Advising Entrepreneurial Students
Introduction
This project has been sponsored by the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship (NCGE) and the material has been developed jointly with Association of Graduate Careers Advisers (AGCAS)
It is designed to address the issues related to raising student awareness of entrepreneurial careers, and how they can be helped with their personal development and career planning.
The material has therefore been prepared to help you, as a Careers Professional, to:
It is hoped that it will de-mystify entrepreneurship and assist you to help students to consider an ‘entrepreneurial career’ alongside other options. It should give you a better awareness of some of the issues, and provide you with pointers as to how best to advise them. As entrepreneurial students tend to be very different from each other there are no simple rules. You will need to be flexible in your approach, based on a good understanding of the issues.
The main theme is that a 'career in entrepreneurship' is a valid way of thinking about careers alongside the more traditional paths such as a 'career in engineering' or an 'academic career'. It has some good analogies with the now well-established 'career in management'.
Although the main focus is on the business-related routes for entrepreneurial students, many of the principles described can also be applied to help you advise students interested in non-commercial routes – for instance setting up a social enterprise.
The structure is based on 'Frequently Asked Questions’ (FAQs) identified by Careers Advisers across the UK.
NB: Although this material has been prepared mainly for Careers Advisers, some sections are included to help other readers to understand the main issues.
We are also aware that there are many types and sizes of Careers Services, serving widely differing student populations. Whatever your own situation we hope you will find useful information to help you think about the best way to deal with entrepreneurial students.