Union Priority
Develop a centralised approach to communicating transferable skills developed through engagement with Students’ Union volunteering, leadership, and skill-boosting opportunities.
The Union offers students a wide range of development opportunities that can boost their employability and help contribute towards their future career goals. These opportunities are managed across individual teams, but each voluntary scheme or leadership position open to students through their Students’ Union offers a range of similar transferable skills. We want to work across Zones to develop a shared approach to equip student volunteers, leaders, and part-time staff to identify and communicate the skills they have developed through these opportunities to future employers.
As a result, we will be more direct with students about the employability benefits of their involvement with the Students’ Union, and use this approach to attract more students to engage in development opportunities across the Union. We also aim to utilise our Destination Success programme to direct workshop attendees to future leadership opportunities, and to offer further skills development for existing student leaders and volunteers.
Measure: Increase in Pulse score on ‘the SU is making me more employable’ currently at 28%.
University Priority
Seek to re-establish the strong association with the university and placement opportunities in industry.
In an increasingly challenging employment environment for graduates, the pressure is growing on universities to find ways to develop and prepare students for life after university. The University’s placement provision means that students can spend their third year of study in industry. However, uptake of placement years has fallen recently, with only 26% of students going out into the workplace for a year. The Students’ Union believes that the University should commit to increasing the proportion of students undertaking an industrial placement as part of their degree.
To achieve this, the University should work with departments and employers to expand the number and range of placement opportunities available, ensure that students receive clear information and support when applying for placements, and identify and address barriers that prevent students from taking them up. Progress towards this target should be monitored annually and reported publicly, so that students can see how the University is performing. This emphasise what has previously been one of Surrey’s unique selling points, and would give Surrey students a powerful edge going into the graduate marketplace.
Measure: Graduate outcomes statistics improvement currently 81% moving to 85%.
Partnership Priority
Improve collaborative communication of employability-boosting opportunities.
Employability opportunities are high on the list of current priorities for students. We also know that there is a graduate outcomes gap between certain demographics of students. The Union's Destination Success training scheme, funded by the University's Access and Participation fund, is an example of us working in partnership to help students achieve their goals on graduation, and aims to support the reduction of that graduate gap, by reaching students from the target demographics to become Student Trainers and to attend skills sessions.
We want to expand our partnership with the University and continue to grow the Destination Success scheme, working together on a strategic approach to promoting the scheme to students from specific target groups, and getting University colleagues more involved in the project and its long-term development.
Measure: Improvement in Pulse measure for ‘my involvement in SU activities are preparing me for my future career’ - current score 36%.