Graduate Careers Australia
The Graduate Grapevine - Number 1, September 2005
Seven Years at the Top – an Interview at the University of Manchester (Part One)
In this first part of a wide-ranging interview Cindy Tilbrook (GCA’s Executive Director) meets Terry Dray, Deputy Director within the Careers and Employability Division at the University of Manchester. Terry and his team have won the ‘Best Career Service in the UK’ award for the last seven years.
Cindy: Terry, the University of Manchester is actually a quite young university, isn’t it?
Terry: Yes Cindy, in its current format. It was created in October 2004 through the amalgamation of UMIST (University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology) and the Victoria University of Manchester. Both institutions were research intensive bodies. The new university has approximately 35,000 students (not including part-timers) and 9000 staff. And of particular interest to your Australian readers, Professor Alan Gilbert, ex-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Melbourne, was appointed as the President of the new University of Manchester.
Cindy: That’s a fairly large university. Is it the only one in Manchester?
Terry: No, there are two other universities in Manchester. The area has a total pool of some 140,000 university students, making it one of the most attractive student/employer destinations in the UK.
Cindy: I’d love to hear about what makes a Career Service the ‘Best in the UK’ for seven years in a row. But firstly, tell me a bit about the structure and size of the service, so that my readers can compare it with an Australian Career Service.
Terry: Sure, Cindy. Our service actually operates from three main centres:
• Careers Metro (Campus North, the former UMIST) and Careers Central (former Victoria University of Manchester): both provide full guidance facilities.
• Careers Service Express: this is a new concept, and is located in the Student Union building. This facility provides an information and signposting service and is staffed only over the lunch period from 12.00 until 2.00, but is actually left open 24/7.
Cindy: 24/7, with no staff in attendance? Aren’t you concerned that the area may be mistreated and valuable equipment stolen?
Terry: I actually had similar misgivings when the service first opened. But to the credit of the students, there has been no damage to the centre and it has proved to be extremely popular. We do, however, remove the computers when staff are not present, just for safekeeping.
Cindy: So how many staff work in the Career Service across the three campuses?
Terry: The Career Service is extremely well-resourced. We have nearly 74 employees, including 17 Career Consultants, an Events and Marketing team of seven, eight people within the Career Resource Centre team, a dedicated IT/Web team of four, a Project and Operational Resources team of 12 and a senior management structure of four people. We also have about 15 people on contracts, who are undertaking specific projects which are funded by external bodies.
Cindy: Funded externally? What types of funding and work is involved?
Terry: The funding can come from either private/corporate or government sources, and the team works across a fairly wide diversity of programs, including areas such as small businesses, the professional sectors in the north-west of England, community engagement and sustainability mentoring.
Cindy: This is an extremely well-resourced Service by Australian standards. But I guess you are still facing some challenges over the next few years?
Terry: Our new President has introduced a new structure within the university, and has created four large faculties:
• Medical and Human Sciences
• Life Sciences
• Humanities
• Engineering and Physical Sciences.
The President has also introduced an exciting new stratgic plan, ‘Towards Manchester 2015’. This plan has nine key strategic goals, and includes:
• tripling the number of international students at the uni
• doubling the number of postgraduate students
• increasing the income earned from Applied Research collaborations.
Cindy: It sounds like some of these strategies will have quite an impact on the Career Service.
Terry: Yes, we see that as well. There is always a challenge in providing good assistance to the international cohort, and this challenge will only increase in future years. But we will also have to target our Career Service more towards postgraduate and research students if we are to meet our objectives.
Cindy: Terry, many thanks. I’ll look forward to continuing our discussion in our next newsletter.
Cindy Tilbrook, Executive Director GCA
Seven Years at the Top – an Interview at the University of Manchester will continue in the next issue of The Graduate Grapevine.
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