Newcastle University Careers Service: audience research for careers and communications

Understanding how and why students engage with different parts of a university’s support services can be a complex task. At Newcastle University, the Careers Service felt that although it was collecting some information about students and their interest in career planning or employability, very little was being done with this information to improve how the Service communicated with students - and they also acknowledged that there might be gaps in their understanding.

We worked with the Careers Service on a project which covered:

• Stakeholder engagement

• A review of existing data

• Fresh primary research, including surveys, interviews and focus groups

• A communications review

We used this information to create a series of profiles of postgraduate and undergraduate students at the university based on they engaged (or did not engage) with the Careers Service and other employability offerings. Our profiles were designed to show how students varied in their desire for employability information at different times during their university lives, who they might seek advice from, and what challenges and barriers they were encountering along the way. 

These profiles then informed the development of a new marketing strategy for the Careers Service, which included plans for:

• segmenting and prioritising student types

• messaging aimed at encouraging engagement

• a content and communications audit ahead of a website redevelopment

The Service used the research we conducted and the strategy we developed as rationale for being included in the University’s next website development round, which is currently underway. Our evidence of the need for ongoing data analysis also encouraged them to employ a full-time data analyst to monitor the different student profiles and how they might change over time.