UCT Careers Service Celebrates 50 Years

It started out in 1968 as a small wooden building next to the Geology Department where The Leslie Social Science building is today. A memo to the University community stated that the first careers office would be established on campus and the head, Niels Lindhard, promised an “open door principle” where students could get advice on job opportunities while employers could learn recruitment skills.

Fifty years later, UCT Careers Service (CS) has evolved into a world-class, award-winning innovative department within the Centre for Higher Education Development (CHED) and this year celebrates five decades of service excellence and dedication to helping students navigate the changing world of work.

The CS launched its 50th anniversary celebrations recently, with various stakeholders in attendance, including the outgoing Vice-Chancellor, Dr Max Price and the Dean of CHED, Professor Suellen Shay. The celebration was bitter-sweet as it marked the departure of its current director, David Casey, who for the past six years has been pivotal in providing leadership to his dedicated staff, and who led the way to the CS being recognised globally as an example of best practice and innovation.

Casey welcomed all in attendance and thanked them for their involvement in building the service over the past fifty years.

“This year marks our 50th anniversary, a significant achievement. However, in celebrating this moment we choose to look forward not backwards. As a team our focus remains firmly on what lies ahead. We understand that we can’t build futures based solely on our past and are committed to taking the CS to the next level to better support students access, success and the transition to the world of work.”

Strongly aligned to UCT’s 2017-2020 Strategic Planning Framework, the CS targets the needs of students, employers and the wider community through its various programmes such as expos, company presentation and showcases, and face-to-face careers advice. Its most recent achievements can be found in its Year Review 2017.

The CS is known for its high standards, and its multiple awards bear testament to this. It has won the South African Graduate Employers Association (SAGEA) Best Careers Service award each year since 2010. In 2017, it won the SAGEA Best Careers Fair for the seventh time, and was awarded Best Employability/Work Readiness initiative. The CS has also been the recipient of the two MACE marketing awards and was ranked #2 in the global student Careers Satisfaction survey that was conducted by Universum (and voted by UCT students). Most recently, its pioneering Graduate Exit Survey, made easy through the help of an innovative M&E dashboard created at the service, helps inform the work it does and tracks the impact of the service.

Then and Now

The CS has always been known for its innovation, even in the seventies when it had booklets advising companies on recruitment and surveys on starting salaries, first occupations and why first years chose their specific subjects. It moved to the Kramer Building in the early eighties, and ran its first three-day careers conference in 1984, according to a newspaper report. That same year, after the Academic Planning Committee conducted a review, Senate and Council accepted a recommendation that “career development and enhancement of graduate employability are crucial to the production of competent, confident and well-rounded individuals able to make a major contribution to our society.”

The service kept growing until it was incorporated into CHED where it reports to the Dean. It has had many milestones, and in 2017 it ran various events including the Careers Festival (incorporating expos, career talks and an inaugural student entrepreneurship week, in which 15 000 students attended over a 10-week period.

The CS also provides an online portal linking students to employer opportunities and events, and offers career-related online resource 24/7 via its website.

UCT Vice-chancellor Dr Max Price said that the measure of the CS’ success was evident in it being ranked as the best in South Africa for many years.

“In 2016, it was rated number 2 in the world in terms of the Careers Service satisfaction survey, and if one looks at the innovation that has come throughout CS, you can see that we’ve really had outstanding leadership and a global perspective on what a world-class careers service should look like. We are really proud of what it has become and what David has helped shape here.”

“One of my pet projects has been the UCT Plus Programme [run by the CS], which is a way of incentivising and formally recognising the extramural activities that students participate in, particularly leadership activities and social responsiveness activities. By including that in the transcript along with the results, I feel we have achieved one of my core goals and objectives in coming in as vice-chancellor, which was to find ways of incentivising and making practical our ambition to have students develop a sense of social justice issues, understand issues of inequality in society and that they need to be active citizens.”

Dr Price said that the over the years the value of the degree has changed in the world of work. Careers services needed to scan the environment and keep educators up-to-date with the changing values of credentials, how universities could adapt their educational programmes and careers services, and how graduates fit into that changing world.

Associate Professor Suellen Shay said that Casey has brought incredible leadership with the help of an amazing team.

“David has always been very clear about who it is that he is here to serve and what that service is for, and it has always been about the students.

“What is interesting about what the CS has done is that it is there to help all students, no matter who they are and what they bring with them to this environment.”

As a tribute to Casey, Associate Professor Shay acknowledged his unique ability to network and approach to life-long learning, where he would always seek to turn challenges into opportunities.

Casey said the success of the service was due to the dedicated staff.  “All this is achieved by a small but growing team of professional, dedicated and student-centred individuals. We constantly strive to empower and bring out the best in each other and the students we serve,” he said.