Parallel sessions

This presentation focuses on how he and his colleagues at the Career Center work with the integration of “soft skills” in the different programs. During their first years as students, they have the chance to strengthen their personal and professional development in parallel with their studies. The SMART Student diploma track is a collaboration with the school’s professional coaches and the participation facilitates, simplifies and streamlines the students’ time.

The SMART Student track runs during the first three to five semesters in the different programs on both Bachelor’s and Master’s levels. The modules are integrated into the courses they study. In the first semester, we focus on basic skills that you need to pass your studies, then the focus shifts to self-awareness and the ability to function sustainably with other people – skills for personal and professional development.

See the presentation SMART student (pdf)

Ulrik Lork – School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg

Ulrik Lork works as a career counsellor at the School of Business, Economics and Law in Gothenburg. He devotes his time to supporting the students through lectures, individual sessions and online career tools.

When focusing on extracurricular activities and career services for students, we primarily connect with students who are already far in their career planning and can act on their own. So, in recent years we have worked towards integrating employability and career competencies into the curriculum. This makes it possible to reach a larger group of students, but it also enables us to work with students ability to transfer their knowledge into practical settings in and outside the university. University teachers play a key role in working with employability in the curriculum.

One of our tools for working with career competencies within the curriculum is our competency development programme for university teachers, Teach-the Teacher. Here, academic staff improve their ability to work with the integration of employability on both study and course levels by highlighting the relevance and context of the subject knowledge in their teaching. In our presentation, we will give an insight into our experiences and the potential of working with the above.

See the presentation Integrating employability and career competencies into curriculum (pdf)

Marie Sindberg Jensen and Stine Pilsmark Kaldahl – University of Southern Denmark

Stine Pilsmark Kaldahl, Head of Office, and Marie Sindberg Jensen, Career Consultant, at Team Careers & Employability, SDU RIO, University of Southern Denmark. Team Careers & Employability is a unit that supports the university in its work on employability and employment. We help students, academic staff and management to create a clear connection between academic subject knowledge and the surrounding society.

I would like to share my experiences from working on a career development project and show one of the results of the project, a digital career portal in Canvas. We were two project leaders working with the project, alongside our work as study counsellors. I would like to share the results of the project but also talk a bit about the process, the obstacles that we encountered on the way, and the feeling of success when something you have worked hard for finally becomes a reality!

The project aimed to build and implement an organisation for career services at The Faculty of Social Sciences at Lund University. One of the main goals of the project was to build a digital career portal, that could support students in developing their career learning skills. The Career Portal was launched on the Social Sciences Career Days on the 3rd of March 2023 and has 300 registered members as of today’s date March 16th.

See the presentation Creating a digital career portal for students (pdf)

Anna Hjalmers Mattsson and Elin Holgersson – Lund University

Background in psychology and HR and work as study and career counsellor since 2009 and as program director at the Bachelor‘s Programme of Behavioural Sciences since 2015 at the Department of Psychology, Lund University.

Elin Holgersson works as a study and career counsellor at the Department of Psychology, Lund University. She has a bachelor’s in psychology and a degree in study and career guidance.

When NTNU students are asked if they learn how to communicate what they know have learned to a future employer the answer will often be no. In “studiebarometeret” this is the question about working life where the students score lowest. We often meet students that are unsure of what they have learned from their studies, or how they can use their education.

Since spring 2022 NTNU Career has been working with the project “Mapping your competencies”, a workshop where the students learn how they can talk about their competencies.  But to reach the students we need the study program coordinator to give us time in a busy schedule. This talk is about how we work to get them to make room for not only all the things that the students must learn, but also for them to reflect on what they have learned, and our experiences so far.

See the presentation Mapping your competencies (pdf)

Siri Holm Lønseth – Norwegian University of Science and Technology

MSc in pedagogy and a background in organisational work in the NGO sector. Today she works with course development and how the university can prepare students for working life after their studies.

