Historical adverts for jobs for graduates and students on display.
The University’s careers service may have grown from one person assisting students in the 1970s to a team of eight, but one thing has remained consistent – its commitment to helping students with their career planning.
Career Development Centre manager Jackie Dean hosted an event last Thursday to celebrate its 50th year.
“I want to celebrate the people that came before us and show gratitude for their work, their vision, and for the thousands of students we’ve assisted on their career journey,” she says.
Dean has searched through the Hocken Collection’s boxes of ‘Career Development Centre’ ephemera in search of the centre’s history.
Prior to 1973, she says, Union Manager R.S Abott would assist students if they had any careers questions. The Graduate Appointments Service was then established in 1973, initially run by Douglas Ogilvy out of the Clocktower, to assist students with any employment queries.
“It operated slightly differently, but those are the first mentions of a service that resembles the kind of thing we’re doing now,” Dean says.
“What I’ve been able to make out is employers were invited on to campus, and if students just got their act together, they were able to make appointments with those employers.”
There were smaller numbers of students and employers in those days, she says.
“If you were organised and you knew someone was coming you could simply arrange yourself an interview with them.”
Nowadays, the job market is much more competitive, and staff work to much wider briefs.
Career Development Centre manager Jackie Dean addresses the crowd at the centre's 50 years celebration last Thursday.
An annual report from 1983 states the Careers Advisory Services ran its first careers workshops featuring six talks about job applications.
“They said these were so successful that they’d do them again next year. When I think about the number of workshops and seminars and talks that we do now, we’ve increased that,” she laughs.
The service operated out of 107 St David St for a while before relocating to the Information Services Building in 2002.
An entire range of different services are available now, compared with when Dean started in 2011.
An alumni mentoring programme sees the University’s “much valued” graduates mentor current students, and there are four career and employability specialists working as a liaison across different divisions.
There is also a postgraduate career coach and a graduate recruitment team which brings employers on campus for students, as well as an online database making employment information available to students 24/7.
“All of the Careers Advisors – myself included - have either got an undergraduate or postgraduate qualification in career development,” she says.
“The students are in really good hands.”
The centre also hosts workshops and career pathway events, linking alumni, employers and students.
Careers Development Centre celebrated 50 years with a chocolate cake.
“It’s often difficult to know what you want to do or where you might take your degree. We do a lot of work with students to help them understand what they are looking for, how to develop their career pathway and to get them thinking about what’s next.”
She is grateful for all the work that has gone in to making the centre what it is today.
“The foundation, with Doug starting up in ’73, and then all of the people that came after him. It’s been a really fabulous foundation from which to build.
“We’re just a moment in time, the current team working in the Career Development Centre, but there’s a lot of hard work that’s gone into building us up to what we are now.”
Student Services director Claire Gallop says the centre does marvellous work supporting students into careers and meaningful jobs.
“There are many students who come to university knowing exactly what they want to do. There are even more who are not quite sure or who discover that their path might not lie where they thought,” Gallop says.
The work the Centre does with students who needs support and guidance is exceptional, she added.
“Jackie Dean manages the team with a wonderful mixture of compassion, creativity, and credibility.
“Otago students are fortunate to be at the heart of the work the team do. I want to congratulate the Centre on this milestone and to acknowledge their important role in supporting our students.”