Careers Centre podcast transcripts

Episode 1: Real Stories, Real Impact transcript

Hello and welcome to the Career Centre Podcast, Real Stories, Real Impact.

We're going to talk honestly about careers, employable and the stuff that no one really explains.

I'm Mikaela.

I'm Michelle and between us, we work at the Career Centre here at University of St Andrews, both as part of the opportunities team.

I think it's fair before we go any further, Mikaela, to tell us a little bit about you and what you do in the Career Centre.

Of course.

I'm Mikaela.

I'm one of the opportunities and events coordinators.

I work with employers and alumni to deliver a wide range of career events, including careers fairs, employer presentations, insight days.

I'm also responsible for a lot of the marketing opportunities across the Career Centre, social media platforms.

Alongside this, I'm also part of a cross-service team providing reception cover and frontline student support.

So if you've ever seen an event that has anything to do with Career Centre, there's a good chance that I have had something to do with it.

Awesome.

Just a small job agreement then, Mikaela?

Just a small job agreement, yeah.

I'm Michelle.

I'm an Employability and Experiences Coordinator.

My role focuses on developing internships, work experience opportunities for students, as well as enhancing employability programmes and support services offered throughout the Career Centre.

I work really closely with employers, alumni, colleagues to create opportunities that generally benefit our students.

And I often spend a lot of time reminding students that experience comes from many different forms and it's not just formal internships.

So although our roles are pretty different within the Career Centre, we both work in the opportunities team.

We get a real clear picture of student concerns, questions and worries and misconceptions that they might have when it comes to careers and what actually is employability.

So that kind of segues, I guess, into why we're doing this podcast and how this all came to light.

So why the podcast, Mikaela?

Honestly, because there is still a big gap between what students think careers and employability should look like.

And what they actually look like in real life.

Exactly.

We hear a lot of things along the lines of, "I don't have the experience.

Everyone else seems to have it figured out.

I don't have an internship yet, so I must be way behind.

Or I don't know what I want to do, so there must be something wrong." And the truth is, none of that is actually true.

But we completely understand why you feel that way, especially when you're in the middle of it.

So what is this podcast?

And what isn't this podcast?

Careers advice can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming, a bit formal or a little bit too polished.

Yeah, absolutely.

And the podcast is going to be intentionally not polished.

We want it to be light.

We want it to be friendly, human.

Talk about the real conversations other than what you find in the textbook.

Yeah, absolutely.

We'll talk about employability skills, interviews, assessment centers, networking, CVs, AI, career decisions, all things that students ask us about every day.

And we're going to do just that, but we're going to do it honestly.

We're going to talk about the messy bits.

We're going to talk about the stuff that didn't go to plan, the twists and turns and the stuff that doesn't show up on people's LinkedIn post files.

Yeah, so what to expect.

You can expect myth busting, practical tips.

You can use real stories from students, alumni, employers and our colleagues as well.

And most importantly, we want you to feel reassured as a student.

You don't need to have everything figured out.

Careers aren't linear.

And employability isn't about ticking the perfect boxes in a perfect order.

Definitely.

And if you walk away from each episode feeling even just a little bit more confident, a little bit less alone and a bit clearer about your next steps, then we've definitely done our job.

So whether you're a first year, a final year student or you're doing a PhD or somewhere in between, or whether you have absolutely no idea what to do next.

This podcast is for you.

So, Michaela, yes, I think before we get into the nitty gritty, the messy, the unknown and the myths, I think it's very fair to let our listeners know a little bit about you.

So, Michaela, you have worked in the university for eight years in different departments across campus.

You've seen almost almost a decade.

You're within touching distance of the decade of student journey, success and everything in between.

So tell us a bit about you.

How did you come to work within the university?

And, you know, what did you want to do when you left school?

I had no idea what I wanted to do when I left school.

I did a bit of traveling and was came back, was employed by a company that I ended up being made redundant from.

And then I got my job at the university.

So I was just a temp in admissions to start with, just a temporary role, mainly just helping out with summer schools and also helping out with that lovely admissions inbox.

And then about a year later, I applied for a full time permanent role as a sort of visitor experience administrator, which was everything to do with visiting days and the talking to a program that the admissions department run.

And I was there for about five years.

I absolutely love being admissions.

Met some friends for life there as well.

But I felt like it was time for a change, something a bit different.

So I applied to the role as opportunity and events coordinator at the Career Centre about three years ago and got my role here.

And I haven't left since.

What do you like most about your job as an opportunity and events coordinator?

I think it's different from admissions.

I feel like I'm much more front facing now.

I get to engage with the employers and also the students and I help the employers engage with the students as well, which just feels extremely rewarding, especially if students then go on to get internships or grad roles with these companies.

It definitely feels like you're doing a good job.

So we spoke a bit about myself there, Michelle, but hopefully we can ask you some questions as well.

So I know that you've been at the university for almost four years now.

So do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became to I know you did the same role as I did before you're now in your current role.

So if you want to give us a little bit of information on that.

Yeah, sure.

So just before the pandemic, I worked at a different academic institution and I got made redundant because I was heavily front facing surrounding events and media sales, etc.

And of course, and the fact that there was no humans about and nobody knew when things were the world was going to return back to itself.

I done a fixed term role within the NHS and I was here for 18 months.

It was only meant to be a six month fixed term role, but as the pandemic rolled out, my own role rolled with it.

And then the job market started opening back up again.

And I knew I wanted to be back in higher education again, but I wanted to be in a service driven role and being able to help students navigate whatever it is that they they wanted to do.

And then as such applied for St Andrews University and done your role for a best part of about six or seven months.

And then I knew it was created for the employability and experiences coordinator, which focuses largely on developing internships, work experience opportunities for students and enhancing the university's employability programs as they stand.

So many people will see the St Andrews summer internship program, the postgraduate internship program that are all nicely housed on campus for St Andrews students.

But alongside that, being able to create opportunities for students to gain soft touch, experiential learning.

So whether it would be a day of work shadowing, work experience, they may have never had a job before.

So they've got nothing really to talk about in terms with a great deal of confidence could have no previous experience to expand on.

