The Careers and Employability team has launched an adaptable assessment toolkit for Flinders educators to build student employability skills and to improve their preparedness for the ‘world of work’.

Inspired and adapted from an original set of assessment pieces produced by Innovative Research Universities the Flinders Employability Assessment toolkit (Figure 1) brings together foundational career education and navigation activities, building student knowledge and skills from broad sector understanding and exploration, to deepening knowledge of ‘self’ (strengths, values, skills) and sector, and finally, to job application tasks.

Figure 1: Flinders Employability Assessment Toolkit – main framework

Mapped
Each of the 11 assessment pieces has been mapped against key employability skills valued by employers – communication, teamwork, digital literacy, problem solving, critical thinking, initiative and enterprise – to remind students that they are picking up valuable skills during their study.

Flexible
To maximise flexibility, they have been designed to operate as an integrated but adaptable set.

For example, for a single degree area, they could be introduced to students at each year of study. Or, they may be adapted for a stand-alone employability subject, or several assessment pieces selected for embedding in a particular discipline-based topic.

Rubrics
Rubrics or marking guides with detailed assessment criteria have been provided for each assessment; teaching staff are encouraged to use these as a guide and adapt them for purpose.

Alternatively, teaching staff may also choose to offer these as part of non-graded assessments or activities.

Tailored Resources
The toolkit is the latest initiative in the Careers and Employability team’s efforts to develop complementary, centralised resources for teaching staff that can be tailored and incorporated into teaching materials.

Other resources include the development of College-based course specific resources for most undergraduate degree areas and a growing suite of career development recordings (20-60 minutes) – on career planning, job search strategies, resumes, cover letters, selection criteria, interviews, networking and graduate programs – that can be used to support teaching.

The Careers and Employability team are keen to work with teaching staff to adapt and develop these resources and for ideas for improvement.

Email careers@flinders.edu.au or 8201 2832.