Innovation in employability- a strengths approach to personal and professional development

Manchester Met Business School welcomes 10,000 students annually, with 51% being the first generation in their family to attend university, and overall 65% from diverse backgrounds. To enable our student body to effectively realise their career ambitions, we partnered with Cappfinity to support students to recognise and foreground their personal strengths in an individual skills profile, when developing their career plans and confidence in their abilities. This approach differs from the standard university career planning processes and has been transformational for our student body, with a 67% increase in students being ‘career ready’ at the start of their final year.
We’ll share how our Strengths approach addresses student employability outcomes from a totally different angle than the standard university careers readiness ethos, by instilling confidence in each student’s unique set of strengths. In doing so, we are developing our student’s workplace skills and confidence in what they excel at doing.