So I look to create those opportunities locally for all year groups, for all different levels of students.

And I think for me, the biggest part of jobs satisfaction is being able to see students be quite almost scared to go out and try something new, even if it doesn't align with their degree or sector.

And then you speak to them after they've maybe done a day in the works life experience or they've maybe done a small micro internship that the university has put together and then they come back after that time period and their level of confidence is just different.

And you can see that, oh, actually, I was able to identify this skill.

I was able to work on it.

And now I can talk about it in a whole other light.

Just add into the repertoire of what's already there.

So for me, that's that's a big one.

But opportunities, experiential learning and work experience is very much my wheelhouse.

Sounds like you really enjoy your job and take a lot of pride in what you do and the way that the students able to come out with so much more confidence.

I feel like that is something I like to see as well.

And my role is the students building on that confidence.

So, yeah, do you have any sort of common questions that you feel you get asked quite a lot from students surrounding internships apart from how do I get an internship?

Well, I think that is in itself the number one top question.

It's, you know, day one orientation week.

We've got our open day or visit day.

Students come in how to get an internship?

You know, I think the potentially maybe being on campus 74 hours, if that and then they're coming and asking those questions.

So that is a big one.

But I also think that one of the biggest myths surrounding that particular question is that students feel that unless it's an internship, it's not going to be valid, which is not the case.

It doesn't always have to be a formal, polished internship in order to be able to extract the soft skills, the transferable skills that we hear so much that are on demand from employers and graduate employers.

That that skill set is developed in many, many different ways from being able to communicate effectively, being able to demonstrate that you're part of a team.

So things like, you know, open days, if you're part of a sports program, for example, or if you're part of a society within state sports is often a very, very good place for students to start talking about and thinking about what skills they already have.

They say, oh, I'll work well as part of a team.

My role in a team is X.

And this is how I demonstrate this.

And this is how I carry myself within that environment.

So students already have a great deal of those soft skills already.

They just don't know where to extract them yet.

So no, it doesn't necessarily need to be a formal internship.

That's a big myth that I would like to leave.

Kind of disperse early doors.

Absolutely.

It's something that we speak about a lot, isn't it?

That we have questions that we get through the door.

And I know you've run a lot of the programs, Michelle.

Did you want to speak a little bit about how many programs that we have?

I don't know if you want to go into them all, but yeah.

Even just touch on a few of them and what they what they involve.

Sure.

How long do we have?

So we've got programs that for all student levels.

So we have Coffee Connect.

Coffee Connect was house in birth surrounding the start of the pandemic.

And it was a way for students, alumni and partners of the university to be able to network over a virtual coffee because we couldn't do in person.

And this kind of grew arms and legs because as the world changed, a lot of the a lot of the interactions were online.

The world has also changed in a way that how people network is now different.

And they want it to be very easy, almost relaxed and informal.

Long gone are the days where you would walk into a room.

You know, you would pick out somebody's business card and you'd have to find who they were in the room and then have to have the awkward meet and greet and you're like, oh, I'm not really sure this is right.

So we've kind of taken the stress out of that.

We're on a program called Coffee Connect and whereby the students sign up and they're given a criteria of what sector they're in.

What who would they be wanting to speak to?

That would be of interest that is it somebody that's been in their shoes before?

We also send out the same questions to the alumni.

What sector did you graduate in?

When did you graduate, et cetera, et cetera?

And then there's a very clever algorithm in the back that matches the students to the alumni as a percentage match.

So it takes the guesswork out of it a little bit and it's very informal.

And it's all safe in its house through the same Connect platform, which is exclusively for a student and alumni.

We have work shadowing, which is almost like a day in the life of shadowing.

Some days, very much what it says on the tin and within your chosen industry.

And again, those opportunities are either virtual or in person.

Both of those programs are for all year groups.

So whether you're a PG, an undergraduate PhD student, the whole lot.

Then we have our two flagship St Andrews internship programs, St Andrews summer internship program, which is for second years on a four year degree or third years on a five year degree.

All those opportunities are based on campus through all the different professional units that that sits.

So it could be with student services, it could be with the chaplaincy, it could be with libraries.

And we also have the same kind of program, but for postgraduate interns, which, of course, if you're a postgraduate intern or you're studying a one year emlet, we will supply opportunities that you could apply for.

So it's a very real life experience.

But the biggest difference between the summer and the postgraduate is that the summer internships are designed to be X amount of weeks full time.

The postgraduate internships are part time over a longer period and they start earlier and they finish probably a bit later.

Just because postgraduates, we understand that they don't have the same time to commit to full time work and to gain that the experiential learning on the job.

And all the internships through the programs are paid.

So that's a big one.

Definitely.

That's something that a lot of students are looking for as well.

They need to be able to.

We like to advertise opportunities as well that are paid.

So we should lead by example and do the same thing.

So so many great opportunities for students there, Michelle, and hopefully students know a little bit more about them now and aren't scared to ask questions or see if they are eligible to apply to to any of these internships.

Awesome.

Yeah.

And we're really good at pre-advertising on.

I think you had touched on it about something social media and bulky emails.

And again, we're always talking about these what's up and coming definitely within the open day where we can speak because students want to be involved with things and we don't want to drop surprises on people and people don't know.

So again, it's another resource that they can maybe take away from this.

But they're like, oh, I heard about Coffee Connect or I heard about what's hard.

Or, oh, I heard that, you know, PwC sometimes come on campus.

When is this just a prompt to be able to start having these conversations early?

I want to approach some of the questions that we get from students and albeit parents as well.

So I'll give you an example.

I'll put this into a little bit of context for you.

So a couple of weeks ago, I was at an offer holder event of a Saturday and it was all those prospective students coming in.

The potential may already got a conditional or unconditional offer.

And a question that came up a lot was, you know, you're a very, very small campus.

You're not really in one of the bigger cities like Edinburgh or Aberdeen or Glasgow or even London to that matter, because a lot of these students were international students.

Surely you don't get any big employers visiting here and, you know, are we going to be left out?

It's essentially what they're asking.

Absolutely not.

Yeah, we do our best, although a lot of employers and especially big employers don't need to recruit and they don't need to come out and come to campuses and recruit students that way through careers fairs.

