Employability and engagement key to graduate success

With almost 50 per cent of young people now going to university, the graduate employment market is becoming a crowded place. For students and graduates the picture is a lot more positive than the data portrays, but the key message is to take advantage of the help on offer at higher education careers services and, for those who are yet to enter higher education, to plan ahead. The good news is that university offers lots of opportunities for personal development and to become more employable. Getting a degree can open up a wide range of exciting opportunities; the experience equips graduates with the skills and knowledge as well as the confidence to enter the world of work at a level of competence expected by graduate employers

Developing business students' employability skills though working in partnership with a local business to deliver an undergraduate mentoring programme

Purpose Working collaboratively with local business is vitally important in the delivery of Higher Education in Further Education. This study aims to explore an effective way of engaging local employers to enhance the employability skills of students through a closely monitored and supported mentoring relationship. The project was developed in order to address the employability needs of final year business students at a higher education facility offered by a college situated in the North West of England. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative data was collected through the use of reflective journals and a series of focus groups with mentors and mentees Findings Overall both mentors and mentees reported positive responses to the mentoring scheme. From the mentees point of view self-confidence, employability skills and networks were enhanced. Mentors reported satisfaction in contributing to the local community. Challenges were found in matching mentors with appropriate mentees. A perceived poor match negatively affected the relationship. Mentors reported that mentees lacked career direction and seemed to have limited understanding of what was expected in the mentoring process. Research limitations/implications The scope of this study is one mentoring scheme in one institution and therefore has limited generalisability. However, there are implications for the development of further mentoring schemes in other institutions in the UK and beyond. Originality This mentoring scheme was carried out in FE that offers HE courses in a northern town with above average levels of unemployment and with a diverse ethnic population. The scheme involves senior managers volunteering to support business undergraduates

Does diagnostic profile predict outcome for online CBT for youth anxiety?

Examine potential predictors of response to online CBT for youth anxiety •  Focus on diagnostic profile, Examine whether youth with more complex diagnostic profile are more likely to show poorer outcomes at 12-month follow-up, Is online therapy suitable for everyone

Seeing the way: visual sociology and the distance runner's perspective

Employing visual and autoethnographic data from a two‐year research project on distance runners, this article seeks to examine the activity of seeing in relation to the activity of distance running. One of its methodological aims is to develop the linkage between visual and autoethnographic data in combining an observation‐based narrative and sociological analysis with photographs. This combination aims to convey to the reader not only some of the specific subcultural knowledge and particular ways of seeing, but also something of the runner's embodied feelings and experience of momentum en route. Via the combination of narrative and photographs we seek a more effective way of communicating just how distance runners see and experience their training terrain. The importance of subjecting mundane everyday practices to detailed sociological analysis has been highlighted by many sociologists, including those of an ethnomethodological perspective. Indeed, without the competence of social actors in accomplishing these mundane, routine understandings and practices, it is argued, there would in fact be no social order

Erratum to: Methods for evaluating medical tests and biomarkers

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1186/s41512-016-0001-y.]