Menu
The IMAGE Project
  • Project Overview
  • Our Resources
  • Feedback
  • Publications
  • Contact Us
Improving Employability of Autistic Graduates in Europe
The IMAGE Project
A lego figure with a map and a compass. Beside it a text: Autism Awareness Week, Good Practice Guide for Academics

Day 1: Academics at the heart of employment support

Posted on 29/03/202130/03/2021

This week we are giving you a sneak peek into our research-based materials that are designed to support autistic graduates to gain employment. We begin the week by introducing our Good Practice Guide for Academics. 

Introduction to Good Practice Guide for Academics

This Good Practices Guide has been written especially for academics, by academics with experience in supporting autistic students and graduates, and is based on extensive research. Autistic individuals have also helped us to put the guide together. 

Many autistic graduates face unemployment after graduation, and those who manage to find work are under-employed or in low-level jobs rather than graduate positions related to their degree. We hope that this guide helps academics to strengthen their students’ employment opportunities, ensuring that higher education teaching allows students to make the best use of their skills and talents.

Our research showed that those who teach in higher education play an important role in supporting students. A trusted academic was often the key to career success, whether that meant suggesting the best direction for a particular student, or helping students with contacts, advice and encouragement as they seek work.

Focus on what a particular student is good at, and use this to tailor your advice on courses, skill-building, career planning and job-seeking. Make sure your students receive frequent feedback as their skills and knowledge develops, so that they can highlight their strengths in CVs and communicate these with employers.

The Good Practice Guide will be available in five European languages: English, Dutch, French, German and Finnish.

Lastly we want to give you a sneak peek to the actual content of our guide:

Tips for personal tutors and thesis supervisors

Need to know

Personal tutors are important in the inclusion to the university community. Many autistic students have difficulties in social interaction and therefore building their social networks that would be beneficial in building bridges with the potential employers. These networks can be purposefully strengthened also by thesis and practicum supervisors 

Need to have

Students benefit from having allocated academics, personal tutors, peer tutors or equivalent who can be contacted when needed. Ensure that there is consistent support available through their studies, i.e. same person(s) at the same time. This is especially important close to big milestones, e.g. at the beginning of the studies, practicums, writing of the thesis and close to graduation.

“Just someone who I can always go to at any time, when I have problems, like someone who’s sat next to me I guess in lectures and work, someone who I can ask who is trained in the course that I was on and my condition and, you know, someone who I could go to just to get maybe prompting or support on things …”

21, male, England, student in BA creative media technology, not working at the moment

Need to do

Help students to articulate their strengths and support needs

As an academic you can help students articulate their skills, preferences and support needs. You are in a unique position because you know the student and also the likely work context the student might find themself in. 

Invite employers and industrial speakers to seminars

Many autistic students struggle with networking. You can ask employers or industrial speakers to visit your BA or MA seminars. You can also consult career services if they have good suggestions for guest speakers.

Encourage work experience and volunteering opportunities,  to gain solid evidence and experience within a work setting

Provide concrete feedback, ensure balanced feedback and detailed clear explanations which put the feedback into context.

Provide clarity on key contacts for the individual, so the individual knows who to contact for various support rather than one contact for all queries.

Recent Posts

  • Good Practice Guides for professionals
  • Training Material for Careers Advisors
  • Employability Toolkit for students and graduates
  • IMAGE Conference: Reducing the employment gap for autistic graduates
  • Free Webinar for Careers Advisors: Supporting autistic students during the transition into employment

Archive

  • January 2022
  • October 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • November 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018

Categories

  • Event
  • News
  • Partner Introduction
©2023 The IMAGE Project | WordPress Theme by Superb WordPress Themes