We still do get quite a lot of big employers come to St Andrews.

So the likes of Deloitte in Europe, PwC, they're just to name a few of big companies that come year and year and sometimes semester on semester, they come up and they like to engage with our students, whether that's through activation stands that they bring or coffee carts that they like to bring as well.

Or just doing actual one on one sessions with students.

I know Deloitte like to do coffee chats.

They speak to students one on one, help them through application processes.

So there's definitely we're not really sure of big employers coming to St Andrews.

We tend to see them.

St Andrews students are of a great caliber.

So, yeah, they want to engage with students.

They want to be higher in the students.

So they want to give them the best possible start.

And I'm right in thinking it's not just for graduate roles that those big companies are coming on campus for.

What other messages and content do those big companies come with when they come on campus to speak to students?

What are their opportunities, I guess?

Yeah, it's not just grad roles.

There's obviously internships that they've got throughout summer.

They also do sort of day in the life off as well.

So if students are unsure if they want to work for that company or they're a little bit apprehensive, like is this really a role for me?

A lot of big companies, I know civil service do a lot.

They like to do a day in the life off as well of what their job role looks like, especially when they first start.

So they're just they're bringing lots of experience with them as well.

Which I think is really important to hide like that as well, because a lot of students often struggle like, oh, well, I'm a first year and don't know what else I should get involved in.

They're not at that point yet where they're ready to apply for a graduate job.

So they've not worked that far into their academic transcripts and stuff yet.

So it's really good to take note the fact that employers do speak about a range of topics and skills and have example workshops and presentations, even surrounding your degree itself, because a lot of the big finance companies, finance management, consulting, of course, is a big topic.

So it is really nice when those employers come in.

Yeah.

And break the myth of, well, actually, we want you to be studying management.

A lot of students believe that if they don't, if they're not doing finance, so they're not doing economics, that they can come to these talks or be involved or even be hired for these graduate roles.

But a lot of companies actually accept such a wide variation of degree backgrounds.

As long as you've got the determination and the skill set, which you might not realise at the time to apply for these roles, then you've absolutely got a chance.

Definitely double check with a company.

And there's a lot of things that students ask us or ask the companies when they come, do you accept this degree?

Do you accept this degree background?

And most of the time they'll say yes, like, unless it's something really niche or specific.

But yeah, employers are definitely getting a lot more open to accepting students from a wide variety of degree programs.

That's good.

I feel like we've just maybe conquered our first myth bust in there.

I like that.

I like that.

Alongside getting all these amazing employers and organisations on campus, online, where students can get involved, they can sign up.

There is a few key events that you are responsible for and or the co-pilot for throughout the year.

Do you want to talk about a few of them?

Of course.

So I will not take all the credit myself and my colleague, Jenny, and she is the other opportunities and events coordinator.

It is a big role, as Michelle said at the start, and we both work full time doing these roles.

So, yeah, a lot of the big events that we tend to run are our careers fairs that we run every year, usually on semester one this year, they'll be taking place on the first and the second of October.

So that is something to definitely look forward to.

We get a lot of employers that come to these events.

It's not the way that all employers like to hire students or engage with students.

So you can't expect a wide variety of employers.

But yeah, that's definitely something that we organise from the very beginning, myself and my colleague, Jenny, all the information they need to attend on the day.

We also run early years career panels, which has a lot to do with our alumni.

It doesn't need to be alumni, but usually students that have been to St Andrews or a different university, they've graduated within the past five years and they've come back to sort of give us some tips and hints for students that are about to be in their shoes.

So that's something that we like to do.

Again, usually in semester one, semester one is nice and busy.

But yeah, we tend to do specific industries as well.

So we try and target the industries we think the students are most interested in.

So I think last year we had sustainability, we had arts media, we had finance, we had public sector.

So we tend to do about four or five of these and they're just an hour long, but they definitely take a lot of coordination in the background to get these employers in to be able to do this usually during their work and time as well.

But yeah, there's a lot of other things that are involved in our open day that we do every year on matriculation week.

That's just so that students can come in, speak to career centre staff, be involved and find out what we do really, which we want to speak about on this podcast, but we don't want to bore people.

So yeah, if you want to come along to our open day, you absolutely are more than welcome or just pop into the career centre and you can ask us any questions about what we do and don't do.

But yeah, we're also involved in other things like Green Week or the Green Fair, but that's mainly the student societies that organise that, but we do help in the background.

And we also run a part time jobs and volunteering fair as well, typically in semester two, but this year we might be doing one in semester one.

So keep an eye out for that.

You've talked about some of the big key components there of what our event calendar looks like throughout the year.

I'm going to talk against the open day that's during matriculation orientation week because for what students to come in and see us will like it.

Yeah, absolutely.

And we're a friendly bunch.

So whether you're trying to figure out where to find opportunities or how to book an appointment with a careers advisor or a CV advisor, we want it to be a friendly place that you don't leave until third year or panic stations in fourth year.

They come in and say, ah, I've never stepped inside the career centre building because I've been terrified because I don't have it figured out yet.

That's we're here to support you.

We want to be able to give you a spectrum of opportunity that you can pick and choose what's going to work for you in your career journey and experiences.

And the other one that I'm going to pick out of there as well is the part time jobs and volunteer fair.

Yes.

It's often one of the very first questions we hear from students when they come in on the visiting day.

I'm looking for a part time job.

How do I find one?

Yeah.

We have the resources to do that.

And do you want to speak a little bit about Career Connect?

Yeah, of course.

We have our platform, which hopefully all our students know, is Career Connect.

You get access to this probably about 24 hours after you matriculate and you're able to fill in sort of details about what sectors you're interested in.

You can sign up for bulky meals and also just alerts as well.

So alerts to any events that are coming up or any vacancy that's been added to our platform that you might be interested in.

So this is the best sort of platform, we would say, to look out for part time jobs when you first arrive at university.

If this is your first year or throughout any point, to be fair, we tend to put them up as what we call local part time roles, just meaning that they're literally in the local surrounding area.

So you're not having to travel too far to get to any of these roles.

So we definitely that's our first point of contact.

