Employability Award Application guide

Student Employability Centre

Overview

Once you have successfully completed and reflected upon your Employability Award activities you can apply to receive the Award upon graduation. This is a two step process involving a written application and an Award interview.

The application process is hosted within my ePortfolio which is an online tool for storing, tracking and presenting concrete evidence that demonstrates your skills, abilities, values, learning and experience. Through the application process you will create your own Employability Award ePortfolio for submission.

The benefits of using my ePortfolio to apply for the Award include:

• An opportunity to create an ‘experience bank’ of skills and attributes that can be drawn upon in future recruitment processes.

• Practice communicating your skills and attributes in a concise and professional manner.

• Establishing your personal brand and online identity.

A template has been provided for you within the Employability Award ePortfolio to assist you to appropriately structure your submission, however we encourage you to be creative in how you present your application (i.e. change themes, add multimedia).

There are three sections of the written Award application;• About Me• Resume• Statement of Claims

This guide will assist you in completing the written ePortfolio application by outlining what needs to be addressed in each section.

Accessing the ePortfolio

To setup your initial access to the Employability Award ePortfolio follow the below steps;

• Click on the my ePortfolio account setup course link in the left-hand panel of the Learn.UQ Welcome page.

• Click on the Submit button.• Click on the OK button.• Click on the ‘UQ Employability Award account setup’

link at the bottom of the page.• Accept the user agreement

Note: Your account will need to be renewed every 12 months by repeating the above steps .

Once inital setup is complete, you can access your Employability Award ePortfolio at any time from your Blackboard page by selecting the my ePortfolio course link.

Completing the ePortfolio

1. About Me

The purpose of this section is for you to develop your personal pitch, incorporating information about both your academic studies and key skills and attributes gained through the Employability Award activities.

In this section consider how you would promote yourself to a prospective employer and explain why you would be a great addition to their team as a result of the experience you’ve gained. This is a great opportunity to show your enthusiasm, creativity and personality.

1.1 Why you should do it?

• Opportunity to reflect on the culmination of all your Award experiences

• Highlight your key competencies • Creates a point of difference and positive first

impression• Enhance your LinkedIn profile

Employability AwardApplication guide 2019

Key Dates

29 April Award Applications due for Semester One graduates

30 September Award Applications due for Semester Two graduates

1.2 Format:

You have the choice of either submitting a video profile (one minute max.) or creating a written profile (professional picture & max. 200 word introduction).

To view an example of a video profile click here.

1.3 What to address in this section:

• Outline the course you have majored in at UQ.• Introduce 1-2 experiences from your Employability

Award experiences and outline the main skills and knowledge you developed.

• What sort of job do you want? Why is it the career for you?

• What attributes and attitudes do you have that would be an asset to an employer?

• What parting words could you say to leave a positive impression?

2. Resume

In this section, you can either choose to upload a copy of your resume or use the ePortfolio program to build your own.

Your resume will be reviewed as part of the application for the Employability Award. Ensure you have included the following key elements:

• Your contact details • Relevant educational experiences• Relevant work/extra-curricular experiences• Achievements & Successes• Document readability and flow.

For more support on how to prepare an effective resume visit studenthub.uq.edu.au/docs/107/Careers-Service-UQ-Factsheet-Resume-Guide-and-Checklist.pdf?studentSiteId=1

3. Statement of claims

The aim of the statement is to create a useful piece of work that captures your key skills and attributes. Through deep reflection and the documentation of artefacts you can represent what you know, what you can do and how these experiences have impacted you in terms of personal learning and growth.

This task draws on all of your experiences and requires you to identify key capabilities that you may find yourself demonstrating across various situations. Therefore, it

provides an opportunity to present a holistic overview of the key capabilities you have developed through your engagement in the Employability Award activities.

3.1 How to prepare your Statement of Claims

Choose four (4) skills or attributes that are critical to your future profession and write a response for each addressing the following questions;

• Explain how you developed the skill or attribute through your involvement in the Employability Award program

• Draw on the SEAL reflective process to structure your responses and incorporate artefacts to support your statement (i.e. photos, audio/video files, projects, work samples, references/testimonials).

• Highlight how the skills and experience you gained through the Award activities could be applied to your work practices in the future.

3.2 Format

Each response must be entered individually as shown in the Employability Award ePortfolio Statement of Claims template.

Each response must be at least 300 words in length.

3.3 Evidence and Artefacts

The ePortfolio offers a great opportunity to be creative with your application and provide evidence to support your claim by incorporating multi-media.

