We are all faced with making effective use of potential technologies and the challenge of making personalised support available in remote locations at all hours of the day. STARS is an interactive web-based resource created to enable students to identify, evidence and articulate their employability.
STARS was a collaborative project
between three university CETLs working together to create a web-based resource for
students to develop employability. The development team members were Arti Kumar MBE, CETL Associate Director from University of Bedfordshire, Damien Fitzgerald and Nick Nunnington from the Centre for Embedding, Enhancing and Integrating Employability at Sheffield Hallam
University, and Ellen Cocking representing Centre for Personalised and Integrated Learner Support at the Open University. They had all been involved in giving CV advice, observing that students find it very challenging to complete competency-based application forms.
The aim of the project has been to develop a tool for students and recent graduates to help them deconstruct their experiences and articulate the skills gained. The project team wanted to develop a tool that included an ample range of examples from common situations experienced by students from the diverse populations of all three universities. Existing tools known by the project team tended to approach this process of self reflection with very few examples and it was felt that when faced with such a daunting process users would benefit from a range of scenarios to demonstrate how to articulate their variety of experiences.
The authors have chosen indicative situations as examples in this resource that are typical of the student extra-curricular, work and life experience, so that they value such experiences and learn to articulate the learning and benefits they gain in appropriate self-promotion language - on paper and in person.
STARS is
an acronym that stands for Situation,
Tasks, Actions, Results and Skills. It represents the process
students need to go through when translating their experience into effective CV
language, and responses in applications and interviews. The issue of not being
able to recognise personal skills or achievements, and their relevance to
employers, makes it harder to compete for jobs. The STARS resource supports
individuals in this process by giving them guidance, examples and prompts to
enable them to articulate their own evidence from real-life examples. It is text-driven but also contains some audio-visual clips and links to other useful resources.
STARS is also a formula that many
employers use when they assess applicants during the selection process: they
expect the candidate to choose a specific situation,
refer to the tasks involved, their
individual actions and the results they achieved - such as the
skills and attributes they developed, what they learned, and any benefits they
produced for the company.
