2007 student administration the university of auckland, new zealand they can walk the walk, but can...

20072007Student AdministrationStudent AdministrationThe University of Auckland, New ZealandThe University of Auckland, New Zealand

They can walk the walk, but can they talk the talk?

How students benefit from university careers

services in their transition to the workplace Sophie Reissner and Gillian Reynolds

ANZSSA AUT University - Dec 2-5 2007


Mission statement:

The University Careers Centre aims to equip students and recent graduates of the University of Auckland to make informed career decisions and to achieve the transition to a wide range of fulfilling and satisfying employment opportunities throughout their lives.

THE UNIVERSITY OF AUCKLAND CAREERS CENTRE


• Workshops: – Interviews, CVs , Job search and Skills

• Appointments: – Career Options and Interview Practice

• Drop-in: – quick queries, CV and cover letter checks

• Postgraduate careers consultant • Faculty

– workshops, lectures and drop-in services

• Resources: – careers library, careers website, online psychometric tests

• Employer Liaison:– vacancy website, employer presentations, careers fairs

WHAT WE OFFER


• Interventions include:– query-on-duty, information, videos,

workshops and practice interview• Appointment system accommodates

short-notice practice interview bookings • Practice interviews are tailored to the CV

and job ad and job description

HELP! I HAVE AN INTERVIEW NEXT WEEK!


“Hi there, I just wanted to say thank you, for your help and your awesome workshops! I went to most of them and also had one-on-one consultations for my CV and a practice interview ...I can proudly say that I am now in my third week with MAF…and I do think that you guys helped this awesome outcome! Thanks Heaps! Your service and webpage, workshops and resources are a massive help, I’m sure for heaps of us students! Facing the ‘real’ world after Uni is aided heaps by your advice and friendly manner!”

“Often, college satisfaction is tied with satisfaction with career services personnel and programs offered by such a department” (Rayman, 1993).

WHO DOES IT WORK FOR?


Mighty River Power in 2006 was so impressed with the calibre of our graduates and their presentation and interview skills that they created several new positions to hire these students

AND IF YOU THOUGHT THAT WAS GOOD …


• Student worries – “My English isn’t good enough”– “I have no skills/ work experience”– “I don’t know what to say”

• Employer expectations– 70% of employers indicate that they want evidence of

skills• Perceived language competence

» Prof. Marie Wilson, Mgt and Employment Relations

SO WHAT CAN GO WRONG?


• Commitment to “best practice” means that anecdotal evidence, overseas literature and training films are not enough.

• NZ career consultants in the tertiary sector see that authentic local research data can help clarify patterns of need relevant to our specific client base

RATIONALE BEHIND THE NEED FOR RESEARCH


Quality evaluation questionnaires have enabled us to estimate that we are currently providing face-to-face central careers services to a group of students of whom just over a third use English as a first language (L1) and nearly two thirds use English as a second language (L2).

This figure does not include data from • website• careers.sci • faculty users

OUR CLIENT GROUP


Expert-Novice distinction as opposed to L1-L2 distinction

L1-L2 distinction is depoliticised • Students are all novices in the community• Recruiters and Careers Consultants are all experts in the

community

Student goalsNovice members’ goals include establishing co-membership; rapport, intersubjectivity or ‘something in common’ in the job interview. This can be a shared understanding of the activity itself, not necessarily a shared cultural background.

Roberts (1985)

THE DISCOURSE COMMUNITY


1. To what extent do students demonstrate communicative strategies appropriate to the activity (the recruitment interview)?

2. What linguistic and interactional factors are advantaging or disadvantaging them?

RESEARCH QUESTIONS


1. Students from ALL language backgrounds may be disadvantaged in such interactions by

– lack of cultural capital in the dominant discourse community

– lack of understanding of the rationale behind the interview format

– inability to present context- and goal-appropriate narrative evidence of past behaviour

2. Cultural differences do not preclude effective interview behaviour, in the same way that similarities in cultural or language background don’t guarantee it.

SOME WORKING HYPOTHESES


1. Audio-record real practice interviewsresearcher not present

– plus five-minute questionnaire 2. Audio-record a follow-up interview with each participant

separately– Stimulated Recall procedure– Ideally within two days

– Repeat procedure with subsequent real interviews where permission granted by participants

– Online questionnaire to a wider number of participants (2008)

DESIGN OF THE STUDY


• General questions– “Tell me a bit about yourself”

• Behavioural questions– “Tell me about a time when..”