Or the first thing we would tell you to do is be to check on Career Connect for any local part time jobs that are available, because I know that is the biggest questions that our students ask, which is absolutely fair.

Everybody wants to have that sort of skills and a bit of money behind them as well.

So it's something that most students are looking to do.

So it's a huge question we get asked.

Another reason why we're hopefully going to change the part time jobs from being in Semester 2 and put it in Semester 1, because it's likely when a lot of students are looking for roles and when a lot of employers are looking for staff.

So our Semester 1 calendar is very busy, so it's trying to fit that in.

That's not going to work with everything else.

But yeah, we're hopeful that we can try and fit this into Semester 1 instead of Semester 2 or potentially both semesters.

Lots of great content there.

And it's not just first years or freshmen that come in and ask about part time jobs that is applicable to all year groups.

To all students that are here and that are on campus, whether it be for that experiential learning, whether to develop their transferable skills, to be able to talk about them with confidence, or of course, which is going to be a topic in itself speaking about internships and probably not one for the introductory side of the podcast.

So yeah, I think we've covered a lot of ground within that.

And we want to say thanks so much for listening to the very first episode of this Career Centre podcast.

Real stories, real impact.

If anything we've talked about today has got you thinking or questioning what your next step might be, there is lots of support available.

Absolutely.

And we touched on one of them surrounding Career Connect.

Yeah, when you're looking for part time jobs and appointments, and I will always say to every single student that Career Connect is going to be like your holy grail for the next four or five X amount of years when you're at university, because it's where you do your careers, advisor appointments.

It's where you get your CV advice and appointments as well.

It's where you find out about up and coming events with all the great companies and organizations that you had touched on.

And it's also a place where you search for internships, graduate roles and everything in between.

So make yourself all fave with Career Connect.

Definitely.

There's lots of useful information and resources on the Career Centre webpage, as Michelle pointed out.

We also offer practice interviews.

So if you're very worried about your first interview, it could be your first interview you've ever done.

And that's definitely something that you can book into as well.

If you would prefer to see someone in person, we always like to receive students in person and get to know you guys.

We're not a scary bunch.

And that is exactly if you want to speak to a careers advisor, in-person appointments are available as well as online to fit your schedule and to fit your with me in surrounding campus.

Great.

So we'll take care and we'll hopefully see you in the next episode.

Your career journey doesn't have to be perfect.

It just has to be yours.

Episode 2: The Big Picture with Dr Lorna Dargan - Careers Centre Director

Hello and welcome back to the Careers Centre podcast episode two, Real Stories Real Impact, where we talk about monastery and the careers, employability and all the stuff that nobody really explains.

We're going to try and break through the myths, we're cut through the jargon.

I'm Michelle.

I'm Michaela.

Today we're joined by someone who brings a really valuable big picture perspective on careers and employability across the university.

Dr. Lorna Dargan.

Hello.

Naturally, you're someone who sits often at the head of the table.

As director of the Careers Centre here in the University of St Andrews, you leave the overall strategy and the direction of service from how students are supported day to day, to how employability is championed across the university.

You also bring a unique perspective through the role co-chairing the employability working group with senior leadership, sitting on university court and acting as a trustee for the university pension scheme.

So you really see employability from every angle, from strategy, operational, the human touch, which is exactly why we wanted you on the podcast today.

So thank you so much for joining us.

Thank you for having me.

So before we start to get into any of the myths and breaking through the jargon, it would be really good to hear a little bit about your career journey and your career story.

So I'm going to...

I'm not going to hesitate.

I'm going to jump right in, Lorna.

What did you want to do when you left school?

Hmm.

When I left school, I knew I was going to be doing a geography degree, and I had chosen that because I wanted to work for what was then the National Rivers Authority and is now the Environment Agency.

And I wanted to be working with farmers on how they could develop their land to ensure that stuff didn't flood, basically.

Actually, one of my friends I did my PhD with is doing that exact job now.

So that was really interesting.

But then I got to university and because all of that stuff would involve physical geography and it turns out that unlike at school, university physical geography involves an enormous amount of maths.

That is not what I came to university.

So I was absolutely outraged because I was studying maths.

So that idea went out the window by the end of my first term.

That seems to be quite a big flip.

Yeah.

From the time that you left school to your first term at university.

So can you give us a bit of a walkthrough from how we went from that first term or thinking, this is not for me, to how you came to be the career centre director?

Oh, every little girl's dream being the director of the career service, I think.

Well, I think like a lot of first years, I ended that first term at university with, you know, the plan out the window and wondering why am I here and should I even bother carrying on with my degree?

But I love geography, so decided to persist and also it's nice, you know, being at university, the whole experience and meeting new people and being away from home.

So that was all very motivating.

And then I think as I went through my degree, I realised I enjoyed human geography, so economic development stuff.

I was big on the environmental policy, had a really inspiring lecture who talked about environmental policy.

And as I was approaching my third year, I felt like I have not finished learning yet, and so I want to learn more.

So I thought about doing a master's, but that was not something I was in a financial position to afford.

I thought about becoming an environmental lawyer and I went to see the career service and they helpfully pointed out that that's quite expensive.

So I think I decided in the end to do a PhD and skip the master's portion and just apply straight for their PhD.

So that's what I did.

I got an ESRC grant.

I was very fortunate with that and spent three years at Newcastle, three and a half studying.

It started out about environmental policy, but then became about urban regeneration.

How does the government tackle that?

And as I came to the end of that, having started that thinking, oh, I would love to be an academic, realising I did not want to be an academic at all.

But I needed something to do.

And a job came up as a postdoctoral researcher doing something very similar in a different department to my PhD.

So I did that for six years.

And over the course of the six years, I realised I liked working with students more than I liked doing research.

I really enjoyed the teaching, but realised academic career wasn't for me.

And a job came up in the career service doing a maternity cover to teach on their placement based modules.

So I did that for a year because that felt a bit less scary still being in the university.

But so I could go back if I wanted to.

Then at the end of that year, I got offered to come back to my old department to do a lectureship, but I realised how much I liked working in university professional services.

So the careers advisor job came up.

So I was a careers advisor for nine years, I think, and I specialised in working with researchers, which was brilliant.

