Career Development Programmes

Description

Under the motto "Start investing in your career. Boost your talent!" this initiative, which has been held with the support of the Amadeu Dias Foundation since 2021, marks the start of each academic semester and consists of a series of sessions, workshops and dynamics presented by final-year students, alumni, professionals from U.Porto and other entities in the field of human development, on:

• Transition to higher education and what it's like to be a higher education student;
• Opportunities outside and inside U.Porto beyond the course;
• Skills that can be developed during your time at university and how the labour market values them.

Your Future is UP aims to demystify the idea that a career only begins when you finish your degree and to make exploring the challenges inherent in the transition to higher education easier.

Main objectives

• Promote awareness among students of their role as agents and actors in the construction of their life paths (including professional ones) and the importance of investing in their personal and professional development from the first years of their course;
• Connecting new students and students from other academic years and alumni to share and exchange experiences and to explore the opportunities that each one can create and take advantage of during their career;
• Encourage students to seek out, explore and pre-select extracurricular opportunities and activities to take part in throughout their academic career.

Recipients

It is mainly aimed at first-year undergraduate students but is open to all U.Porto students who wish to participate.

Editions and Dates:

It is usually held in the first semester of the academic year (October). It is also included in other U.Porto activities (such as the U.Porto Exhibition) in the second semester.

Description

An intervention programme to promote inclusive employability through contact and sharing between pairs of students, with and without specific needs, and bringing them closer to the labour market. Initially developed by the Inclusive Community Forum, it was re-adapted at U.Porto by the Talent and Career Centre and the Inclusion Support Centre (NAI) as a training programme with more than 30 hours of contact distributed over practical sessions, in groups and pairs, visits to organisations and actual selection interviews with organisations.

The programme enables some students to take on Project Management roles, being responsible for its preparation, implementation and evaluation (with support from NTEC and NAI), promoting their own skills development (in project management, proactivity, interpersonal relationships, among others). The programme also includes sessions to raise awareness among the academic community and employers about inclusion and diversity in hiring and their work teams.

Main objectives

• Promote networking in favour of inclusive employability;
• Contributing to a paradigm shift and recognising the added value of diversity and inclusion;
• Establish a market mechanism that promotes the hiring and inclusion of students and graduates with specific needs in the world of work, by raising awareness among employers;
• Supporting the preparation of all students, regardless of their condition, for the labour market, encouraging them to overcome their fear of the unknown and discover their skills.

Recipients

The programme is aimed at all U.Porto students from all backgrounds and study cycles, with and without specific needs and from different cultural, social and economic backgrounds. Throughout the programme, any specific needs of each student will be supported (translation of material into braille and double reading, sign language interpreter, among others). Limited to 20 students per programme.

Editions and Dates:

Peer2Peer was piloted in 2022/2023 at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Porto. It will be held annually in the other faculties during the second semester of each academic year, from February to May.

Description

Started in 2020 with the motto "Get ready for the labour market with tips and tools", this short event is dedicated to preparing students for recruitment and selection processes in their areas of interest and presenting the diversity of career paths (probable and unlikely). Held with the support of the Amadeu Dias Foundation, Career Day has been expanded and implemented locally in the faculties, with a programme of activities specifically designed to meet the needs of students and graduates.

Main objectives

• Promote awareness among students and graduates of the University of Porto of the specificities of the market and the diversity of opportunities and career paths, creating the opportunity to prepare themselves better and provide satisfactory responses to the challenges that this market imposes;
• Contact and interact with experienced professionals and alumni who share their professional journeys, knowledge, and suggestions for optimising the tools that can be used when approaching the job market.
• Optimise the intentional creation of personal marketing tools, such as the Curriculum Vitae (CV) and Portfolio.

Recipients

All U. Porto students and alumni from all courses and cycles of study. In the case of Faculty-specific Careers Days, the target audience is students and graduates of the Faculty in which they are held.

Editions and Dates

Careers Days began as a pilot event in 2020 for all U.Porto students and graduates, with one event per semester. As a result of the impact assessment carried out in 2020 and 2021, it became possible to implement Careers Days in the faculties, with the event programme being co-constructed by the Talent and Careers Centre and the faculty to suit their reality and specificities. Usually held between February and May.

Description

A programme to promote the development of skills and responses/strategies that will help students enter the labour market more successfully.

This programme was originally developed by the Rectory, the Organisational Psychology and Human Resources Unit of FPCEUP and the faculties of U.Porto, supported by the Amadeu Dias Foundation. It currently consists of 3 modules:

• UPgrade Career Summer School - an online summer school that develops an entrepreneurial and proactive job-seeking attitude. It consists of the following modules:
  • Explore Soft Skills - exploratory, inspirational and motivational talks on current issues relating to the labour market, lifelong employability and sustainable careers, mainly given by former U.Porto students;
  • Improve Job Skills - longer practical workshops on career management and preparing for the labour market, run by human resources professionals and career consultants.
• UPgrade Work Soft Skills - a module with more than 30 hours of training:
  • Practical face-to-face sessions on soft skills valued by the labour market, presented by human resources professionals and career consultants;
  • Face-to-face individual and group career coaching and counselling sessions by UPORH/FPCEUP professionals to create individual career plans.
• UPgrade Challenge - an event aimed at developing personal, social and employability skills by solving challenges proposed by companies/organisations in multidisciplinary teams. It includes workshops and training sessions organised by the organisations, encouraging more excellent knowledge of the labour market and bringing STEAM students closer to this reality. As well as developing solutions to these challenges, students individually build their career action plans with the support of career counsellors.

Main objectives

• Contribute to personal and professional training that is better suited to the demands of the labour market and make participants aware of the importance of networking and entrepreneurial attitudes in their personal and professional projects
• Make participants aware of the importance of soft skills as fundamental competences in their personal and interpersonal performance and as a critical success factor in a business environment;
• Promote self-knowledge and critical analysis of their skills, so that they can become active subjects in the construction of their professional projects and adopt proactive attitudes towards the labour market and training.

Recipients

• UPgrade Career Summer School - aimed at students from all study cycles and academic years and alumni;
• UPgrade Work Soft Skills: enrolment limited to 28 participants who have recently graduated from U.Porto (up to 1 year) and are unemployed;
• UPgrade Challenge: enrolment limited to the number of challenges proposed by the organisations (teams of up to 5 people) aimed at students in the 1st and 2nd years of Bachelor's and Integrated Master's degrees and the 1st year of Master's degrees (particularly in STEAM, Social Sciences and Languages).

Editions and Dates

The UPgrade programme was piloted in 2019 and has been held yearly, with improvements resulting from successive impact assessments. In 2021, the Career Summer School was created (integrating the Explore and Improve modules), and in 2023 the UPgrade Challenge was piloted.

• UPgrade Challenge takes place between March and May.
• UPgrade Career Summer School takes place in July.
• Work Soft Skills takes place between November and December.