A HUDDERSFIELD academic, whose research on graduate employability and career planning has transformed the way higher education gathers and uses tailored graduate careers and employability data to plan future strategies has received one of the Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services' highest honours.
The Association of Graduate Careers Advisory Services (AGCAS) has awarded the prestigious President's Medal to the University of Huddersfield's Dr Bob Gilworth for his outstanding and sustained contribution to the careers and employability profession.
Dr Gilworth has been in leadership roles in Higher Education Careers and Employability for over 25 years and teaches on the MA in Careers Guidance and Development in the University's School of Education and Professional Development.
During his esteemed career he has been Director of the Careers Group at the University of London where he led a cluster of higher education careers services provided by the university making it one of the largest careers services in the world. Prior to that, he was Director of the Careers Centre at the University of Leeds for 13 years and before that he was Head of the Careers Service at the University of Huddersfield and so his career has now come full circle.
It was during his time at the University of Leeds when in 2012, Dr Gilworth and his team instigated the 'Careers Registration' approach to gathering and using career readiness data from all current students. Together with Dr Nalayini Thambar who was a key player in implementing the approach, Dr Gilworth presented "Careers Registration-a Data Revolution" at the AGCAS conference in 2013.
The approach subsequently became the core of a national Learning Gain research project led by Dr Gilworth between 2015 to 2018. 'Careers Registration' has now been adopted by c90 HEIs in the UK and by institutions in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Portugal and currently he is advising Graduate Careers Australia on an Australian government funded project which seeks to replicate the UK project.
Because of his wealth of expertise, he is regularly approached by institutions to be an external member of senior appointing panels and institutional reviews, and by the Government and related agencies to apply his expertise to research and policy discussions relating to graduate employability.
He was recently made Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) for demonstrating a sustained record of effective strategic leadership in academic practice and academic development as a key contribution to high quality student learning and is also Fellow of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling (NICEC).
Dr Gilworth is a past President of AGCAS, a member of the Careers Service Committee at the University of Cambridge and external examiner at the University of York.
Dr Gilworth has written for the new SAGE Handbook of Graduate Employability explaining in detail about 'Careers Registration'. Titled 'Starting Points and Journeys: Careers and Employability in a Data Rich Environment' the chapter was published in December.
