Public engagement and your career
On this page
- Careers in public engagement
- Developing employability skills through engagement
Careers in public engagement
Watch a panel discussion we held on careers in public engagement hereLink opens in a new window.
How can getting involved with public engagement help you to develop employability skills?
The Warwick Award is based around 12 core employability skills that employers tell us are crucial for the next step in your journey. You can read more about the skills on the Student Opportunity webpages. On this page we explore how public engagement can help you develop the 12 core skills.
- Critical thinking
- Information literacy
- Digital literacy
- Sustainability
- Communication
- Intercultural awareness
- Teamwork
- Organisational awareness
- Problem solving
- Ethical values
- Self-awareness
- Professionalism
Critical thinking
Critical thinking is particularly important when designing the evaluation of your public engagement activity or project. You can learn more here.
Information literacy
Information literacy is relevant when you are communicating research findings to the public, particularly being aware when you need to acknowledge limitations of the research. Another thing to consider is that different audiences may have different levels of information literacy, or different preferences for how information is presented.
Digital literacy
Develop your digital literacy through learning to engage people online, use social media for engagement, make a podcast or create a research animation. Learn more here.
Sustainability
Engaging with our local communities and understanding how we are interconnected is an important part of thinking sustainably. Sustainability is not just about environmental impact; it is also about considering how projects and events impact people and communities. You can read more about this here and here.
Communication
Engagement is all about communication. Learn practical skills for communicating with the public.
Teamwork
Public engagement involves teamwork with fellow students, staff and the public. Check out what opportunities for involvement are coming up. Most of our Warwick Award opportunities involve working in a small group.
Organisational Awareness
Being aware of how your public engagement activity, event or project fits into the wider context of your own and partner organisations’ priorities and ways of working can help you to get support for it as well as enhancing the opportunities for positive outcomes.
Learn how public engagement fits into the University’s strategy. Consider how to collaborate with partner organisations and communities.
Professionalism
Professionalism is particularly important in public engagement as you are representing both yourself and the University to the public and community groups (amongst others). Working professionally helps to maintain good relationships so that we can continue to work with the same partners. It also helps build and maintain your own and the University’s reputation so that we can attract new partners and audiences.
Ways of being professional include the important basics like:
- being on time.
- sticking to agreements. E.g., if your group has promised to visit a school on a certain day and time, the school will have arranged their timetable around that agreement so it’s important you fulfil it.
- dressing appropriately for the event.
- communicating respectfully.
- paying close attention to detail, for example when planning.
- and time management, particularly when this impacts on others.
Problem solving
As with any project, public engagement sometimes requires problem solving in the planning or delivery stages. You can find advice on event planning here.
Your public engagement itself might be responding to a problem; you might start by researching and defining a problem before working out how it could be solved through a public engagement activity or project.
Ethical values
Your ethical values might influence you to get involved in public engagement. You may be particularly motivated to work with young people for ethical reasons, or you might be looking to engage the public with sensitive topics.
When we are working with the public and external partners, we should work ethically. One of the things that could help with this is considering everyone’s needs and expectations at the start of a project and agreeing what will happen in different eventualities. You can read more about this here and here.
Self-awareness
Public engagement uses lots of different skills and knowledge. Evaluating your public engagement work and identifying further training needs is important for your development.