Careers & Employability welcomes employers back to campus

Posted on: 15 December 2022 by Jack Harte in Connections in action

Employers are back on campus! In autumn 2022 we saw the return of a range of employability events at the University of Liverpool.

From Welcome Week activities and alumni panels, through to the return of our Careers Fair, and a number of employer-led curricular initiatives, we launched 2022-23 with a new optimism in mind. We designed a new student-first vision to support employers in engaging with students and graduates to attract talent from the University of Liverpool. Our new approach promised “effective and impactful solutions to attract talent”, through a new core employability experience and via engagements in proximity to the curriculum. We launched our autumn version of ‘Attracting Talent in 2022-23’ in July 2022, and this can still be viewed here.

It was soon apparent that our own enthusiasm was shared by our employer partners who were also keen to get back to campus almost as much as we wanted them back!

Highlights of semester one:

September’s Science & Engineering Placements Bootcamp where we welcomed approximately 100 placement eligible 2nd year students - and representatives of 6 placement providers.

Three autumn touchpoints:

  • the Liverpool Welcome and Part-Time Jobs Fair, designed to instil a sense of belonging and wellbeing amongst new & returning students;
  • our Employability Day, at which students heard from panels of alumni speakers who visited to provide reassurance, encouragement and confidence;
  • and our first Autumn Careers Fair since 2019, which over 70 employers visited in order to showcase their internships, placements and graduate opportunities to students.

Alongside these central touchpoint events, we were also pleased to welcome employers back to lecture theatres, seminar rooms, and workshops, as part of our evolved approach to students’ employer-connected education.

 


Whilst planning for 2022-23, we were aware that many of our current students were yet to encounter employer-involved events in non virtual formats and that our new students had no familiarity with our activity & event formats at all – would students flock to our Employability Day alumni panels without having attended similar before?

“We’ve scaled back the number of events we host but blown these up to maximise student awareness and engagement, so they are now unmissable experiences on campus”

 

 

 

From feedback received, it’s clear that our employers have been really pleased with the activities & events via which they’ve opted to engage with our students.

Here are just a few of the comments we received:

  • “Masses of students attended the event, all with different interests and backgrounds – all of them engaged in what they were looking for & what the company could offer them” (Kronospan, Careers Fair)
  • “It was brilliant, as there were a range of different profiles and keen students with a lot of questions – it exceeded our expectations!” (First Derivative, Careers Fair networking)
  • “The team were great and the event was well organised” (The Brain Charity, Careers Fair panels)

 

Though we were pleased to run successful events in hybrid format during recent years, we’ve been really pleased to open our campus back up to employer-representatives.

Our employer partners shared our enthusiasm for being back on campus:

  • “Face-to-face is the best way to gauge how students think and I believe students really manage to get a good insight into our firm & others in this way.” (Mazars, Careers Fair)
  • “In person events are excellent for giving 1:1 attention and answering the questions of interested students. It helps to raise the profile of our business and make connections.” (INOVYN, Career Fair)
  • “After 2 years of Covid-19, we are happy to be back on campus and face to face.” (The Tutor Trust, Careers Fair)

It’s been great to welcome familiar faces and new employer contacts onto campus during the autumn term and we’ve been so pleased by how well-received our on-campus activities & events have been. We look forward to continuing to host a range of employability employer-connected experiences on campus in semester two.

We’re keen to discuss your attraction and recruitment needs with you and to explore how we can connect you with our talented and ambitious students – whether you’re looking to cast a wide net and engage with students from all year-groups and all degree-disciplines, or are looking to engage in a targeted initiative with a specific group of students via the curriculum, please get in touch with us via employerconnections@liverpool.ac.uk.