"Everything I do focuses on helping students develop their career confidence"
We spoke to Faculty Employability Manager Louise Hall about how she supports geography students with employability, professional skills and much more.
What's your role in the school?
My role involves lots of different things; you might find me teaching on some of the modules, supporting students one on one with applications and career questions, interviewing alumni, or putting together the geography employability newsletter that goes out every week.
Everything I do focuses on helping geography students develop their career confidence and articulate what they have to offer.
I also work on bigger projects, like our social sciences placement schemes and programme of alumni talks that go on throughout the year.
What employability support is available for geography students?
The Careers Service is open to all students and provides a lot of general support and guidance on CVs and job interviews, so we focus on things that are more specific to geography.
I work with our student society, GeogSoc, on a programme of academic and employability support seminars each semester, and this lets us give advice that’s more specific to the types of roles that our students want to go into.
We also work closely with our alumni - we run at least a couple of alumni events each year, which help students learn more about their career options and start to build their professional networks.
Every week I search for interesting and relevant vacancies and other opportunities for professional development like webinars and volunteering, and these all go in the newsletter.
This year we’re offering quite a few summer internships within the department, too.
How are professional skills built into the curriculum for geography students?
In your first year, one of the modules focuses directly on geographical skills development, and as part of that we bring in the concept of employability skills - a lot of people think of technical skills as the most important, but employers value softer skills, such as teamwork, self-motivation, problem-solving.
We get students thinking about what they’re already good at and where they’d like to develop.
Across all the levels of study, our modules help students develop their skills in different ways. One module might involve individual presentations and group work, which helps students develop their communication, teamwork and interpersonal skills.
Another might ask them to write a research article, which will develop information searching and critical evaluation skills, and in another module students might be asked to take part in a debate. And then of course physical geography students will develop their lab skills too.
All of our modules have skills badges so that students can identify how different experiences are building them up, and they have access to MySkills, which is the University’s skills development portfolio tool, so they can record these experiences and assess their progress.
In the second year, students plan and develop their dissertation proposal, and we work with them on developing this and think about how it can serve them in their future career. We also provide practical sessions on writing applications and searching for vacancies, as this is the stage where some are thinking about placements.
Then in the dissertation year, the process of carrying out the dissertation itself is a skill development opportunity - they will develop project management, self-motivation, organisation, as well as critical thinking.
What are the most valuable skills that geography students gain at Sheffield?
The main thing that helps in recruitment processes is the ability to articulate why you’re unique, the specific skills and strengths you offer, and the values that are important to you.
Fieldwork and the experience of doing it gives a lot for our geography graduates to talk about, both physical and human geographers.
Obviously there are technical skills involved there, but there’s more to it - our field classes are designed to build your confidence, independence and professionalism as well as leadership ability. It’s a big opportunity.
Beyond that, we support our students to get involved in many other activities too.
Many geography students are very socially engaged, so we have a really good community of students doing voluntary and charity work.
Others apply for placements, apply for research internships, take part in sports. Any experiences like that are really helpful in the workplace because they help you develop your confidence.
What sort of careers do geography graduates go on to pursue?
All sorts! In the past few weeks I’ve spoken to alumni who are doing all kinds of things - policy work in the charity sector or Civil Service, environmental protection consultancy, corporate social responsibility, media and communications, sustainability and conservation leadership, commercial roles within big finance firms, HR graduate schemes, GIS work with local councils.
Some will go on to do a masters degree to allow them to specialise, because geography provides an adaptable skill set for further study.