Basic Guidance Interview Skills

2 day course

This two day course provides an introduction to the guidance interview for those with little or no previous experience. It will involve developing the basic skills of contracting and exploring, with plenty of opportunity to observe the process. Short role-plays on the first day will enable participants to start putting these skills into practice. The second day will include conducting a short and a long interview with real student volunteers, and participants will receive individual feedback.

Brilliant Blogging: The art of online conversation

Through a combination of discussion and demonstration, this interactive workshop will explore blogging for careers. Suitable for both beginners and more experienced bloggers looking for new ideas, this course will answer your questions on:

• What is a blog? Why blog?
• What can I blog about? - Generating ideas and evaluating content
• How do I write posts? - Including good writing styles and adding multimedia content
• How do I encourage people to read posts? - Publicising your blog and making your content attractive
• How much work is it? - Defining goals, measuring success and maintaining momentum

Guidance in Quick Queries

½ day course

Would you like to make better use of your guidance skills in a quick query or drop-in appointment? This session will provide an opportunity to explore and develop your practice so that your guidance skills play a key part in dealing with a broad range of presenting issues.

Guidance with Mature or Experienced Clients

½ day course

 

Does the thought of dealing with experienced clients make you feel uncomfortable? Does the fact that they might have paid for their interview put extra pressure on you? Are you concerned about the range of complex issues that may arise? This course will attempt to address some of those concerns by looking at what really happens in these guidance interviews. We will look at ways of managing expectations (both the clients and the advisers!) and gain insights into the skills and knowledge that are really useful by discussing case studies of typical experienced clients. This course will also be useful for those conducting guidance with mature students and graduates and academic staff.

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Working Successfully with Academics

½ day course

Building effective working relationships with academic colleagues can be one of the most challenging and rewarding aspects of HE careers work. This session aims to support staff in this process through information, debate and case studies. Areas explored will include:

• Academic career structures, pressures and agendas;
• Reasons to work well with academics;
• Useful approaches to building successful partnerships

Effective Groupwork and Facilitation Skills

1 day course

Our one day 'Effective Groupwork and Facilitation Skills' course will help you to devise and plan better training sessions and develop your facilitation skills to get the most out of student-centred groupwork. You will learn how to adapt your training to suit individual learning styles and learn techniques and tools to make your sessions interactive, fun and effective.

Reception interviewing techniques

½ day course

Ever found yourself tied in knots trying to explain how you can help? Ever felt the initial discussion is going nowhere - or worse? Ever been baffled by a seemingly simple request?

Sometimes clients are unclear what their real information and guidance needs are; every client responds differently; so it can be difficult to refer them efficiently to the best resources. This interactive session is designed to help you manage interviews with clients at the enquiry desk more confidently, leading to better results for you, your client and your service.

Blogging for Beginners

½ day course

In this hands-on session we will start from scratch and create a blog using Wordpress. The course will address participants' questions about blogging, including:

o Why should a careers service have a blog?
o What do I write?
o How often should I update it?
o Is it worth the time and effort?
o How do I get readers?
o Will my employer approve it?

The objectives are to both demonstrate the benefits of blogging in enhancing services to users, and to familiarize those new to blogging with the typical writing process. Everything you need to get you blogging with confidence!