Graduate toolkit

The Graduate Toolkit is a set of resources to enable you to:

reflect on your skills and experience
identify areas for improvement
keep a journal of your development
sell your skills and experience to an employer.

As well as assessing your skills and keeping a journal of your development, you can:

Store examples of your work and evidence your experience through text, graphics, photographs, video - whatever works for you and the employers you're looking to impress.
Develop the flexibility to produce a range of tailored job applications/CVs using your stored resources
Create and maintain a secure, offline web-based profile which only goes live to the web when you're ready.

You'll find The Graduate Toolkit resources within studentfolio.

You may already use studentfolio to write up and submit coursework. If not, see our guide to using studentfolio to familiarise yourself.

Step up - Skill up - Stand out

A three-step process to success.

Step up

1. Step up - use the Graduate Toolkit resources to identify gaps in your skills and knowledge, plan to develop skills.

Skill up

2. Skill up - gain work or other extra curricular experience, reflect upon what you've done and collect evidence of skills.

Stand out

3. Stand out - articulate your skills to an employer with a CV and e-portfolio, practise presentations and learn how to be effective at interviews.

What do employers want

We surveyed 500 local employers to find out what they wanted from Brighton graduates. The skills they most frequently asked for can be grouped into the following categories:

Self-Management
Skills include: Self-assessment, career planning, application techniques, wellbeing

Communication
Skills include: Written and spoken communications, presentation skills, emotional intelligence and networking

Enterprise
Skills include: Innovation and creativity, initiative, entrepreneurship, commercial awareness,

Research
Skills Include: analysis and evaluation of information, project management, problem solving, numerical reasoning

For a full list of the skills identified in this research - see the Employability Skills Framework (pdf).

Graduate Toolkit
Investing a little time at university using the Graduate Toolkit could give you the edge when it comes to taking the first step in your graduate career.

"I think that what employers want and what most new graduates think employers want are very different things. Above all, an employer is looking for a certain mind-set. They need employees who know what they know, but are aware of what they do not yet know; who are willing to get on with projects on their own, but know when to ask for advice or guidance; who are prepared to take responsibility early, but who are willing to do the drudgery as well; who get on well with senior clients, but who recognise their lack of experience; who are respectful to seniors, but also willing to challenge; who are professional and diligent, but also fun to work with.

Graduates are expected to come with some of the tools of the trade already mastered, but they must be enthusiastic about learning the way their industry and their new company works, and be prepared to do whatever is asked of them to the best of their ability, as they gather experience and techniques.

If you are the least experienced person in the room, you will not get respect because of your qualifications. You will get respect from knowing your stuff, from working hard, from fitting in with cultural norms and from delivering results."

Paddy Herlihy - Managing Director, Smaller World and 1981 Brighton graduate.

Using studentfolio

What is studentfolio?

studentfolio is the university’s dedicated web-based e-portfolio tool.

If you are using studentfolio on your course, your tutor will guide you on how and what to use it for. It can be part of:

Personal Development Planning (PDP) via the Graduate Toolkit
Evidence for summative assessment
Records of achievement
Target setting and planning
Project management
Critical reflection

What can I use it for?

You can use it practically to:

Record your studies

Recording achievements, placement activities and study visits
Seeing an overview of what you have learnt
Showing how you’ve met objectives and standards.

Aid your learning

Collecting appropriate evidence
Outlining the progress you’ve made
Encouraging you to reflect on your work
Submit an assignment for assessment
Organise projects
Receive feedback.

Prepare for employment

Write a CV
Make a job application
Prepare for a job interview.

What are the benefits?

An e-portfolio enables you take advantage of the digital technologies that have transformed the way you can represent yourself and your work online.
More convenient. Being able to record and share aspects of your learning and development electronically, in the form of an e-portfolio, is often more convenient.
A showcase to demonstrate your learning and development. Your e-portfolio provides the opportunity to showcase your continuous academic development and acquisition of skills to tutors and potential employers. Unlike other online tools like Facebook or LinkedIn studentfolio is structured to allow students to really evidence their skills and learning.
An opportunity to practice digital skills. Working electronically to manage your professional profile and learning in an ePortfolio provides you with the type of technical skills employers are looking for.

Represent yourself professionally online. Having a secure and private space to develop your personal identity before making it public can ensure you make the right first impression.
Adaptable and flexible. Content in your e-portfolio can be quickly and easily updated or customised to present content to different audiences, for example, to a potential employer or for assessment.
A single place to collect and save work. All of your digital work is held in one place that you can access securely through the Internet.

How to present yourself online

Think carefully about the information you put online. Here are some tips to make your e-portfolio as professional and secure as possible. Remember to follow the university’s conditions of use for using the computing system.

Privacy and security

Keep content you are unsure about private or in draft (e.g. blog post) so no one else can see it before making it publically available.

Don’t make your personal contact details available on a public post or web page. (e.g. phone number, date of birth, home address) Making this information publically available can put you at risk of identity fraud, endanger your personal security and encourage spamming of your email address.

Check who can see the content on the web pages you’ve produced, especially where you have included links to content that might build up to over time e.g. blog posts.

Content

Once you have published content in your e-portfolio and sent this to people it can be difficult to change at a later date, so:

Ensure all of the information you place online is accurate and appropriate
Present information professionally
Check for any spelling mistakes
Keep the tone of your e-portfolio positive and constructive
Integrate social media in to your e-portfolio. (e.g. Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) and cross link your content if you use other online tools - the more links you use the higher you will come up in searches via search engines
Add a link to your e-portfolio into your email signature and to your CV
Include an avatar image on your profile to help make your online identity more personal
Abide by and respect the ethical or professional standards of any organisations you are a member of or affiliated to.

Make sure you own the copyright or you have copyright permission on the materials you use in your e-portfolio, especially images taken from the internet.

Make sure all materials that are not your own work are properly attributed or referenced.

If the material you want to use is copyrighted, seek permission from the copyright owner to be able to include this in your web pages.

Feedback

Ask for feedback on your e-portfolio from tutors, friends and Careers Service to improve it.

Be respectful of others; make sure any comments or feedback you provide is helpful and constructive.