How to plan a careers event
Wondering how to plan a careers event? Look no further! This page is specifically for Careers Leaders who need to plan career events (online and offline) or career learning activities for their students using the Careers Calendar.
Step 1: Determine event goals and objectives.
In addition to setting goals and objectives include the following:
- Create or revisit your stakeholder analysis not essential but good practice
- Define the needs of your students
- Decide your event goals
- Determine the budget and resources
- Confirm the event theme
How to plan an event explained
Event Details
You and your team often define these. After that, jump into the platform and fill in the event details area. Detailed guidance can be found here on how to create an event and event details.
Format
Decide this in the early part of the event planning stage. In the Careers Calendar, you can plan the following: online event, face to face events including fairs, workshop and presentation. In addition, a career learning activities can be created and planned in the Careers Calendar – an activity whereby you group information relevant to your students for them to explore on your unique webpage created in the Careers Calendar.
Description
The event description section is mainly for students to read. Above all, keep this short, relevant and enticing. Share enough information to pique their interest.
Background Image
Choose a background image that reflects your school. Play around with this image by testing it on the “preview event button”.
Date, time and location
Date and time are obvious. However, for address, lead with the address of the place in which you will host the event, for instance, School hall.
Remember the following
- Keep your title short and relevant – in other words, make sure it grabs the attention of your students
- Create a hashtag that is relevant and recognisable – this hashtag will feature on your customised URL, you can also use the hashtag on social media
- Format – deciding on this before you start planning is crucial. It shapes everything
Student Details
Nominate the list of students you wish to invite – if you haven’t yet uploaded your student contact details then do so following this guide here.
Attendee Details
Select the list of attendees you wish to invite – consult this guide here on how to upload your contacts.
It is helpful if you upload your contact details for monitoring engagement and reporting.
Email Automation
Make life easy for yourself and switch on automated emails which will come from the Careers Calendar but will look like they’ve come from you.
Confirm
The confirm tab is where you can view the content you’ve put into the platform and preview. Click preview to view the auto-populated URL which you can use for promotion. Providing you are happy and click “publish” then emails will be sent out to your selected contacts. If there are changes that need to be made before you press publish, then go back and make the necessary adjustments.
Step 2 - 3: Promotion
You might want to start promoting the event.
With the unique URL created in the Careers Calendar, you can copy & paste and use across your internal and external platforms event social media.
Top tips
- Make sure your social media posts are concise and clear
- Use hashtags
- You’ll want every stakeholder to be made aware of your work but perhaps send the link to governors or even the Headteacher – give yourself the kudos you deserve.
Manage
The management stage is the area where you will spend most of your time. However, the Careers Calendar makes it easy for you to manage a series of events.
Once you have published your event, use the unique URL to promote the event internally and externally (if you wish) This is a great way to improve engagement across your school or college.
Every day or two check your manage tab to see who has accepted their invitations and remember to check the requesting access tab to see if people from outside your network are requesting access.
Deliver
Watch your event come to life. Use the deliver tab to check students in. We recommend that you check students in but if you can’t, for whatever reason, then the system will recognise them as attending.
Step: 5 Evaluation
The platform will populate evaluation emails for all of your attendees. That data will sit in the Careers Calendar platform for you to use and will add to your personal Gatsby report.
Antony Adams
Careers Adviser & Founder
Planning a careers event doesn’t need to be complicated. When using the Careers Calendar, you can plan an event in less than 5 minutes and let the platform do the rest of the work for you. The Careers Calendar is your tool for career engagement success.
Facebook Group
Join our Facebook support group for Career Leaders focused on student career engagements and is full of useful tips on how to use the Careers Calendar.
Additional support
We are on hand to guide you through the process of setting up your account and your events. Please contact us here if you need assistance.
Is the platform free to use?
Yes. Although there is an upgrade option which allows you to plan more than 5 events, download a report for Gatsby, and gives you access to the monthly masterclasses. In addition, there is personalised support from the team to help you get the most out of the platform.
Are you a marketing platform?
The Careers Calendar is an engagement platform. We help schools plan their events and activities for students to navigate their way through careers information. Organisations engage with both schools and students through the platform but do not market. The platform itself does not sell at students or use the data in the platform. This is against our philosophy.
Will the platform survey the career needs of my students/pupils?
There are two options. Students sign up and share their interests and aspirations when they join. However, you can create bespoke surveys in the platform where we will collate the data for you to view and use to plan your events. More info on surveys here.
Can it help plan careers fairs/apprenticeship fairs and in what format?
The Careers Calendar was born to help you do just this. You can plan fairs, workshops, or presentations in both online and offline formats.
I'm a Careers Leader in a College, can I use the platform?
If you a Careers Leader within a Sixth Form College or an FE College and you are responsible for the delivery of a careers programme then the Careers Calendar is for you. We help ALL Career Leaders.
Do you charge organisations to use the platform e.g. universities?
No. All organisations, e.g. universities, colleges, apprenticeship training providers and employers, are invited to complete their profile at no charge. However, if they want to upgrade their account, they can. You can find more information on how we support organisations here.
How is data used and secured?
Amazon Web Services is where we store data. All of our data is secured safely. Our full data policy and terms are here if you wish to read them.
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