Prospects.ac.uk wins guidance council approval for email service

Email advice being provided to graduates via prospects.ac.uk, has been awarded Guidance Council accreditation.

The interactive feature on the site, which is run by CSU, the higher education Careers Services Unit, has proved extremely popular. In its first year more than 8000 graduates have received individual email careers advice and CV support.

In addition, a much larger group have made use of the other functions on prospects.ac.uk, including a frequently asked questions section and a bulletin board. CSU deputy chief executive Mike Williams comments: The Internet has become the most popular source of careers information for students and graduates. Both page impressions and unique users for prospects.ac.uk have increased substantially in the past year. Our most recent audited figures show that in February the site attracted 168,774 unique users and 3.7 million page impressions, increases of 14 and 20 percent, respectively, since October 2001.

Prospects.ac.uk is the only graduate careers information and guidance site endorsed by AGCAS, the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services and the email advice service has been provided by university careers services advisors.

Adds Mike Williams: Within 12 months of full start up of this service, it was recognised as meeting national quality standards by the Guidance Accreditation Board. We are delighted with this achievement and are now moving onto some action research, to improve our understanding of how the lessons learned so far can be used in extending the service.