And then I missed the kind of big picture thinking stuff I was doing for my PhD.

So when the job came up at St Andrews, which is very big picture thinking role, I applied for that with no expectation.

I would get it because it was a really big promotion from a grade six to a grade nine.

And inexplicably, they gave me a bit of a job.

And so I've been here now eight years.

That is fantastic.

What a great story, Lorna, as well.

Jumping from careers advisor to director as well.

I feel like we've spoke about that before.

Although you've just spoken quite a bit about your career journey, has there ever been a job that wasn't quite the one that you've had?

Yeah, I think the postdoc researcher and becoming an academic because I was really passionate about that idea when I was doing my bachelor's degree and when I started my PhD.

I found it confusing that I didn't like it because on paper, it was a really good fit for me.

Mm hmm.

So it takes a lot of my values, boxes around being independent and learning every day and being in charge of myself because you're effectively your own boss when you're an academic and a lot of respect.

So I spent quite a lot of time annoyed with myself that I didn't like it and couldn't figure out why not.

And so I think I really learned from that just because something looks good on paper and that you're good at it because I was really good at it.

Doesn't actually mean that you want to do it.

So it felt quite hard leaving because at the time I'd tied my job up quite a bit in my identity.

I think that's quite common for academics.

Like who am I if I'm not a researcher?

But actually it's more helpful, I think, to see your job as slightly separate from yourself.

So that's how I ended up making what was quite a hard choice at the time.

The right.

Yeah.

Kind of a bit of a follow up question to you've just said there, what you took away from it.

There's always a discussion we talk about with students through all different year groups about resilience and what did you learn for something?

This ideal of a linear career path or an experience that was amazing.

But it's also OK to say that wasn't quite what I wanted to be or using those experiences to really hone in on what did you learn from it?

What did you take away from it?

And how are you then going to apply that moving forward?

So my question to you is, what did you take away from that experience?

I think I took quite a lot away from that experience.

So personally, nobody cares about your career as much as you.

So if you want things to happen in it, you have to make them happen for yourself.

And so that's quite an important lesson to learn.

I think I also learned and I see this a lot with researchers or I saw it a lot when I was a careers advisor.

You don't have to keep going with something that's not the right fit for you.

And you haven't failed if it's your cup of tea.

Quite often, you don't realize that something's not for you until you've started it.

So I found that that was quite an important lesson to learn as well, because I think people plug away in jobs for years that they're not happy in without realizing that there is an alternative and you can do something else.

So I think that was quite important.

It might look as though I have jumped ship, but there is a through line in everything I do.

It's just not the through line I was expecting.

And so it's not kind of the through line wasn't PhD to academic to professor to whatever I noticed from my A levels right through to the methodology for my undergraduate dissertation and my PhD and my careers advisor role and my current role, I've got a real interest in language and people's stories.

So what does the what are the words that people use to describe their story tell you about their state of mind and what they're thinking about?

And actually, I remember seeing a careers advisor at school and saying that to her she gave me a leaflet on how to become a psychologist, which wasn't something I was interested in at the time.

But I think, yeah, hearing people's stories, how are people choosing to express themselves?

What do their words say?

What do their body language say?

That's the through line for me in my career.

So I wasn't the one I was expecting, but there's definitely a narrative there.

Awesome.

So we're going to segue out of your career journey, which you've put in a really good picture.

It's a really thorough one and it's a really good example of a career journey as well.

So thank you for sharing that.

Welcome.

We're going to move towards more in surrounding the university itself.

So from where you're sitting, what do you see the role of the career centre?

Not just now, but as careers and employment continue to change.

So I think there's a role for us with students and then there's a role for us with our colleagues and within the institution.

So I think the role for us with students is captured very nicely with our strategic plan and our mission statement, which says that we are all about education, inspiration and empowerment.

And those three things, I think, are quite important in the way that we approach our work.

So, you know, the education bit, we are here to teach students lifelong skills in terms of how they manage their career and their career thinking, because you're not going to be with us forever.

And we want everybody to go away feeling like they know how to manage their careers in future.

The inspiration bit, because sometimes we all need a bit of inspiration and sometimes that can come from quite unexpected quarters.

And so we want to make sure our students know about the range of opportunities that are available to them.

And then the empowerment bit, I think, is really important because, like I said, I learned from my own career, you're in charge of yourself and nobody else is in charge of making things happen for you.

And we want students to feel confident that they've got their skill set.

And yeah, to to realise their ambitions, whatever those are.

So from a student facing perspective, I think that's quite important.

The bit that students, I think, don't always see, but is a really important part of our work is we want to make sure that the environment for the whole university in the curriculum and in the student experience is set up to help students succeed when they graduate.

So quite a lot of the work that we do behind the scenes, maybe that students don't see, is about the work that we do within our academic schools.

So working with the school employability officers to make sure that there's a good range of things happening at that level.

So a big focus of our work coming up is going to be making sure that the curriculum is set up to help students succeed.

So that's partly about the way that students are taught and the way that they're assessed and also not just putting things in the curriculum, helping students to recognise that that's what the curriculum is already doing, because we know sometimes there can be a bit of a disconnect between what you've learned on your degree in English or biology or divinity and what you're doing in the workplace.

So we know that our degree programmes help set you up for success in the workplace, but I don't think students always realise that.

So we want to help bring that to the thought.

I think that's such a great idea as well.

I know that before I think we had our sustainability talk and there was a lot of talk about whether what they were learning, was that really what was going to be happening in their role when they eventually graduated and got us our role within sustainability?

So, yeah, I think that's so important.

Yeah.

Another question was, what do you think students sometimes misunderstand about careers support?

Quite a lot, because our job is surprisingly complicated for everybody in the service.

So we've got 21 individuals, I think, in the service who are all doing different kinds of jobs.

And we as a profession don't always communicate what we do very well.

So I do remember when I was thinking about applying to become a careers advisor and I went to observe some careers and advisors at work, I sat down and thought, well, this looks really easy.

I can talk to somebody about their job for 15 minutes.

And then the first time I ran an appointment with students, my brain just went completely blank because it's actually quite a difficult job to structure that conversation.

