UEL wins award for best employer engagement strategy

The University of East London has won the Institute of Student Employers (ISE) award for Best University & Employer Engagement Strategy. This award recognises higher education institutions with an outstanding commitment to developing meaningful relationships through engagement with employers.

UEL’s award submission emphasised the university’s career focused mission,

Our ambition as a careers-first University, focuses on increasing the diversity of the talent pipeline, moving away from old-fashioned proxies for talent, and bringing together education, industry and talent in a new education and skills social value partnership – breaking down traditional barriers to education and work and developing students from all backgrounds to become pioneers in the evolving economy."

The award celebrates UEL’s Graduate Employability Framework, which ensures continuous improvement in graduate outcomes. At the heart of the framework sits the University’s award-winning employability programme Mental Wealth and Professional Fitness; wherein through mandatory modules at each level of study UEL work to provide tailored employability support into the curriculum and equity of opportunity.

Cherise Basslian, Director of Careers and Student Enterprise said,  
"We need to equip a future workforce with industry skills. Our Employer Engagement Strategy ensures that we leverage our partnerships to provide students with industry insight, work experience and exposure to professional environments as part of the curriculum. The Graduate Employability Framework allows us to target high impact support where it’s needed and to embed specific interventions where graduate outcomes are lower or in areas where there is still significant underrepresentation within industry."

The award also recognised UEL’s industry standard teaching spaces which provide a simulated work environment for teaching and collaboration with industry, as well as the employer partnership programmes which promote diversification of the early talent pipeline. These programmes support UEL’S 10-year Vision 2028 strategy, which has careers at its core. This is driven from the top down and the bottom up, enabling the ‘Graduate Employability Action Plan’ to be delivered as an institute-wide initiative.

The judging panel said of the application, "This was well articulated and clearly part of a wider ‘Vision 2028’ strategy. It was genuinely innovative with multiple, complimentary, and aligned initiatives delivering demonstrable impact. It ensured that students from all backgrounds are inspired, connected and able to thrive as evidenced by the levels of student engagement and graduate success in the programmes. This is particularly impressive given the winner’s geographical context."

If you would like to find out more about our commitment to ensure our graduates are first choice for employers, please visit our career page.