Help. A Unitec Career Centre perspective
Yolanda van den Bemd writes about the nature of career help provided at Unitec
Institute of Technology in Auckland.
At Unitec we offer our services to members of the public, students and graduates.
Members of the public mostly hear about us through word of mouth and are able to receive
career and course advice. This advice is client centred, so there is no expectation that the person
will want to do a Unitec course as a result of their session(s) with us. We find that this service has
a positive effect for those who use it – we often get referrals from different members of the same
family, parents and young people and their friends coming for career advice.
Unitec Students are able to receive career, course and employment advice through one to one
appointments, small group workshops and larger sessions in their classes, organised through the
lecturers.
This service continues on for Unitec graduates past their time at Unitec, for as long as it takes
them to find their feet in the world of work. Often it is not until a student is near the end of their
time here that they realise they need to learn about job search tools and techniques.
The types of career discussions we have with people include: those who have little idea of what
they want to do, those who are part way through a course and find that it doesn’t suit them,
those who have worked in jobs they don’t like and want a change, those who have finished study
and need help with career direction, those who know what they want to do but need assistance
with how to make it a reality. We may use card sorts, online tools, questionnaires and lots of
questions to work with the person in the process of helping them clarify what they want and the
next steps to take in their process.
Employment advice includes one to one sessions and workshops/talks on the essential topics of
CV and cover letter writing, job search methods, interview preparation and other topics such as
social media, careers for a sustainable world, personality type, understanding NZ work culture,
professional networking and identifying skills and strengths.
We run events in conjunction with teaching departments such as Speed Networking, where
employers and students have 5 minutes to chat and then move on to the next person. This is a
great way to help students develop confidence and make those vital first contacts.
We have organised Volunteering Expos, with up to 20 organisations attending who are in need of
volunteers. They have a stall promoting what they do and what volunteering with them would
involve. Many students see the benefit in this as a first step in developing skills, making a
contribution to the community and putting some of their learning into practice.
Employers are able to put advertisements on our website with all manner of work - paid, unpaid,
part time, full time, internships, projects, student and graduate jobs. Students access this through
registering on the site and simply receive job notifications in the categories they have selected.
We encourage students to contact us in the Career Centre before applying for jobs, to check that
their CV and letter are well written and to help them with alternative job search strategies such as
approaching employers directly.
We have many examples of students who had only ever tried to find work through internet
advertisements and were not finding jobs. After being given some coaching on how to approach
Career Development Association of New Zealand www.cdanz.org.nz
The Ezine, Autumn 2014, Volume 18, issue 1
employers proactively, they have managed to find relevant work, often with an organisation they
never thought they could get into.
Our profile within Unitec has steadily grown over the last few years, especially most recently with
social media and more ways available to get information out to people.
Our goal is to reach all the students who need us in more efficient ways so that they gain the
benefits of learning the tools they need to make their way in the world of work and be able use
these throughout their lives.
Why we do this work.
We gain immense satisfaction from this work and are all passionate about what we do. We see
the results of our work in students who come back to see us who are more confident, finding
jobs, finding the areas they really want to work in and referring others to us. We know that almost
all students need some aspect of our services at some stage of their time here at Unitec, but
many don’t realise this at first. This is slowly changing as people learn what career and
employment advice actually is and how useful it is for their progress throughout their lives.
Yolanda Van den Bemd – CDANZ Professional Member, Career Practitioner at Unitec Institute of
Technology
Follow at nz.linkedin.com/pub/yolanda-van-den-bemd/24/9b8/481
Career Development Association of New Zealand www.cdanz.org.nz
The Ezine, Autumn 2014, Volume 18, issue 1