• Case questions• Any questions?• Underlying questions

Formula for answering behavioural questions:

Situation/Task (20%) Action (60%)Results (20%)

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS


• Hypothesis:– Behavioural questions most problematic

• Evidence has to be packaged into structured narratives

• Result:– General questions equally hard

• Evidence has to be packaged into structured narratives – to support contentions e.g. strengths, weaknesses

– practice interview - negative/ positive feedback

RESULT (i) ~ QUESTION TYPES


• Schema mismatch– Skills, achievements, qualifications and personal qualities – Which are which?

• Implications– Ability to differentiate can be acquired perhaps most

effectively in two stages• Schema activation

– skills workshop - conceptual understanding• “Direct” script acquisition - learning by doing

RESULTS (ii) ~ EMPLOYMENT COMPETENCIES


Despite:• Differences in the linguistic expression of modesty • Differences in expectations re activity-type norms• Affective variables which can impact on performance

• Students in the study demonstrated effective communicative strategies in this respect

• Careers consultants scaffolded them to do so

“The interview is an opportunity for candidates to ‘sell’ themselves but not oversell themselves. Answers should be modestly expressed and backed up with examples.” Roberts (1985:13)

“[It’s a] very human tendency to play yourself down - [but] playing yourself down in an interview isn’t honesty, it’s stupidity.” Gottesman & Mauro (1999:24)

RESULTS (ii) ~ MODESTY AND ‘SELLING’ YOURSELF


However• The teamwork question revealed deeper issues

– Talking about oneself in relation to others– Roles within the team– The role of leader

• Nearly all students used less effective strategies to talk about their experiences of teamwork

• Grammatical analysis – Marked use of [im]personal pronouns

• Repeated follow-up questions from interviewers

RESULTS (iii) ~ A DIFFICULT QUESTION


• “The process of vocational development is essentially that of developing and implementing a self-concept” (Super, 1957).

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CAREERS


• Perceived language competence» Prof. Marie Wilson, Mgt and Employment Relations

– The transition between university and the workplace can be more difficult for L2 users.

– Achieving co-membership with the interviewer is a main goal

• PLC can be transcended, and co-membership achieved by demonstrating a shared understanding of the event

“Candidates will be judged as ‘fitting in well with us’ if what they say seems relevant and clear, if they say the right amount, and if they can pick up on the hidden message behind the question” Roberts 1985

FINALLY


• Adelsward, V. (1988). Styles of success: On impression management as collaborative action in job interviews. Linkoping Studies in Arts and Science 23. Linkoping: University of Linkoping.

• Campbell, S., & Roberts, C. (2007). Migration, ethnicity and competing discourses in the job interview: Synthesizing the institutional and personal. Discourse & Society, 18(5).

• Erickson, F. and Shultz, J. (1982). The counselor as gatekeeper: Social interaction in interviews. New York: Academic Press.

• Gioia, D.A & Poole, P.P. (1984). Scripts in organisational behaviour. Academy of Management Review, 9(3).

• Gottesman, D. and Mauro, B. (1999). The interview rehearsal book. New York: Berkely Books.• Oakley, B., Felder, R. M., Brent, R., & Elhajj, I. (2004). Turning student groups into effective teams.

Journal of Student Centered Learning, 2(1).• Rayman, J.R. (1993). Contemporary career services: Theory defines practice. In J.R. Rayman

(Ed.), The changing role of career services (pp. 3-22). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.• Roberts, C. (1985). The interview game - and how it's played. London: BBC Books• Roberts, C., & Campbell, S. (2005). Fitting stories into boxes: rhetorical and textual constraints on • candidates' performances in British job interviews. Journal of Applied Linguistics [Online], 2(1).• Super, D.E. (1957). The psychology of careers. New York: Harper Collins.• Tarone, E. (2005). English for Special Purposes and interlanguage pragmatics. In K. Bardovi-Harlig

and B. S. Hartford, (Eds.), Interlanguage pragmatics: Exploring institutional talk (pp157-173). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

REFERENCES

2007 student administration the university of auckland, new zealand they can walk the walk, but can...

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