Meet Jane Standley, Director of SEECC
Thursday, 24 November 2011
'I'm very much looking forward to developing the services SEECC offer to ensure we're providing the best possible opportunities for our students.'
The Student Employment, Experience and Careers Centre (SEECC) are pleased to welcome their new Director, Jane Standley, back to the University.
SEECC, based in the Carrington building, is a new centre which replaced the Careers Advisory Service on the 1 August 2011, and has a greater focus on supporting departments and schools in developing placement activities and resources for their students.
Jane worked at the University of Reading as Career Development Manager in the 1990s, then as a Project Manager for the Sector Skills Council e-skills.com, before moving to Brunel University. During her time as Brunel's Director of Careers and Student Employability, the careers centre there became one of the first in the country to integrate careers and placements in one unit, so Jane has firsthand experience of running a large, multi-functional centre.
Jane said: "I've always had a great fondness for the University of Reading so I'm delighted to be back, and I'm very much looking forward to developing the services SEECC offer to ensure we're providing the best possible opportunities for our students. One of the first things we are doing is to review and evaluate whether we are currently meeting their needs so that we can make the right changes for the future.
"We have a number of exciting projects at the moment. We hope to increase opportunities for students to work on campus through the Job Shop and Professor Steve Mithen (Pro-Vice-Chancellor for International and External Engagement) is helping us to create more internship links with China as part of a larger project with Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce.
"We also hope to advertise our vacant post for an Employer and Graduate Career Manager shortly. The aims are to help new graduates to secure appropriate employment as quickly as possible, and to create new employer contacts to support all our activities. Another project to research and pilot placements for postgraduates is due to start in the New Year as we realise how keen these students are to gain experience related to their studies.
"We had some excellent feedback from the careers fair we held at the end of October, which saw 2,000 students talking to employers about both placement and career opportunities. This year the employers were very impressed by how prepared the students were; we had made sure that they had knowledge of what the companies and organisations did, and that they knew exactly what kind of questions to ask to ensure that they got the most out of the experience."
Jane is also on the editorial board of the Association of Graduate Recruiters (AGR) publication "Graduate Recruiter" and was elected to the Board of the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) in August 2011 where she is Director of Products and Services.