So I think the complexity of our work is not always very visible.

I think a few things that we encounter quite regularly when I talk to students about what we do, I think there's a sense about us telling students what to do, either that we're going to tell students what to do when you come in and we'll choose your career for you, or you can't come in and see us unless you know what you want to do first.

So the team are very skilled at helping you to think about and teasing that stuff out of you around what's important to you and how that might translate into the workplace.

But what we can't do is tell you what to do because you're the expert on you and we might make a suggestion that you don't like and then you don't want to come back and see us because you don't think we can help you.

So I think that's one thing.

I think the second thing, maybe relating to the area of work that the two of you work in, is a misconception that we are sponsored by particular employers or that we're here to push particular employer agenda.

And I think that comes about because the careers fairs are a really high profile element of our work.

And they attract a certain type of employer, an employer who's recruiting at scale, who's got money to come to the fair and send their staff to travel to Scotland, etc.

But that's only a small slice of the job market and not the only part of the job market.

So just because we have, I don't know, banks and management consultancies and big graduate recruiters of that fair doesn't mean that we can't help you with the small creative industries or getting into something a little bit more niche.

And then I think the last one, which is sort of true and sort of isn't, is that the Career Centre is staffed by generalists and they're not specialists.

And so in some respects, that's correct because our students work, our graduates work on all seven continents in an enormous variety of roles for a huge number of organisations or they're studying a massive range of courses in lots of different universities.

And we cannot possibly know about every job in every organisation, in every country that our students might want to work in.

So in that respect, we are generalists, but I think the skill set of the staff in the team is also highly specialist.

So cultivating, as you do, Michaela, relationships with employers is a very specialist role.

You need to have a good sense of the kinds of employers our students are interested in and which countries they come from to make sure that we've got a good range of employers on campus.

And actually, I was looking at the data.

We have way more employers on campus and way more students seeing those employers through panels and the extra events you organise that come to the fair.

Yeah.

So you're missing out if you think the fair is kind of be all the handle how to engage with an employer.

You know, Michelle, you guys work in the experiences side of things and setting up really good quality work experiences for students.

And again, cultivating those relationships and helping students to reflect on what they've gotten out of that is quite a complicated piece of work.

And having worked as a guidance practitioner for a long time, doing career guidance is actually a really complicated job.

Listening to people with no agenda, asking the right questions, reflecting things back to them, challenging their thinking, and helping them to see things in themselves that they don't understand themselves or haven't seen by themselves.

They may be lacking a bit of self-awareness.

That's quite a difficult and challenging skill set for people to have.

And because career gets its tentacles into all kinds of areas of your life.

Some of the conversations that careers advisors have with students can be really wide ranging and sometimes quite emotional.

So it can touch on your self-identity in your relationship with your family and your confidence.

And how you see yourself and how you see the world.

It's really common for students to cry in careers appointments.

And trying to manage all of that in an appropriate way to get students to leave the appointment, feeling that something is different is a really complicated job.

So generalists, sort of, but also very specialists.

So we're going to touch on now looking at digital resources within careers.

Careers information now is everywhere.

Yeah.

Between websites, social media, LinkedIn, AI tools.

Why are digital careers resources still so important?

I think because you can access them 24-7 and you can get more specialist advice that you're looking for.

So you can really fall down a rabbit hole with some of the digital resources.

You're also getting digital resources from that have been carefully curated or that come from companies or that come from people's personal experience or that are synthesized by AI to give you a bit of feedback that way.

So I just think if you're having a bit of a career wobble at 10 o'clock on a Sunday night, or you know you've got a job application that's due in at midnight, then those digital resources are so important for giving you some advice, some support and information that you might need to help you get through until we're open.

Definitely.

I feel like there's so much out there that we can all become very overwhelmed by it.

So how do you think students can use these tools without feeling overwhelmed?

That's a really great question because there is a lot out there.

I guess I would say a few things.

One is just trying to make sure that you use good sources.

And the great advantage of being a university student is that you are trained every day when you're writing an essay to find good sources of information and to triangulate your data.

So making sure that you're hearing the same thing from multiple sources is really important.

So I would say that's really helpful.

And I guess the other thing is our website and the website of other university career services, most of which are open to students from all around the country.

There are staff within those services who have curated resources that you might find helpful.

So for example, on our website you can find occupational information about a particular let's say you want to get into working for an NGO or a charity.

The team have already curated resources that you might find helpful so they can sign, post you and springboard you out into other places.

Or they have on Saint Connect found alumni that are already willing and able and good sources of information to get a personal insight into those careers.

So I would say the Career Center's website is a good springboard.

But we also springboard out to other career services websites.

You're interested in getting to something where Harriet Watt has a specialism, where Manchester University has a specialism.

You can always go on their website and take a look at their curated resources as well.

Yeah.

That's some really, really great advice actually.

I never really thought about branching out.

And that's what's so good about being in higher education, sharing our experiences and also our learning as well.

One thing I would say is recognizing the point at which it's helpful to talk to a human being.

Yes.

So I have been using AI a little bit to test it for careers advice for my own career thinking.

And a couple of things really stand out to me based on my experience and also knowing what I know about St.

Andrew's students.

And everybody knows this already, but AI is really prone to just agreeing with you.

What a brilliant career idea that is, Lorna.

And then I'm off down a rabbit hole doing something where it's telling me I'm marvelous all the time.

Our students though are really smart people.

And one thing that I think really clever people benefit from is someone who's willing to challenge them a little bit and AI doesn't do that very well unless you set up its persona to do that for you.

So I would, that's I think where a human is really helpful because they can reflect things back to.

And the other thing is, and we see this all the time, is that students presenting need and their underlying actual need are not always the same thing.

So, and I am reminded of a practice interview I did with a student who was applying to medicine when I was a career advisor back at Newcastle.

And I think about how that interaction would have gone with AI.

Because her presenting need was, I need to do some practice questions for medicine.

If AI existed at that point, she could have got it to generate some questions.

She could have typed in the answers and it would have told her she was marvelous.

Because if you look at the script of her answers, and I sat with her thinking these are great answers, what AI would miss, but which I was able to pick up on was her body language.

