MERITS – AGCAS Black and Minority Ethnic Employment Project
www.blackandasiangrad.ac.uk
Final Report
February 2002
Introduction
The University of Manchester and UMIST Careers Service is pleased to submit this report. We have
enjoyed managing our project and in the process have learned a great deal about project management,
web design and construction and issues concerned with Black and Asian students and graduates and
their employability.
Aim
The development of a premier website aimed at addressing the fact that UK Black and Asian graduates
are:
Twice as likely to be unemployed
Half as likely to be offered a job in their final year
Perform less well at all stages of the recruitment process than their white counterparts
Objectives/outcomes
1.
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2.
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3.
To create a website a website to improve the employability of UK Black and Asian students
and graduates
Development of a portal that will act as a national focus to help higher education careers
services better address issues related to the employability of Black and Asian students and
graduates
Establishment of online resources in application skills, interview and networking skills and
assessment centre skills to help students and graduates succeed in their job search
Development of online provision help students and graduates search details of placements and
job opportunities
Development of 50 profiles of Black and Asian graduates who have successfully broken into a
wide range of occupations
Development of a networking forum for geographically dispersed Black and Asian graduates
To provide an online resource to help employers address equality and diversity and to promote
their organisations and recruit UK Black and Asian students and graduates
Development of a national website to help employers address the recruitment of UK Black
and Asian students into their organisations
Establishment of a “Recruiters online” facility enabling graduate recruiters to advertise
placements and job vacancies
Establishment of an online directory of employers who are interested in recruiting and
promoting themselves to UK Black and Asian students and graduates. This will include the
development of a series of profiles of these employers
Promotion and development of equality and diversity with graduate recruiters
To develop a national networking facility for those involved with initiatives that aim to
improve the employability of UK Black and Asian students and graduates
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Promotion of online networking and the sharing of good practice between organisations and
agencies involved in initiatives relating to improving the employability of Black and Asian
students and graduates
To develop a sustainable product
Development of a clearly defined continuation strategy to sustain and further develop the
website in 2002 and beyond by attracting employer sponsorship
Context
Diversity, employability and the use of information technology are high on education and business
agendas. This project combines the three core issues.
This website is unique. It is this fact that motivated us to create the first such site to enable Black and
Asian students and graduates to better manage their careers and to enable recruiters to better
communicate with these students and graduates.
Our existing experience of website development and our commitment to the project allowed us to feel
relatively confident that we could deliver the product on time.
Learning experiences
The importance of effective team working has been emphasised, as has the importance of effective
project management during this project.
It is important to obtain the active support of key stakeholder and political groups e.g. The Commission
For Racial Equality. Gurbux Singh, Chair of the CRE has said: “It is unacceptable that ethnic minority
students find it harder to find work after graduation than their white counterparts. It is for this reason
that we welcome the introduction of this exciting new website which will provide a platform foe job
searches and the promotion of best practice.”
Added Value
The willingness of recruiters to share experiences and practices with each other via the recruiter’s case
studies part of the site is most encouraging
The potential of the site to act as an effective notice board for events and programmes aimed at Black
and Asian students and graduates are significant. Requests to advertise events from other careers
services have been welcomed and acted upon.
The site offers careers services the opportunity to share good practice
Wider impact and dissemination
The dissemination and publicity strategy for the site includes:
 Working in partnership with the Guardian as the media sponsor for the site
 Articles in AGR Graduate Recruiter, Prospects Today etc.
 Promoting the site at the AGR Diversity Conference in December 2001 and at the AGR
Conference 2002
 Sending messages via AGCAS Link to all AGCAS services
 Attending AGCAS conferences and regional training events when appropriate
 Sending publicity leaflets to al HE careers services and a large range of employers
 To publicise the site to student societies across the UK
 To encourage other key sites to feature hot links to our site
What next?
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To sustain and develop the site with the aid of stakeholder input and employer sponsorship
and subscriptions
To encourage higher education careers services to use the site for professional practice
purposes and to promote it to students and graduates
To further develop the notice board/signposting function of the site
To actively encourage employers to subscribe to the site
To systematically target the broadest range of industry/occupation sectors with publicity
information
Terry Dray
Senior Manager
February 2002