Boost your students' employability and wellbeing

UM Career Services and UM Psychologists have developed several online modules to support staff members in their role as mentor, coach and/or tutor. These modules are based on science-based coaching models, but also contain many practical tips, tools and exercises to develop your coaching skills. The modules are on Canvas and can be accessed by all UM employees.

The modules:

• Coaching skills
• Advanced coaching skills
• Coaching competence development
• Addressing challenging behavior
• Help! My student wants a job

Do you want to foster your students’ personal and professional development? Do you want to support them in setting concrete goals, developing their competences and making themselves more resilient and employable? Get started now.

The Employability toolkit is a collection of useful practices to reflect on, and design educational activities and curricula that help students to think about, and work on developing those competencies that are relevant for their employability. It aims to make explicit, to staff and students, which competencies students are implicitly developing by actively engaging in educational activities, curricula, and supportive services.

At UM, we care about our students’ employability, wellbeing. With our slogan “it takes a community to support a student”, we think every member of the university and society has his own contribution to students’ employability and wellbeing. We developed a programme to guide all staff of the university through this task. Experiential learning, observation, self-reflection and feedback are the cornerstones of all activities in our programme.

In the workshop Fostering employability & wellbeing, we introduce you to UM Career Services & UM Psychologists and their services for students, staff and peer supporters.
In addition, we will introduce you to (online) supporting tools (such as the Personal & Professional Development Portal, the Online Career Modules on Canvas, the E-health Modules by Caring Universities, the referral chart, and the manual suicide prevention) that can help you and your students to find answers to questions related to personal and professional development. Together, we will discuss several cases and find out where you as staff member can refer students to for the right support.

Red - Support your students’ professional development
UM Career Services supports you to support your students on topics of employability. The coaching modules are designed to train mentors, coaches and tutors on coaching and mentoring skills. Participants are staff in a mentoring or coaching role, e.g. in bachelor, master or excellence programmes. Coaching skills is the foundation of the training programme for first-time mentors and tutors. Student competence development is designed for staff that coaches students in their competence development. 

Blue - Communication skills
Additionally, faculties and service centres can choose 1-hour theme modules (dark blue), to mix and match the specific training needs of their coaches and mentors. We also offer two supporting modules (light blue): Intervision (peer group reflection) and a Case clinic (high-paced practice with real-life cases).

What did participants especially like about our sessions?

• ‘Having an overview of all services’
•  ‘The combination of background and practice’
• ‘The contents were directed to the needs of the participants’
• ‘The opportunity to share experiences, to get immediate feedback. A moment of reflection, learning from other people’s experiences’
• ‘Getting a chance to practice coaching in the training session’

Are you interested in one or more modules for your staff? Please contact your UM Career Services account manager (see below).
 

Support for students

As a UM employee, it is good to know the student offer of UM Career Services. If needed, you can refer your students to (one of) the services below.

Canvas page ‘Your Personal & Professional Development’
In the Canvas course 'Your Personal & Professional Development', you can find the complete offer for your students’ personal and professional development. Here you can find all online modules, an overview of our group offer, the individual services and a list of recommended online tools.

Personal & Professional Development Portal
On the Personal & Professional Development Portal, you can find a broad range of opportunities to develop your personal and professional skills:

• Resources, modules, trainings and events
• Vacancies for (side)jobs, internships, traineeships and voluntary work
• Employability Scan for personal advice

Workshops, lectures and training courses
By participating in lectures, workshops and training courses, students get the chance to develop themselves personally and professionally. All lectures, workshops and training courses are taught in English and currently take place either online or on campus. Maastricht University alumni can participate until six months after graduation.

Individual support
UM Career Services offers a wide range of individual support services that may be helpful in answering questions about study choices and career prospects. In a Quick Career Advice or during the Walk-in hours, students may already find answers regarding their CV, application letter or LinkedIn profile. It’s also posible to make a follow-up appointment with a career counsellor to obtain personal advice regarding their study and career choices. If needed, UM Career Services refers to other support services such as UM Psychologists, UM Student Deans, study advisers or the International Student Helpdesk.

Would you like to sign up for a staff workshop? Or would you like to know what we could do for your faculty and/or study programme? We are happy to think along to find a suitable offer.

UM Career Services’ contact persons per faculty and for study & student associations:

• FASoS: Maureen van Brandenburg
• FoL: Lars Smits
• FHML: Romy Beuken / Maureen van Brandenburg
• FPN: Maureen van Brandenburg
• FSE: Romy Beuken
• SBE: Lars Smits
• All study and student associations: Romy Beuken / Lars Smits

Does a student come to you with psychological complaints or perhaps even suicidal thoughts? Find out how to refer them to the right care.