SkillMill is an Erasmus+-funded project that combines interdisciplinary insights from psychology, career counselling and game design in an app. This pedagogical tool helps users identify, understand, and verbalise transversal skills development. Skills recognition is an empowering factor in life-long learning and career transitions.

Anna Storgårds and Madelene Rönnberg have contributed to the development of the SkillMill app together with experts within psychology and game design. In this session, we will take you behind the scenes and guide you on how the app can be used to support students’ career management skills. The app can be downloaded for free.

See the presentation SkillMill (pdf)

Anna Storgårds – University of Helsinki – and Madelene Rönnberg – Uppsala University

Anna Storgårds is a specialist in career services at the University of Helsinki. She works with employer relations and is involved in initiatives supporting the employability of international students.

Madelene Rönnberg works as a career counsellor at Uppsala University with 20 years of experience in the field. She works with career management skills and supports students in career planning and self-leadership.

NB! Digital presentation 

Framtidskortet is a client-centric tool that improves quality and greater efficiency in the guidance process. It is a complement to the guidance conversation. By sorting digital decks of cards, the client prepares at his own pace, regardless of time and place. The decks of cards can be about professions, skills, training or whatever suits your function.

See the presentation Framtidskortet – A digital tool for professional conversations (pdf)

Börje Lindqvist and Agneta Andersson – Framtidskortet

Börje Lindqvist and Agneta Andersson are career counsellors with many years of experience from various forms of schooling, including university. They are very interested in developing guidance and have long worked with e-guidance. Today, together with Lars Hugsén, they are coordinators for Framtidskortet. Framtidskortet is jointly owned by Luleå, Norrtälje and Karlshamn municipalities and is run without a profit interest.

E-guidance or digital career guidance is now a natural and important part of the study and career guidance counselling and a complement to traditional guidance conversation. But what digital tools are available and how can we learn them? This session will:

• provide examples of digital technologies in use in careers conversation
• consider how digital technologies can be blended with “traditional” career work
• offer ideas for interactive and creative approaches in online career conversations.

Welcome to an introductory session where you will be taken on a guided tour and be inspired by innovative and pedagogical ideas on how digital tools can work together with our analogue working methods. You will receive a variety of concrete tips and ideas to try out new and different ways of working in the digital space with others. Discover how career guidance conversation can be developed through modern technology.

See the presentation Using digital technologies and creative approaches in career guidance counselling (pdf)

Joakim Cao – LTH, Lund University

Joakim Cao has an M.Ed. in Career Development and works as an academic and careers advisor at LTH, The Faculty of Engineering at Lund University.

Joakim is known for his innovative ideas and has practical experience in the use of various digital tools and methods to support individuals, as well as pedagogical ideas in the field. In his work, Joakim emphasises the importance of engagement, creativity, imagination, learning and hope as career counselling strategies.

Since 2020, he has given numerous workshops and seminars on ICT integration in Career Guidance and Counselling and helped career practitioners in Sweden to infuse tech into their lives through www.digicao.nu.

I will share my experiences from the development of the digital board game Think & Grow and how students in transition can benefit from playing the game. Think & Grow is based on reflective teams/collegial guidance methodology and is played in smaller groups of 4–5 students.

In the fall of 2022, 700 new students played the game and the collected data is now the base for further research and development. The game originates from findings and theories in my own research and model, and the Norwegian quality framework for career guidance.

For further reading, see Veilederforum’s web page and the Master’s thesis: Overgangen fra elev til student, sett med studenter i høyere utdanning sine øyne.

See the presentation Think & Grow (pdf)

Sonja Susnic – OsloMet

Sonja Susnic holds an MSc in Career guidance and is a university lecturer at OsloMet, Norway. Sonja has a background as a career counsellor and is also a trained primary and lower secondary teacher.

It is not always easy to know what awaits in working life after graduation. Many students have an image of working life as hidden behind a wall. They know that something is expecting them in the future, but lack experience of what this might look like.

Since 2019, we have sent students on job shadowing at companies in Bergen through Externships. The stay lasts 2–4 days and is framed by a preparation and evaluation seminar where students get to reflect on their own competence and share experiences. Feedback from students and companies has shown that the program is perceived as very valuable. Our presentation will share experiences, and we will facilitate discussions to gather input and inspiration on how to further develop the programme.

