GCCA | Graduate Careers Council of Australia

Graduate Careers Australia

Graduate Grapevine - Number 6, December 2006

Challenging ‘Graduate Attributes’ Awareness

“Graduate…what?” This is a common response from students when asked whether they are aware of the University of Wollongong’s ‘Graduate Attributes’. One of the important challenges currently facing universities is how to get students to engage with ‘Graduate Attributes’ and to appreciate the relevance to their future employability.

One way in which the Careers Service at the University of Wollongong is endeavouring to address this matter is through the development of a student competition known as the Graduate Attributes Challenge (GAC).

GAC is designed to enable students to discover the connection and interdependence between the UOW ‘Graduate Attributes’ and their employability skills, through direct communication with employers and by researching their own skills/attribute development within their field of study.

Students are divided into faculty teams and are required to interview three employers who are identified as potential employers of graduates from their faculty/discipline to gain information about the employability skills sought by these employers. The teams then explore how the employers’ expectations align with the university’s ‘Graduate Attributes’, specific knowledge and skills that they develop throughout their studies and the Department of Education, Science and Training’s Employability Skills Framework, developed in conjunction with the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Business Council of Australia.

The ‘challenge’ is that each team will compete against other faculty teams to demonstrate the outputs of their research. There are three categories of awards – Best Written Report, Best Presentation and Best Poster Display.

The 2006 GAC saw the largest number of participating students in the three-year history of the Challenge. Over 60 students (making up 11 faculty teams) took part, and impressed the judges with their findings and perspectives on ‘Graduate Attributes’. In support of university and workplace links, several employers that were interviewed by the student groups also attended the presentations and award ceremony.

The award for Best Written Report was awarded to the team from the Law faculty that examined not only employers’ attribute expectations, but also student exposure to attribute development throughout the Law curriculum. The Human Resources team won the Best Presentation award for their unique perspective on development of the ‘Graduate Attributes’ throughout their participation in the GAC. The Best Poster Display award was taken out by one of the Informatics faculty teams that demonstrated their findings that in their particular field, technical skills are still the most highly regarded attribute by potential employers.

Generally the feedback from students who participated in this year’s GAC was very positive. It is hoped that with continued staff, institution and student support the GAC will continue to grow and possibly inspire other ‘Graduate Attribute’ awareness-raising strategies in the future. The team findings will also be used to provide a student perspective to university-wide strategic planning regarding the embedding of ‘Graduate Attributes’ in the curriculum.

A sense of the overall success of the program was encapsulated in one of this year’s student’s comments.

“Considering I hadn’t heard of the “Graduate Attributes” I certainly developed a better understanding of them. I think what the program did successfully was externalise the knowledge and skills that we had been developing over the duration of our course. In that sense the program was a resounding success.”

Linda Corrin, ‘Graduate Attributes’ Project Officer University of Wollongong – [email protected] .