Destinations® - Teaching materials
AS2 Job study, occupational report,
labour market essay
The job study, occupational report or labour market essay is a feature of many careers
education courses. Here we include a selection of ideas to help you create an assignment.
These ideas are not exhaustive and you should consider how far any suggestions fit into
your own course.
Basic assignment instructions
Using one of the essay/job study/report titles provided, write a 1000 word/ 2000 word study.
Your report must include:
1. Reference to at least three sources of information relevant to the scope of your study
2. An evaluation of your three main sources, giving their strengths and weaknesses as
sources for your report
3. A full bibliography using the [Harvard] reference system
Provide your students with as many or as few titles as you wish from the list below. You
may want to only give them one title, or you may want to provide two or three to allow
them some choice and control over their work. We have included explanatory notes for each
title which you may wish to include, adapt or omit.
Title 1
Create a report which outlines the main duties and responsibilities of an occupation. Include
a consideration of the entry requirements, training needs and promotional prospects.
Compare the information you present with your own interests, abilities and past experiences
and explain whether you might be interested in this occupational area and why. (You may
conclude that you do not want to enter this area; if so then explore in your study the reasons
for this).
Note: this type of report may appeal to you if you want to get to know a job in detail,
perhaps because you are considering it as a future career.
Example report: A study of the entry requirements, training needs and promotional
prospects of primary school teaching, comparing this information with the writer’s interests,
abilities and past experiences, and explaining why the writer is (not) interested in this
occupational area.
Title 2
Examine the work conditions and culture of an occupational area (eg. accountancy, banking,
teaching, etc). Explore one of the following two options:
 To what extent is there variation in job roles within this occupational area?
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Destinations® - Teaching materials
 To what extent is there variation in work cultures between employers in this
occupational area?
Note: This report might appeal to anyone with an interest in a broad occupational area, and
will help you to get an in-depth understanding of available roles or employers. This type of
report might make use of interviews of employees, or company literature to examine how the
company image and culture relate to the work it undertakes.
Example report: An examination of the work conditions and culture of law, including a
comparison of three different areas of law within a corporate firm.
Example report: An examination of the work conditions and culture of advertising,
examining the variation in work cultures between three different employers.
Title 3
Give an account of the evolution of an occupation, exploring how it has changed in the past.
(You may set your own timescales according to your choice of job or occupation.) Examine
how experts think the occupational area will evolve in the next few years. Do you agree with
their predictions?
Note: This approach may help you to think about what how you might be working in a few
years’ time if you enter this occupational area, and to know what expectations employers
have for the near future. Some employers may be actively seeking employees in line with
future trends.
Example report: An account of the evolution of newspaper journalism in the last ten years
and an examination of how experts think the area will evolve in the next ten years.
Title 4
Investigate an occupational area in depth. Why does the occupation exist? Structure your
report using a PEST analysis: looking at the Political, Economic, Social and Technological
reasons for the existence of this occupation.
If you are not familiar with the acronym PEST, here are two websites which can help you:
http://www.netmba.com/strategy/pest/
http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/theory/theory.php?tID=166
Note: A job study in this area will be useful for anyone who wants to deepen their knowledge
of an occupation beyond basic information on roles, responsibilities and recruitment. If you
decide to enter the occupational area of your study, you may find that this knowledge helps
you to understand the recruitment process and will also allow you to speak knowledgeably in
an interview about the occupation and your interest in it.
Example report: An in-depth investigation into the role of NHS manager, using a PEST
analysis to examine the reasons why this occupation exists.
Frequently Asked Questions for students
These may be used as FAQs, or added as notes to your assignment instructions. The
instructions given here are ideas only and will need to be tailored to your situation. For
example, you may wish to limit the types of sources that students use, or to prescribe the
format of the assignment.
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Destinations® - Teaching materials
1. What counts as a ‘source’?
A wide variety of materials can count as one of your sources. This material need not always
be textual – it could also be an interview, your personal account of work experience or work
shadowing, or an analysis of photos or publicity material. Here are some examples of sources:
 A company website
 An interview with an employee or employer
 An advert for a graduate training programme
 Visual marketing material (eg. photos, logos)
 Company publications (eg. annual report)
 A visit to a company stand at a careers fair
 A newspaper article
 An article on a careers website (eg. Prospects job profiles)
 Your own reflections on work experience or work shadowing
Many more materials can count as a source – this is not an exhaustive list. If you are in any
doubt, then justify your choice in your study. As long as you justify your choice, evaluate its
use in the context of your report, and it is relevant to the approach you take, then it is valid.
2. What do you mean by ‘evaluating your sources’?
All sources – whether they are adverts, personal experiences or newspaper articles – have
been written for an audience, with an aim in mind. When we ask you to evaluate a source,
we want you to think about the way in which this information is presented, and what the
advantages and drawbacks are. Here are two examples:
An interview with a friend about a job they are doing will have advantages because you may
get information that would not be available through official sources. You might get personal
insights and more detail than normal. However, the limitation to this source is that your
friend can only tell you their own experience – and that experience may be different from
someone else’s. You may need to check the facts they give to you against official sources, or
consider whether they have a limited viewpoint.