See the presentation Externship (pdf)

Guri Velure Sandsdalen and Ingvill Skjold Thorkildsen – Sammen Karriere, Bergen

Guri Velure Sandsdalen is working as a career counsellor at Sammen Career.  She has a background as a teacher in primary school, where she also supervised teacher students. In addition, Guri is now working on a master’s degree in career guidance at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences and is currently writing her Master’s thesis on career guidance in higher education.

Ingvill Skjold Thorkildsen is head of Sammen Career. She graduated with a master’s degree in organisational psychology from the University of Bergen and has further education in counselling from VID. She has worked in Sammen Career since 2016.

Sammen Career is the career centre for the students of western Norway. We offer individual counselling, interview training, feedback on CVs and applications, as well as extensive course and career learning activities, and the job shadowing programme Externship.

The shortage of talents is a challenge for many companies to grow. Today, 75% of international students would like to work in Sweden, but only 20% make it through. Why are we losing talent who recently graduated from Swedish universities? Switch to Sweden is a Vinnova-funded national project. The goal of the project is to increase the number of qualified matches between international talents who are already in Sweden, mainly master’s students and researchers such as Marie Curie fellows, and Swedish companies. By utilising international talent, we create the conditions to ensure Swedish competitiveness.

See the presentation Switch to Sweden (pdf)

Hela Galvis – Switch to Sweden

Hela Galvis is Project Manager for Switch to Sweden. She has a background in creativity, communication, and marketing in digital media. She also has a master’s degree in business administration and strategic management of international organisations from Linköping University. As an international talent herself she is well aware of the challenges and solutions needed!

This is a presentation of UiB Ferd, the first career centre for researchers in Norway. In this presentation, I will tell you a bit about the backdrop of UiB deciding to make this investment in building a new service for our researchers. I will also touch upon some of the factors that we considered to be important in our planning process.

UiB Ferd was officially opened in February 2022. So what exactly have we got? Who and what makes up UiB Ferd and how do we work and what do we offer to researchers at UiB? I will present some statistics from our first year and sum up what we have done so far. At the end of my presentation, I want to share some of the experiences we have gained so far with UiB Ferd Career Centre.

See the presentation UiB Ferd Career Centre for Early-Stage Researchers (pdf)

Signe Knappskog – UIB University of Bergen

Signe Knappskog has worked in the UiB administration for almost 20 years. She has a Master’s in comparative politics, and has later studied work and organisational psychology. Two years ago, she completed continuing education in counselling. Now, she spends about 50% of her position at UiB Ferd organising courses and where she is one of two career counsellors.

In what way can universities help athlete students combine their sports and studies? This introduction will describe and help personnel and policymakers with best practices and guidance in supporting double-career students. In order, to make the journey at university studies for athlete students transparent and doable both to develop in their sports and studies awareness is needed from the universities.

The challenges these Students encounter during their stay at the Universities fulfilling the requirements both from courses and sports coaches can sometimes be overwhelming. The adaptions should not only be a part for the universities, but they should also be a part for the athlete sports coaches and trainers. The latter are sometimes difficult to conduct, but it might be something for future handling and policy making.

The introduction will also give an overview of the concept and something about the formal start and development in the adaption of the elite students’ studies and policy-making from the university’s point of view.

See the presentation Using digital technologies and creative approaches in career guidance counselling (pdf)

Johan Bankel and Rebecca Zandén – Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg

Johan Bankel is a director of studies in the area of mechanical engineering at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden. He has been working part-time with DC athletes since 2015 at Chalmers and his main focus is managing and developing educational support for elite sports students.

Rebecca Zandén, Senior Student Counsellor at Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden.

Internationalisation has long been emphasised in higher education and it is well known that international exchange and cooperation improve the quality of education and contribute to the personal development of the participants. In this presentation, we will take a look at the new platform for internationalisation that has been established to support this work. We will also look at the need for guidance support and opportunities for guidance counsellors’ own competence development in this context.