So she was really nervously tapping her foot and picking her fingernails.

She rolled her eyes at a few questions I'd asked her.

So, you know, because we can offer a challenge as a human person, I reflected back to her what I was noticing in her body language.

And it turned out that it was her fourth attempt at applying for medicine.

She was expecting to get rejected.

And so she'd gone in with this really defensive body language, because if I haven't really tried, then I'm not getting rejected because I failed.

It's because I didn't try properly.

So actually her underlying need was her self-confidence.

And we had a conversation about that.

And she did end up getting into Nottingham University Medical School, which was a great success for her.

But I think that wouldn't have been picked up with AI.

So it's good, I think, for students when they're using that to think about and reflect on that.

Definitely one important thing to note as well, because I do think everybody thinks AI is great.

And it is great for so many things, but not everything.

Great.

So I think we're going to move on to myths and jargon.

So try and get through some of these.

So if we cut the jargon, what do students really need to know about employability?

I think employability is a word that students don't like.

And I can understand that because it's not a very interesting word.

But basically, it's just making sure that you have got things in your toolkit that will help you to get to where you want to be when you've graduated.

And a few myths I think that we see quite commonly, and please correct me if I'm wrong for you guys seeing them in your work.

I think one of the things that we see from students is that you can only do a job that's relating to your degree.

And you'll often get people coming in who are studying what count as national curriculum subjects despairing because they don't want to be a teacher.

Actually, one of the happiest graduates I've ever met from my last job was an English literature student who'd become a tax advisor, which obviously are two completely different things.

But she was a very bubbly outgoing person, and she loved meeting clients all day every day.

I think because St Andrews is full of really high achieving students, there's a bit of a misconception that you need a first class degree in a particular subject to get into particular careers.

I think it's now something like 80 plus percent of employers in the UK don't really care what your degree subject is in.

And quite often, they're not worried about you having a first either.

So I think that's a bit of a myth as well.

And a current myth is that there are no jobs out there, but the graduate job market has collapsed.

We are all going to be replaced by machines.

And this is a complete disaster.

And things are changing really rapidly.

So it is very different out there than it was two or three years ago.

And it's definitely more complicated by AI, because people are using AI to apply for jobs, which means they can apply for hundreds more jobs than they used to.

But there are jobs out there for graduates.

We are hearing that from employers all the time.

There are more jobs out there that require somebody with a degree than there are people with degrees.

So there's definitely a job market out there.

I think it just looks a bit different these days.

The nature of graduate work is changing all the rubbish tasks that used to get given to a new graduate are now being given to AI.

But that does mean that you're being given more challenging and interesting work, which I think is perfect for St.

Andrew's students, because they are so smart and so capable.

That suits them brilliantly.

And so they're set up for success that way.

But it does mean, I think, that getting in is a bit harder, because the competition ratios have gone up.

It's tempting at that point, I think, to start firing out hundreds of generic applications to employers.

So firing out the same application to everyone in the Times top 100.

Actually, you're probably better off spending your time doing a smaller number of really well crafted applications is a good thing to do.

I think it also means that the start of your career might involve a few jobs and hopping around between jobs a little bit to get going rather than kind of stepping on the graduate scheme train and just riding that until you're 30 or whatever.

So I think it is a little bit more complicated out there.

And I think students would do well to be open to being surprised.

Actually, an academic at the university was chatting to me about his son's career journey, and he had applied for the civil service fast stream and didn't get in.

And has ended up working in a completely different sector, in a completely different organization that he'd never heard of in a town that he wasn't planning to live in, but is actually loving his job.

So I think kind of being open to things being different than you expected is a good thing for students at the moment.

And that's a really big one to highlight, and it's one that we hear a lot from students, and even graduates and alumni as well, while talking about, "Well, I really want to do this, and this didn't really go to plan." I was actually speaking to an alumni not long ago that happened to be a guest speaker somewhere else, and she used a really powerful quote from Richard Branson and said, "Sometimes you've just got to say yes to an opportunity and figure out how it's going to work out later." There's a lot to be said in that.

I think so.

Are there any career myths that you just wish they would just retire already, Lorna?

I mean, probably just everything I've just...

From having a first, you need to have a first degree to do this, and you need to do that.

Yeah.

I think there's an element of that.

I think students have themselves retired the job for life idea, because I don't think anyone under the age of 70 thinks that that's a realistic possibility anymore.

And wouldn't it be boring if that was the case?

Oh, yeah.

So I guess another one that's quite St Andrew's specific, or I notice it more at St Andrew's, is that you need to have 9,000 internships in order to get a good job.

Yeah.

So people really panicking about the number of internships that they've got, and that's not necessarily the case either.

So you don't need to have 10 internships.

Sometimes between one and three will do.

And quite often, you don't need a specific internship at all.

Now, there are jobs where that's really helpful, and they please check our digital resources on our website, which will tell you which careers require a specific internship.

But I think students really undersell what they get out of part-time work.

I went to an event a few years ago with the Big Four, so all the big consulting companies, and they had talked about how much they all value part-time work.

And they talked about working in a bar, and the communication skills you get there, and you're not dealing with people when they're at their very best.

And it's busy, and you're having to sell stuff, and you're having to do mental arithmetic, and engage with the other servers, and you're working in a team environment.

And all of that gives you skills that are really helpful for jobs in management, consultancy, and advising.

And I don't think that students always see part-time work that way, and they worry that their job in Morrisons or in a cafe has got no value, and that's not the case at all.

And I guess the other thing kind of related to that is, employers are humans too.

So it's easy to forget that they will want your age, or that they understand that you might want to go traveling, or that things are difficult right now.

Quite a lot of them have got kids, are students age, so they know from personal experience what it's like.

So I hope that students don't forget that employers are human too.

So good top tips, and it kind of follows off nicely of the first episode that we talked about, that internal, it's got to be a formal internal internship, but it's got to be structured.

But meanwhile, you're forgetting about volunteering opportunities that can be done at your own leisure, you're not locked into a part-time jobs.

The wealth of part-time jobs are available within St Andrews.

We talked about the local campaigns on CareerConnect, and how we can help students look for jobs as well.

