Employability at Sheffield
Employability is a key element of the University’s Education Strategy, ensuring our students are able to develop skills, attributes, work experiences and career awareness through their academic courses and extracurricular activities.
What is employability?
Employability at the University of Sheffield is defined as:
a set of achievements – skills, understandings and personal attributes – that make graduates more likely to gain employment and be successful in their chosen occupations.
Mantz Yorke
Employability in Higher Education: what it is - what it is not, Higher Education Academy/ESECT (2004)
How we embed employability into the curriculum
Employability and skills development opportunities are embedded into the curriculum of every programme.
The Sheffield Graduate Attributes are the range of skills and attributes our students develop for academic success, personal development and employability. Every course helps students to recognise and develop a range of these skills.
mySkills is the online portfolio where our students can assess, record and track their skills development. It’s available to them throughout their time at Sheffield, and after they graduate.
Our students also have opportunities to experience work-related learning to gain useful skills for the future as part of their programme.
Learn more about the Sheffield Graduate Attributes and mySkills.
Placement years and work experience
Applying knowledge and evidencing skills through work experience is increasingly important in the graduate labour market.
We ensure all students have access to work experience or work-related learning opportunities and the majority of our undergraduate courses give students the choice to undertake a placement year as part of your degree.
We provide support and advice to help our students find and apply for placements, as well as internships, part-time jobs and other forms of work experience
Find out more about the work experience support we offer.
More opportunities to develop skills for the future
Outside of their degree programmes students can participate in a variety of social activities, which help develop skills such as communication and time management. The mySkills portfolio allows our students to reflect on these activities alongside their academic work.
Some opportunities are provided by faculties and schools, others by the Students’ Union. There is a searchable database to help students choose the experiences right for them.
Explore the skills development opportunities available in our extracurricular activities and clubs and societies.