See the presentation Support for internationalisation within higher education (pdf)

Nina Ahlroos – UHR, Swedish Council for Higher Education

Nina Ahlroos has worked with guidance-related issues throughout her professional life, starting as a career guidance counsellor at Stockholm University. Today she acts as coordinator of the Swedish Euroguidance Centre. In this role, she works to develop an international dimension in guidance.

On the European level, Nina is a member of the Euroguidance Network Steering Group to act as a National Expert within CareersNet. Nina is also the national correspondent for IAEVG, International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance.

In the Finnish integration process integration training does not meet the needs of highly educated immigrants. The level required for university studies is not often reached. Recognition of foreign qualifications is also a slow process. Work markets have also required good command of the Finnish language and only recently a more flexible approach has risen. As a result, many highly educated immigrants are stuck in jobs not matching their education. Underuse of personal capabilities is discouraging but also a huge loss for the economy.

After the immigration flood of 2015, SIMHE services were launched as a pilot in 2016. The University of Helsinki joined SIMHE in 2017, by giving guidance in studies and participating in a regional project. In 2023 there are ten HEIs involved in forming the SIMHE network and co-working.

Currently, highly educated immigrants can seek for counselling in study and career-related matters, take part in events and attend a preparatory course. Also, sporadic field-specific supplementary programmes are available.

See the presentation Supporting immigrants in higher education services (pdf)

Kaisa Niskanen and Asmara Riaz – University of Helsinki, Career Services

Kaisa Niskanen is working as a career counsellor at the University of Helsinki, especially with highly educated immigrants. She has a Master of Social Sciences by education and is interested in internationalisation, inclusion and mentoring.

Asmara Riaz is a social scientist by education, an avid traveller by heart and a career counsellor by profession at the University of Helsinki. She believes in the potential of a diverse society and why it is important to create equal opportunities for internationals.

The transition from being a student to getting the first job can be difficult for some students. Some students have a hard time figuring out what jobs are out there and what possibilities are open to them after graduating. In this presentation, we will talk about how we include alumni to ease this difficulty for the students.

We will present how we involve alumni stories in different contexts such as the AU guest speaker portal, social media take-overs and alumni portraits. We will also present our Career Catalogue where we have gathered data from our alumni about their job titles and employers. We use the catalogue as a tool to propose some answers to the very complex question that lures in their minds: What can I become?

See the presentation The significance of using alumni in career activities (pdf)

Line Kristiansen and Karen Lintner – Arts Career, Aarhus University

Line Kristiansen works as a career consultant at Arts Career, Aarhus University. She is the project manager for the yearly event Arts Career Week and Arts Company Dating where 35 organisations and companies meet the students at the Faculty of Arts. She works with external relations at the career centre as well as other student-oriented activities.

As a career counsellor and team coordinator at Arts Career, Aarhus University, Karen Lintner works with integrating career workshops into the curriculum. She is interested in how working with students’ career competencies helps them build confidence concerning their academic and personal competencies – and in doing so helps them transition from study life to work life. In this work, alumni play a significant role.

Based on user data from 35 Nordic university career centres, JobTeaser has put together the Recruitment Trend Report of 2023 which provides insights into the recruitment of Nordic students and graduates. We’ll explore in-demand skills, popular job categories, and employer branding strategies that are relevant to the Gen Z generation. I will also talk about recruitment practices during potential economic downturns which are based on recent interviews with top Nordic employers.

See the presentation Recruitment trends 2023 (pdf)

Leo Ljungdell Kristensen – JobTeaser

Leo Ljungdell Kristensen is Head of Nordic University Partnerships at JobTeaser. He has a MSc in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics from Copenhagen University. He is leading the Nordic University Team for JobTeaser.

Leo’s main focus at JobTeaser is to make sure that career counsellors at our partner universities, and their students, are satisfied with their online career centres. This is done by ensuring that we have a lot of relevant jobs tailored specifically for young talent as well as valuable tools for students and career counsellors.