Long days here.
Went also to a presentation on the NACE Futuretrends research.
This was a survey of US employers and careers services to find out what they felt would be the key issues facing them over the next few years.
Not surprisingly, the economy, and resulting budget cuts were on people's minds, but changes in technology were cited as crucial by more than half of employers and careers services. Least important for careers centres was globalisation; for business it was recruitment of non-traditional students.
Interestingly, there also seemed to be a feeling that the number of international students entering the US may have started to level off, and 64% of US businesses had not increased hiring of international students in the last 5 years.
There also seems to be some tension about social networks, with careers services concerned that employers might be bypassing them and engaging with students directly.
Also attended - a workshop on STEM, which was very interesting, but rather US specific. Although the US has similar STEM concerns in some ways to the UK - particularly in terms of a shortfall in teachers and in maths skills, some of the issues are not directly relevant to the UK. But it was interesting to hear that they have chemical engineers looking for jobs. We have them in the UK, so if anyone's interested in talking to US universities (some big names amongst them), then there might be opportunities to help employers with their recruitment and to make some friends in the US.
And that's Wednesday done - back up to date now.
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