Whilst completing the Employability Award activities you are encouraged to collect various forms of evidence of your development so you can include these in your Statement of Claim and/or draw on them in future recruitment processes.

Examples of multi-media/evidence include:• photos/images• video files• audio files• work samples (flyers, publications, reports, proposals)• certificates• references/testimonials

Video content recommendations within ePortfolio can be accessed via web.library.uq.edu.au/library-services/it/learnuq-blackboard-help/learnuq-assessment/eportfolio/video-content-recommendations

Editing your ePortfolio theme

A default theme will be selected for the Employability Award ePortfolio however we encourage you be creative and either design your own or pick another from those

Customize the Portfolio Theme & Footerhttp://userguide.chalkandwire.com/m/Student/l/170795-5-customize-the-portfolio-theme-footer

Create a Custom Portfolio Themehttp://userguide.chalkandwire.com/m/Student/l/550574-create-a-custom-portfolio-theme

How you ePortfolio is assessed

Rubrics have been provided within ePortfolio for both the written application and interview so you can see how you will be assessed. To view the rubrics;

• Select the ‘How will I be assessed button’ within the Table of Contents page for the Employability Award ePortfolio

• Expand the ‘About Me’ section and select the ‘View’ link to see the rubrics.

Submitting the ePortfolio

Once all components of your ePortfolio are complete, the Submit button will become available (green) in your ePortfolio.

At this point, you will need to submit the Employability Award ePortfolio component ONLY to a selected assessor.

The 2019 Employability Award selected assessor is Sarah Campbell.

Follow the below steps to submit your ePortfolio:

• Click on the green Submit button• Select the tick box for the Employability Award

ePortfolio under the Assessment Instruments section and then select Continue

• Enter the name of your assessor• Select the required assessor; their name will be

displayed in bold below the textbox.• Click on the Submit button, use the Review

Submission button to check your work and then click on the Close button.

Note: The Submitted icon and date will be display in the right hand side panel.

Note: Staff receive a time / date stamp of your submission.

Submit - ePortfolio submission to a selected assessorweb.library.uq.edu.au/library-services/it/learnuq-blackboard-help/learnuq-assessment/eportfolio/eportfolio-submission-selected-assessor

Reviewing your results

Once your written application has been assessed, you will receive feedback via the rubric in ePortfolio as well as an email inviting you to book an Award interview via StudentHub.

For instructions on how to view your results for a single ePortfolio assessment visitweb.library.uq.edu.au/library-services/it/learnuq-blackboard-help/learnuq-assessment/eportfolio/eportfolio-reviewing-results

ePortfolio technical support

For any technical advice related to the use of my ePortfolio please contact the Library via the Ask Us page.

web.library.uq.edu.au/contact-us

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Additionally, you can view a range of more specific technical guides via web.library.uq.edu.au/library-services/it/learnuq-blackboard-help/learnuq-assessment/eportfolio

Add Content - Create an ePortfolio text blockweb.library.uq.edu.au/library-services/it/learnuq-blackboard-help/learnuq-assessment/eportfolio/create-eportfolio-text-block

Add Content - Upload an ePortfolio file or documentweb.library.uq.edu.au/library-services/it/learnuq-blackboard-help/learnuq-assessment/eportfolio/upload-eportfolio-file-or-document

Add Content - ePortfolio Navigation web.library.uq.edu.au/library-services/it/learnuq-blackboard-help/learnuq-assessment/eportfolio/eportfolio-navigation

Submit Work - ePortfolio Withdrawal and Resubmissionweb.library.uq.edu.au/library-services/it/learnuq-blackboard-help/learnuq-assessment/eportfolio/eportfolio-withdrawal-and-resubmission

View results and reports - ePortfolio reviewing resultsweb.library.uq.edu.au/library-services/it/learnuq-blackboard-help/learnuq-assessment/eportfolio/eportfolio-reviewing-results

my ePortfolio Alumni access

Students who have graduated or otherwise left UQ will have a limited form of access (expired student) to all content within their ePortfolio for a period of 4 years without charge.

Follow this link to find out how to retain access to ePortfolio web.library.uq.edu.au/library-services/it/learnuq-blackboard-help/learnuq-assessment/eportfolio/eportfolio-access-after-graduation

For further details, please contact:

Employability Award Student Employability Centre +61 7 3346 3459 employability@uq.edu.au employability.uq.edu.au/award