So it's really nice to hear that coming from you, as the director.

So we're all singing off the same pimp sheet.

I've seen students come in with CVs, I've got nothing to put on my CV, and then you start talking to them about what do you do.

It's like, well, I play for the university's brass band, and I've got a job in a cafe, and I've been doing caring work for my gran, who's not been working, just the stuff you can put on.

Amazing, but they don't think about it, because it's not that shiny an internship.

That's true.

So navigating a little bit into careers of the day.

What is your advice for navigating different stages of a career when information is coming at you from everywhere?

We talked about it in terms of the digital resource world, and how convenient that can be, yes, sitting at 10 o'clock on a Sunday evening, trying to research something, but there is a performance with everything from people giving us messages from, seeing it on email, like if you're very much in the early planning stage, you're getting to know what you want to do, it could be really hard to break through that clutter.

What advice would you give to students?

The first thing I would say is that students don't have to have everything figured out immediately, and I think that can be a really hard thing to accept.

You know it in your head, but that's not always translating to what your heart is telling you.

And again, because we've got lots of very proactive, very motivated, very high achieving students at St Andrews, you can feel like everybody else has got it sorted out, and you are the only person who hasn't.

And that's not true at all, so most people don't know what they're doing.

And we know that from the data that we collect our students at matriculation.

Most people have no clue, or get into their final year, than what it is they want to do.

So don't worry, you're not alone, I think would be my first bit of advice.

I think the second thing I would say is, sometimes when you're feeling overwhelmed, like this is too big a task, and how am I possibly going to do that?

The temptation is to stick your head in the sand, because thinking about it is making you anxious, so better not to think about it at all, than to do anything.

And I can see why that's very tempting, but I think like that old saying about how do you eat an elephant, it's one bite at a time, so just doing a little something will make you feel a lot better.

So that could be thinking about your strengths and what you like, or some people find that quite difficult.

So even starting with what do you not like, and what does that tell you about what you do like?

I don't like working in teams.

Well great, that means that you're greater working independently, and that's something that you're looking for, fantastic, let's roll with that.

So I think doing something small for yourself is a good kind of starting point.

And I guess the other thing is, and of course I'm going to say this, but it's true, is come in and talk to us.

So the team is all trained in how to speak to people who don't know what they want to do, if you want to sit and have a bit of a panic about it, that's fine, it's good to say the thing that is worrying you out loud sometimes, and they can help you start to think about a bit of a plan of action.

You're probably not going to leave that first appointment with a light bulb moment of, "Oh yes, I would like to be the online content editor for a small magazine or whatever it is that you're interested in." But you will go out with a bit of a plan of where to get started, and we're here for you for four years, and we're here for you three years after you've graduated.

So I think talking to someone is helpful.

And I think talking to someone in the Career Centre is helpful, because in the nicest possible way, we are not invested in the outcome of your career.

So we are completely impartial, so unlike your friends and unlike your family, you don't have any skin in the game of your career.

So you can tell us what you actually think without fear of judgment or somebody telling you what they think you should be doing.

Because I think students get a lot of opinions about what they should be doing, and we're here to listen and help you figure it out for yourself.

Definitely.

There's a lot of pressure on students.

Do you think that there is too much pressure on students for them to have the perfect plan?

Yes.

Yeah.

And again, I think you'll notice that particularly at places like St Andrews, because our students are high achievers and they are used to doing really well.

So it can feel really difficult to be in a position where you don't know what you're doing.

And also, I think for university students, you know, you've been filtered through your high school, and I'm doing my high school thing so that I can get to university, and I'm passing first year so I can do second year.

And then as you approach like the end of your degree, you can sort of feel like you're about to canoe off a cliff or something.

And so that can feel a bit scary as well, obviously.

So I think there is pressure on people to come up with a perfect plan that they can explain to other people and that other people will think is the perfect plan.

I've heard from our students that they're really worried about making the wrong decision and then being trapped forever in a career that they don't like, because they made the wrong decision when they were in their 20s.

And I'm hoping over the course of this podcast, you hear people talking about their careers, you'll realise that probably nobody is in the career that you expected them, expected to be in.

And people make mistakes all the time, and nothing is irreversible in career terms in that sense.

On the topic of having a plan itself, some students and some people think about their careers in terms of plans.

So you know what you're aiming towards and you work backwards from that.

What do I need to do now in order to get into that job?

We'll be there in five and 10 years time.

But some people are not plan oriented at all, and there are enough people who aren't planners that there is a career theory based around it called planned happenstance, which is based in chaos theory.

It's one of my favourite career theories, which says plans to some extent are pointless.

So it's no point in having a plan.

It's okay not to have a plan.

What you need to have is the right behaviours.

So you need to be curious, optimistic, flexible, brave.

And so when you're spotting an opportunity, you've got the kind of courage to grab it with both hands.

And I would say for my own career, I'm maybe a little bit more planned happenstancey than I would like to admit.

So I did not have a plan to become a cruise advisor or the cruise centre director.

But those opportunities came along and they looked interesting.

And so that's where I went for that.

Some people very motivated by plans, but it's also okay to think about your career, not in terms of what do I want to do forever, but just what do I want to do next?

What do I want my first move to be?

And not worry about, and this is going to affect the rest of my life forever.

So I'm very motivated by the question of does it look interesting?

And other people who are kind of operating more from the what do I want to do next will have their own questions.

But it's okay to be that kind of person and you don't need to have a plan.

Or not, you have been an absolutely fantastic guest today.

Mm-hmm.

Welcome.

Thank you so much for coming along to episode two of the Career Centre Forecast.

And thank you, our listeners, for listening to this episode, the Career Centre Podcast, Real Stories, Real Impact.

If there's anything we've talked about today that's got you thinking or a question in your next step, there is lots of support available.

You can visit Career Connect to explore opportunities, book appointments and find up-and-coming events and workshops.

And there's also loads of really useful information on our Career Centre webpage as we've spoke about today.

And of course, if you'd prefer to speak to someone in person, you're always welcome to come through the doors of the Career Centre.

We're always happy to help and support.

So take care and we'll see you in the next episode.

Your career journey doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be yours.