Graduate Career Destinations

Capture of WBS graduates' career destination data is essential for future alumni contact, rankings, development and profile-raising. Currently, only 47% of UG career destination data is recorded and even less for postgraduates. This project aims to create a single repository for data, a single process with clear responsibilities for data collection, and 80% data capture within three years.

Improvement Champion
Alison Bond, Deputy Director of Development and Alumni Relations, WBS

Project Manager
Paul Dawson, Technology Integrator, WBS

Facilitators
Olivia Brook, Catherine Gordon

This project is still underway, with good progress having been made on the building blocks for success - a communications group established, process maps finalised, PROD approval obtained for a project to improve synchronisation between MIS/SITS and Raiser's Edge.

Below is a summary of why we needed to improve this process and progress to date. More details are available from the progress report (PDF Document) .

UG AND PG CAREER DESTINATIONS DATA-CAPTURE PROCESS	DESCRIPTION
Process Issue(s)	WBS needs to capture (and store in Raiser’s Edge (RE) career destination data for all its graduates accurately and in a timely fashion. This is essential for alumni contact, rankings, development and marketing purposes, all of which are of crucial importance for WBS. Currently, the percentage of data captured is only 47% overall (lower for PGs) and much of it is inaccurate. Moreover the process and responsibilities for collecting data are very unclear.
Planned Improvement	The aim of the project is an improved process which ensures that: v The various “contact points” are identified and used for data‐gathering, as part of an holistic process v There is a single, central, accessible repository for the data v 80% capture of complete career destination data achieved within 3 years v Data is gathered within a shorter, agreed timescale
Benefits	v Release of work capacity through elimination of duplicated activity for WBS DARO, PCD & UoW Careers, programme teams v Simplified, agreed process with responsibilities and timescales clearly defined v Improved service for alumni and students who will only have to provide data once, to set timescales. v Data is in place for SM rankings when introduced v More comprehensive destinations data will provide better marketing collateral and gain competitive advantage over other UK HEIs v Improved and increased information for alumni and students via online directory
Key process changes	v Co-ordinate WBS management of graduate destination data via project team v Develop shared systems for communicating career destinations process to students and reliably transferring data from MIS/SITS/RE v Obtain access to and utilise DHLE (career destinations) survey data to populate RE v Develop (via PROD proposal): (a) online form for submission of business details by graduands into MIS, and (b) link to E‐vision student portal for update of personal details in SITS.
Progress	v Process maps finalised for UG and Specialist Masters v Communications sub group set up, 1st meeting completed, action plan devised v Proposal for improving synchronisation of student contact between MIS/SITS/RE approved by PROD v Monitoring of uni/WBS communications to graduands/graduates in progress – some issues already identified v Assessment of feasibility of combining FT calling campaign with DLHE calling campaign completed v Investigation of whether unvalidated DLHE survey data can be provided to WBS completed
Successes	To be updated.
Improvement Team	Karen Barker, Alison Bond (Improvement Champion), Olivia Brook (Facilitator), Jie Cao, Claudie Combelas, Kimberley Counsell, Paul Dawson (Project Champion), Trixie Gadd, Thea Gibbs, Catherine Gordon (Facilitator), Pat Hodges, Clare Hudson, Bob Johnson, Jon Lees, Tracy Lynch, Suranga Rajapakse, Sally Taylor.