Conversely, a company website may be an excellent source of public information. It should
give you not only a full picture of the company’s activities, but may also present visual
images and detailed information about finances, future plans and ideals. However, the
limitation of such a site is that it projects the public image the company wishes to have – this
may not be quite the same as the reality. A job described as ‘fun’ or ‘intellectually
challenging’ on a company website may, in reality, not be equally fun or challenging for all
its employees.
3. How do I reference my sources properly?
You should use the [insert name here, eg. Harvard] system to reference the sources you use
in your job study. If the conventions given do not cover the material you are using, then you
should give sufficient detail to enable the reader to know where your material came from.
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Destinations® - Teaching materials
Key categories to include are author, publisher, URL and date accessed for websites, and
author/interviewee and date for newspapers and interviews.
[insert reference here to conventions used by your students. Perhaps the most common
referencing system is the Harvard system, which is explained clearly on the Anglia Ruskin
University Website: http://libweb.anglia.ac.uk/referencing/harvard.htm.]
4. What format should my study be in?
You may either write your job study in essay style, or as a report with subheadings and
sections. The most important thing is to have consistent layout throughout. [You may wish to
be more prescriptive here, using your own conventions or conventions related to the
students’ degree course.]
Reading list
You will need to compile your own reading list for students, based on texts available at
your institution. We make some suggestions here:
Websites
Destinations® Careers and Employers topic is a good starting point for this assignment.
Students may also find useful the subject specific material on Destinations® (available from
December 2007).
Prospects http://www.prospects.ac.uk
Doctor Job http://doctorjob.com
Students might also be encouraged to look at the websites of specific employers and/or
websites linked to a profession or occupational area: eg. professional bodies, chartered
institutes, etc. Prospects has links to some of these via the occupational profiles.
Books
Bradley, H., Erickson, M., Stephenson, C., Williams, S. (2000). Myths at work. Cambridge:
Polity Press. Particularly useful for recent trends in workplace culture, this book includes
chapters on globalization, non-standard employment, skills, technology and science, and
women in the workplace.
Arnold, J. Cooper, C.L., Robertson, I.T. (1998). Work psychology: understanding human
behaviour in the workplace. Third edition. London: Financial Times Management.
Newspapers
The broadsheet newspapers all print articles which may be relevant to this type of study. Key
places for students to look at include the following:
The Financial Times http://www.ft.com
Guardian –‘Work’, ‘Business’ and ‘Graduate’ http://www.guardian.co.uk
Independent – ‘Business’ and ‘Graduate Options’ http://www.independent.co.uk
The Telegraph – ‘Money and Jobs’ and ‘Business’ http://www.telegraph.co.uk
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Destinations® - Teaching materials
The Times – ‘Business’ and ‘Career and Jobs’ http://www.timesonline.co.uk
Additional ideas for teachers
 If you have good alumni links you might consider asking if your alumni would be willing
to be interviewed by students completing this assignment. Details of alumni could be
posted on a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) with instructions about how many
students the individual is willing to be contacted by (eg. maximum two interviews per
year). Students might be encouraged to interview by phone, email or messenger as
well as in person. You may need to create a system to ensure that the alumnus is not
contacted by too many students!
 If you want to put a strong networking emphasis on this assignment then you might
make it essential for students to include an interview they conduct as one of their
three sources.
 Students thinking of doing further study might want to look into research or academic
work as an occupational area; alternatively you might make explicit in your
instructions that further study can be investigated for any of the example questions.
 This assignment pairs well with the ‘researching your career’ exercise included in the
assignments in staff resources, which offers a step-by-step guide to evaluation of
sources. If students undertake the research exercise before this assignment they
should be confident in thinking about evaluating their sources and will have good
awareness of a range of sources available to them.
 This assignment, properly completed, uses a range of research skills which are similar
to those used in degree courses. If you have a cohort from a specific degree course,
you might consider how to tailor this assignment to integrate with the practices of the
degree programme eg. using the same referencing system, layout, and linking to any
degree course materials where appropriate. For example, Sociology students might
link to books on the sociology of work, Business Studies students to business
textbooks, or Modern Languages students might be permitted to include sources in
another language or to compare occupations in two countries.
©University of Reading 2016
Destinations® - Teaching materials
Marking criteria
We propose here one set of criteria for marking this assignment. When adapting them you
need to take into account practices in your own university and the emphasis you want to
place upon different aspects of the exercise. The criteria below are weighted equally, thus
giving 50% of the marks to use of information and argument, 25% to evaluation of sources, and
25% to presentation, referencing and layout. You may wish to add criteria which refer more
specifically to the titles you use with students.
Student
Excellent selection and
synthesis of relevant
occupational
information
Persuasive,interesting
response, makes use of
relevant critical
analysis or
problematisation of
concepts
Perceptive and
balanced evaluation of
sources used
Consistent referencing
and layout, excellent
spelling and grammar
Programme
1st
2.1
2.2
3
<H
F
7-10
6-6.9
5-5.9
4-4.9
3.53.9
0-3.4
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Comments
Mark
©University of Reading 2016
Marked by
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Limited or poor
information, or
irrelevant selection of
information

Unconvincing
response, limited
critical analysis or
uncritical
presentation of
information
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Limited or no
evaluation of sources,
or evaluation that
fails to account for
origin of information
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No or inconsistent
referencing, poor
layout, poor grammar
and spelling