Offer skills sessions

There are over 22,000 students at Oxford.

• Your audience may include undergraduates, postgraduates, researchers and (occasionally) alumni. Every session is advertised to all subjects and disciplines, and all year groups.
• Attendance can be difficult to predict, with an average group session attracting between 10 – 50 students. Busy academic timetables can mean that, even if students sign up for an event, attendance is not guaranteed.
• Oxford does not offer sandwich courses, placement years, or vocational degrees. Even courses which may appear vocational – such as Law and Engineering – are very academic in nature. There is no undergraduate course in subjects such as ‘Business’ or ‘Marketing’.
• Students will come from a diverse range of backgrounds: a quarter of undergraduates receive a bursary and over 60% of postgraduates come from outside the UK.
• Students have diverse career interests. They have chosen to come to your skills session to improve their skills, and may not be intending to enter your industry or apply to your organisation. Feedback suggests that students respond well to employer led sessions when the content is relevant to most sectors and/or when examples of different sectors are highlighted.
• As you may be aware, Oxford is a collegiate university, which means there isn’t a ‘campus’ as such. This may affect the vocabulary you choose to use when presenting. For further advice about how the University works and for a list of facts and figures about the University you may find it useful to look at the University information page.
• The date of your skills session may affect the career interests of your audience, as upcoming deadlines for certain sectors may mean you attract students applying to banks or teaching or the Civil Service. Speak to your Careers Adviser contact if you’d like to find out more about typical deadlines outside your own sector.

Feedback from students shows that skills sessions with interactive elements work best – so we recommend avoiding all ‘chalk and talk’. Having said that, there’s no need to devise complex activities. Ask students to work in pairs for a few minutes, or give them a resource – such as an example application form or a badly written cover letter. Students particularly like anecdotes and examples from your own experience of recruitment. These may be useful to emphasise key learning points.

We recognise that you may have delivered sessions at other universities, and so feel free to adapt a pre-existing session, or simply design something that works for you. We do not provide rigid ‘templates’ to follow, but as a rule of thumb try to make sure no more than 5% of the session focuses on promoting your own company. Feedback suggests that too much marketing can put students off – so a minimal number of slides are recommended at the end of the session. Follow up with an opportunity at the end for students to ask you specific questions about your company, programmes and industry knowledge.

Employer led skills sessions generally take place at the Careers building in our Employer Suite comprising of the Centenary Room (capacity 60 seated) and the Garden Room (capacity 25 seated).

A member of staff will meet you in the reception at the Careers building 30 minutes before the start time of your session.

The opportunity to run one our scheduled employer led skills sessions is initially offered to Employer Engagement Network (EEN) members.

If you’re an Employer Engagement Network member, you will receive an invitation to book a session via email.

• Employer Engagement Network Partner members: Free (once per term)
• Employer Engagement Network Associate members: 50% discount (once per term)

If sessions remain unbooked by both Partner and Associate members, the remaining sessions will then be offered to all recruiters.

If you have any further questions, please contact us on [email protected]