Information for Academics / Tutors
This page is designed to give you the key information you need to direct students to the relevant services to support their career development. We ask you to encourage students to engage with the careers services in order to be fully prepared for their professional life after university. Personal tutorials provide a unique opportunity to discuss a student's career plan, and for those students that have not actively engaged with the Career Zone, could be the first time that they have had a conversation about their career, or even thought about it. Please don't worry about having to know everything, what we'd like you to be able to do is understand where the student is currently with their career thinking and to signpost to our services in the clearest way possible.
Our Careers Timeline aims to simplify a student's career journey whilst at University by providing a guide of what to do and when.
- Undergraduate Year 1 Timeline
- Undergraduate Year 2 Timeline
- Undergraduate Final Year Timeline
- Post-graduate Taught Timeline
If a student is feeling overwhelmed by the fact that they have completed a significant proportion of their studies and are yet to engage with the career service, they might feel more comfortable using our Decide, Plan and Compete resources which acknowledge that a student's career journey is very personal and not always linear.
Create Your Future is a compulsory employability programme for most first and second year undergraduates, with multiple workshops (both face to face and online) for first years and a single session for second years. The programme is designed to get students thinking about their values and motivations, research potential careers, and how to start taking their first steps towards realising their employment or further study ambitions. Please encourage your students to attend the timetabled workshops and work on the programme's independent activities: academics will be contacted by the CYF team and their employability lead regarding the promotion of the programme, which will take place via lecture drop ins and CYF-supplied promotional slides and info.
For more support and advice on how you can offer more to your students, please read our FAQs page, explore the Career Zone webpages, and come and speak to us at the Career Zones, located in the Forum (Streatham) and Exchange (Penryn).
If you are concerned that a student needs to engage more with the Career Zone, please encourage them to get in touch with us as soon as possible and we can look at prioriting some intervention.
Please help to ensure that all of our students have thought about their career prior to graduating by signposting to the following activity/scheme according to the student career planning stage:
| Activity/Scheme/Resource | Decide | Plan | Compete | Already Secured |
| Handshake | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| My Career Zone Digital | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Create Your Future | Y | |||
| The Exeter Award | Y | Y | Y | |
| The Exeter Leaders Award | Y | Y | Y | |
| Careers Guidance Appointments | Y | |||
| Careers Advice Appointments | Y | Y | ||
| Careers Fairs | Y | Y | Y | |
| Career Research | Y | Y | Y | |
| Grand Challenges | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Green Consultants | Y | Y | ||
| Aspiring Educators | Y | Y | ||
| Skills Events | Y | Y | Y | Y |
| Professional Pathways | Y | Y | ||
| Career Mentor Scheme | Y | Y | ||
| Ask An Alum | Y | Y | ||
| Access to Internships (A2I) | Y | Y | ||
| Employer and Alumni Events | Y | Y | ||
| Internships | Y | Y | ||
| Placement and Study Abroad | Y | Y | Y | |
| Enterprise and Student Startups | Y | Y | Y |
As part of the annual enrolment process each student is asked to complete the Career Registration survey. During this survey students are asked to self-select their career planning stage based on 10 statements; these can then be grouped by ‘ Decide’, ‘ Plan’, ‘ Compete’ and ‘Secured’.
| Statement | Stage |
| I’m not ready to start thinking about my career yet |
Decide |
| I have no career ideas yet but want to start thinking | Decide |
| I have some ideas about my career and I am ready to start planning |
Decide |
| I have a career in mind and intend to gain relevant work experience | Plan |
| I know what I want to do but I’m not sure how to get there | Plan |
| I want to spend a year gaining experience |
Plan |
| I am ready to apply for graduate level/professional opportunities | Compete |
| I am ready to apply for further study | Compete |
| I have been applying for opportunities and so far I have not been successful |
Compete |
| I have already secured a graduate job, postgraduate study/research or business start-up opportunity |
Secured |
The Careers Registration survey also asks 7 additional questions ranging from their level of work experience, to their plans after graduating.
For PPBI's internal analysis of the latest Careers Registration results, please click here.
In order to support disciplines and faculties with relevant lists of employability skills and attributes we are happy to advise but would also like to point staff towards the following industry recognised skills and attributes.
- https://www.qaa.ac.uk/the-quality-code/subject-benchmark-statements - QAA Website, contains lists of skills and attributes associated with individual disciplines.
- https://www.prospects.ac.uk/careers-advice/what-can-i-do-with-my-degree - Prospects Website
- University of Exeter MI Hub - where information provided by graduate outcomes and the careers registation survey can support the development of relevant skills and attributes.