor supports you.
2.
At the current level of staffing, careers advisors don’t have the capacity to invest time into their students. For example, Cambridge University has ~30 minutes available per term for each final year student.* That’s not enough time to understand your career goals, review CVs and applications, practise interviews, help you choose between offers and teach you to negotiate salary.
3.
Careers services don’t connect you with advisors who have first-hand experience of the roles and industries you’re interested in. Careers advisors are often very experienced in their advisory role, and are equipped to ask smart questions. However, many of the students I spoke to want advice from people who are still operating in businesses, as this gives advisors an edge with current trends and commercial topics.
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Cambridge employs the equivalent of 12 full-time advisors (I assume anyone part time works 75%) In a Cambridge term students are there for 10 weeks, 50 working days, or 400 working hours.
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Multiplying by the number of advisors, this leads to 4,800 hours available for 1–1 support. If you reduce that by 20% to consider non-contact hours (e.g. lunch, admin, preparing presentations), there are 3,840 hours, or 230,400 minutes.
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Cambridge has 21,000 students (undergraduate and postgraduate) of which ~7,000 are in their final year. This means there are ~10 minutes available for every student per term or ~30 minutes for every final year student.
Last reply 1 day ago
Government Social Research - Research Officer Scheme 2024Last reply 1 week ago
So I made the worst decision of my life. I chose Biochemistry as my degree.Last reply 1 week ago
Issues with jobs because I cannot driveLast reply 1 day ago
Government Social Research - Research Officer Scheme 2024Last reply 1 week ago
So I made the worst decision of my life. I chose Biochemistry as my degree.Last reply 1 week ago
Issues with jobs because I cannot drive