Developing the UCD Graduate of 2015:Reflections
from a Careers and Employment Perspective
Dr David Foster
Director
UCD Career Development Centre
Career Development Centre
An tIonad Forbartha
Gairmeacha UCD
A situation of interacting variables
• Mass education
• Employers who SELECT rather than RECRUIT
• “SKILLANGUAGE”
• Generation Y
Employers Select students with...
Ireland
United Kingdom
Australia
Commercial Awareness
Commercial awareness
Commercial awareness
Self-reliance skills e.g.
independent
Self-reliance
Self-reliance
People skills e.g. Team
work and leadership
People skills
People skills
Employability skills e.g.
problem solving
Employability skills
Employability Skills
Specialist skills e.g.
Subject expertise
Specialist skills
Specialist skills
(gradireland.com)
e.g. experience
(Universities UK/CBI,
2009)
(ATLC/NAGCAS, 2009)
Employers SELECT students who...
• Have a proven track record in:
Making a difference
Being engaged and enthusiastic
Critical thinking and problem solving
Entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship
Finishing what they start
Driving their own educational, career and
personal development
“SKILLANGUAGE”
• Graduate attributes
• Key skills
• Employability Skills
• Life skills
• Career Management Skills
• World Skills
• Lifelong learning
• Competencies
Student Expectations- Generation Y
“The most educated, opinionated, outspoken and self-confident generation in
history- digital natives who have never experienced life without a mobile
phone or had to get off the sofa to change the channel” (Dr Paul Redmond,
Director of Careers, University of Liverpool)
Characteristics of Generation Y:
Connected 24/7
Self-confident
Optimistic
Independent
Bored by routine
Entrepreneurial
Goal orientated
Digital natives
Generation Y wants:
Motivational leadership
Coaching/mentoring, not management
Learning and development
Facilitated/experiential learning
Face-to-face rather than e-learning!
Bringing it all together...
Lee Harvey, 2006